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DC's famous Year One strand returns in October with a brand new series focused on the dynamic duo. Batman and Robin: Year One is a 12-issue limited series from the superstar team of writer Mark Waid, Fire Power artist Chris Samnee (who also co-plotted the new series), and colorist Matheus Lopes that flashes back to the first 12 months of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson's partnership.
"While Batman and Robin are the stars of this tale and get most of the panel time, at its heart, this isn't a Batman/Robin story, it's a Bruce/Dick story," said Mark Waid in a statement from DC. "It takes place only a month or two after Bruce adopted Dick, and it's sinking in for Bruce that he has no idea how to be a father to a kid that age. He has no role model – his own father was long dead by the time he was Dick's age. Nothing he's ever done has prepared him for this, and Alfred – wise as he is – doesn't have much experience here either."
Here are some unlettered, uncolored pages from the first issue that show off Samnee's evocative art for the new series.
DC's official synopsis reveals that Batman and Robin: Year One will also feature a villain known as the General. It says, "While Bruce Wayne adjusts to the realities of adopting orphan Dick Grayson, a mysterious new crime boss called the General has come to Gotham to claim the city by disrupting and destroying its other mobs. But what is his connection to Two-Face? Batman and his new sidekick, Robin, are out for answers, but it'll take everything they have to navigate both sides of their relationship as father and son and dynamic duo, with Dick Grayson's present and future hanging in the balance!"
"Dick is everything Bruce is not – impetuous, flamboyant, reckless," added Chris Samnee. "But he's also precise; he can stick a landing. He'll take orders when they make sense to him, but he's keen to improvise, testing his role within the Dynamic Duo. The first pages you'll see will showcase how they'll be acting, and reacting, as they adventure out into Gotham City on patrol together. We're so excited for this story to finally be told."
Here are the covers for the first issue, by Chris Samnee and Matheus Lopes, Mikel Janín, Matteo Scalera, Karl Kerschl
There is, of course, a previously established Batman villain known as the General – the psychopathic child genius Ulysses Hadrian Armstrong. It's unclear if this is the same character that will feature in the new Year One, though given the book is focusing on Batman and Robin's relationship, it might make sense to pit the duo against an older and a younger villain in the form of Two-Face and Armstrong.
We'll find out for sure when the series launches with #1 on October 16.
We recently interviewed Mark Waid about DC's ongoing Absolute Power crossover.
