Everyone has that friend.  The one who watches a lot of standup comedians and reports the jokes they heard as their own.  I can't tell you the amount of times I've heard the whole Scooby Doo stoner theories.  The snickering moron who wonders aloud about Smurf sex lives.  That person will always give you a little elbow to the ribcage and make some remark about Batman's "inappropriate relationship" with Robin.

Of course, that person doesn't know that there have been several Robins, and that one of them is his son.  That person has no idea about Batman at all, apart from possibly having seen the 90's movie franchise and a few scattered episodes of The Animated Series.   But most importantly, that person doesn't know how both Batman and Bruce Wayne are defined by the women in their lives.

It's no mistake that, in the modern era retelling of Batman's first few years, Catwoman appears several times before we get our first glimpse of The Joker.  While The Joker is often regarded as Batman's nemesis, it's his relationship with Selina Kyle's alter ego that gives us a feeling for who Bruce is under the cowl. 

Batman And The Mad Monk opens with Bruce standing up his current girlfriend, Julie Madison, to capture Catwoman.  He sends Alfred to send his "sincerest regrets" to her, and to let her know "his scheduling problems won't be changing any time soon."

Another thing not changing anytime soon is Jim Gordon's problems with the hierarchy of the Gotham City Police Department.  The new Commisioner, Grogan, appears as corrupt as Loeb was, and has sent some officers to deliver a message to Gordon, just as Gordon is awaiting Batman on the roof (he calls him with a Batpager...still no signal yet)

At the end of the first chapter of the story, we're introduced to the villains: vampires!  In particular, a cultish vampire leader named The Monk.  While he's not known as one of the front-runners of Batman's rogues, he goes all the way back to Detective Comics #43.  In fact, this entire trade is a reimagining of the very early adventures of Batman. 

It's not long before The Monk's cult kidnaps Julie Madison.  While the Batman is off rescuing her, her father, Norman Madison, mistakenly thinking Batman is stalking him, decides he must permanently erase his connection to organized crime by killing Sal Maroni.  It doesn't go well.

Neither does Julie's rescue from The Monk Cult.  She manages to survive and, in the process becomes the first non-butler to discover that Bruce Wayne is Batman.  But Batman's dangerous life, plus his role in her father's death leaves Julie unable to cope with Bruce's night life, so she takes off for Africa.  Also during the course of the action, Jim Gordon decides his interactions with Batman are too risky, so at the end of this story Bruce is left only Alfred as an ally, but as he Spider-Mans his way into the Gotham skyline, he goes directly past a billboard for The Haly Circus featuring The Flying Graysons.

Story 4/5, Art 5/5

It's been teased at the end of several collections.  Ads for The Flying Graysons in newspapers, Circus billboards, Bruce discussing taking dates to the circus.  Finally, in Dark Victory, Dick Grayson debuts.  But, uh, not just yet.

The volume opens with the new DA (who replaces Harvey "Don't Call Me Harvey Anymore I'm Two Face Now" Dent) catching us up with one of the villains from The Long Halloween (which was also created by Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, and Gregory Wright): Holiday.  The crux of this story is the rise and fall of the next generation of Maronis and Falcones, Carmine Falcone and Sal Maroni having been killed during The Long Halloween.  Carmine's daughter, Sofia, who was paralyzed after plunging out of a building makes a deal with Sal's sons to go after Harvey Dent.

The plan is to cause chaos at Arkham Asylum by freeing assorted villains, including Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday), Calendar Man, and Poison Ivy.  Holiday, Alberto Falcone, chooses to stay behind, earning him an early release with the help of the new DA.  But during the madness, instead of killing Two Face, they allow him to escape.

The main theme of this book is improving reputations.  Mario Falcone returns from Italy to try and clean up his family business, going as far as locking out Sofia when he learns of her criminal plans.  Jim Gordon tries to get back together with his wife Barbara who left him and took custody of his children.  Bruce Wayne tries to establish a solid romantic relationship with Selina Kyle.  Catwoman tries to earn Batman's trust.  And Two Face tries to clear his name when a new serial killer, The Hangman tries to improve The Gotham City Police Department's reputation by killing a corrupt cop on every major holiday.

Once again, Loeb and Sale throw in pretty much every major villain that's been introduced: the Joker, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, Mr. Freeze, The Mad Hatter, and The Scarecrow all end up in the mix.  But, as in The Long Halloween, their individual motives flow logically into the story.

In the midst of the story, Bruce finally ends up at the much teased circus, and watches as The Flying Graysons plummet to their deaths when a Maroni underling named Anthony Zucco frays the wires for their trapeze act. 

Bruce Wayne adopts Dick Grayson, but it's Batman who sees Grayson outside one night, prowling for clues.  Batman and Grayson run into each other again when Grayson goes to the circus to research his parents' killer.  The boy is badly beaten, and Batman takes him to the Batcave to care for him, and reveals that Batman and Bruce Wayne are the same person.

I don't want to ruin the end of this for you.  Yes, you do get to see Grayson don the original, short pants Robin outfit.  You also get a great wrap up of a storyline that began with Year One.  but there are still some loose ends, including the fact that Two Face is still missing.

I can't stress enough that Sale's pencils and inks, and Wright's colors are an integral part of Loeb's script.  The combination of visual narrative and dialog is what takes the Loeb/Sale/Wright trilogy from great Batman story to Classic Work Of Art.

Story 5/5, Art 5/5


Chuck Dixon picks up the dangling threads from Dark Victory for Robin: Year One.  We get to see how Robin is perceived by a befuddled Jim Gordon, an ambivalent Batman, a loyal Alfred, and the angry criminals of Gotham.  There's honor in being taken down by the Dark Knight, but a little kid in pixie boots, short pants, and a yellow cape?  That's gotta hurt.


After busting some small time criminals, Robin finds himself entwined with The Mad Hatter's scheme to kidnap and brainwash some young girls (his usual M.O.) and sell them to a diplomat named The Generalissimo.  In a startling development for a Batman story, it turns out Robin knows one of the victims from school (Jenny Noblesse), and she has a crush on him.

Robin ends up saving the day with some help from bumbling millionaire Bruce Wayne, who happens to be on The Generalissimo's yacht for a cruise. 

The next villain up to be taken down by The Boy Wonder is The Killer Moth, whose story takes up a whopping seven pages before Robin takes him down.  There's also a three page battle with Blockbuster (who will end up being one of Dick Grayson's major villains years later) before we get to the main villain in the story: Two Face, who's been on the run since the end of Dark Victory.

Two Face has decided that the easiest way to bring down Batman is to take out his new sidekick. He also decides to enact revenge on the judge who presided over his trial during The Long Halloween.  While Batman and Robin are on the case, Jim Gordon expresses his concern that Batman has taken on such a young sidekick.  And when Two-Face later tells Gordon that he's killed Robin (Spoiler alert: he hasn't.  After taking a beating, Batman takes him to Leslie Thompkins's clinic to heal.), Gordon convinces Batman to retire him.  Grayson isn't too keen on retiring from being Robin (poor kid got forty years in pre-Crisis continuity, and he's barely five comic issues into being Robin in modern continuity, and he's already being let go), and when Mr. Freeze steals the blood supply from the hospital where Grayson is being rehabilitated, he throws on his mask (but not the rest of the outfit) and goes out to take Mr. Freeze down.

Once Grayson foils the Freeze plot, he sees a TV report that Two Face has escaped from police custody, and debates how to handle it when he's jumped by a group of junior assassins run by one of Ra's Al Ghul's assassins, Shrike.  Grayson decides to infiltrate the gang to get back on Batman's good sign, as well as learn new fighting techniques.  After a successful mission to determine Robin's loyalty, the junior assassins are sent to kill Two Face.  Given the opportunity, Robin opts to let Two Face live, and ends up battling Shrike, who falls on his sword and dies.  During the battle, Two Face escapes. 

One of the details Dixon works into this collection is the relationship between Alfred and Grayson.  Alfred taking care of Bruce after his parents died was noble, but could be attributed to his loyalty to the Wayne family.  There are a couple of occasions in Robin Year One, and will be many more in the future where Alfred puts Grayson's health and feelings over his loyalty to Bruce.  Dixon will revisit the importance of this relationship several times in the Robin ongoing series, and even Nightwing.

Story 5/5, Art 4/5