That's Batman vs. Robin ... not Batman and Robin.
Writer Mark Waid's DC renaissance continues this September when he and artist Mahmud Asrar and colorist Nathan Fairbairn team for a five-issue limited series titled Batman vs. Robin.
First announced by Popverse, the series (which will feature oversized issues) sees the always fraught relationship between Bruce Wayne and his son Damian Wayne bubble over into a full-blown conflict and maybe even a full-blown war (and we'll explain why in a moment).
For his part, Asrar described the series as an "event" to "shake things up for Bruce’s world," on his Instagram page.
Batman vs. Robin spins out of the first arc of Waid's current Batman/Superman: World's Finest ongoing series with artist Dan Mora.
"What I can say is that the first arc of World's Finest is, was, and always has been, designed deliberately to lead into what is going to be Batman vs. Robin," the writer told Popverse. "What I was trying to do with Batman versus Robin was try to take them into a realm that I'm not used to seeing them in, which is dark magic sorcery, rather than science, rather than logic and detective stuff. We've seen Batman and sort of peripheral magic, but I want to get into the down and dirty of it."
World's Finest, for readers not yet familiar, is a series with Silver Age sensibilities set in the past when Dick Grayson was still Robin (though towards the end of his tenure, trying on long pants for the first time) and in Newsarama's eyes, Robin is the star of the fun and funky series.
And Waid told Popverse Batman vs. Robin isn't the only spin-off from World's Finest in the works. According to the writer, World's Finest's second story arc will also start in September and will also cross over with another new but unnamed limited series.
"They're two separate things," Waid says. "What the second arc is leading into is not on the radar yet… I can't hardly say anything, but there's something in that second arc that the payoff is, 'Oh! I didn’t realize that the payoff is part of something that I've known for a long time.'"
Given Batman vs. Robin begins in September, Newsarama also can't help but think of the fact the Robin ongoing series will be getting a new writer that same month, as current writer Joshua Williamson just announced this departure from the series after August's Robin #17 which sets Damian up in what DC calls a "shocking new storyline that will test his role as Robin and his place in the DCU!"
With this "shocking" new storyline and the absence of a known writer for the Robin ongoing series beginning in September, could Waid's Batman vs. Robin be related in any way?
We'll all know sometime in the next month before DC's September solicitations but we've already asked the publisher and as soon as we know more you will too.
And DC also has teased the existence of Batman vs Robin in plain sight for some time. In August it's offering the trade paperback collection Batman vs. Robin: Road to War, a collection of Batman and Damian-centric stories, including stories from Teen Titans #43-44, Teen Titans Annual #2, Detective Comics #1032-1033, and a "two-part backup feature that sets the stage for a new chapter in the life of Damian Wayne" originally published in Batman #106 and Detective Comics #1034.
"A storm is coming…and a battle years in the making between Bruce Wayne and Damian Wayne is on the horizon," reads DC's description of the collection.
Neither Waid nor Asrar used the word "war" to describe the conflict at the heart of Batman vs. Robin, but Batman vs. Robin: Road to War is almost certainly connected to the new series.
Dick and Damian of course figure very prominently in Newsarama’s list of the best Robins of all time.
Source: Sun Co
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