Batman and Robin, Volume 7: Robin Rises

Batman and Robin (2011)

by Peter J. Tomasi (Writer), Patrick Gleason (Illustrator), Andy Kubert (Illustrator)

When his son Damian is taken from him, Batman will stop at nothing to get him back...even venturing to the hellscape of Apokolips to take on Darkseid himself!

But rescuing Robin and even snatching him back from death are only the beginning of Batman’s problems. Robin’s resurrection has imbued him with incredible abilities! If Batman thought that Robin was difficult to control before, a super-powered Robin could be his greatest challenge yet! What’s a father to do but turn to his friends...especially when his friends are the Justice League?

Writer PETER J. TOMASI (BATMAN: ARKHAM KNIGHT) and artist PATRICK GLEASON (GREEN LANTERN CORPS) are joined by fan-favorite guest artist ANDY KUBERT (DAMIAN: SON OF BATMAN) as Batman and son are finally reunited!

Collecting: Batman and Robin #35-40, Annual #3, Robin Rises: Alpha #1 and stories from Secret Origins #4.

Genres: Comics, Batman, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Superheroes, Graphic Novels Comics, Comic Book

240 pages, Hardcover

First published November 24, 2015

About the author

Peter J. Tomasi is an American comic book writer, best known for his work for DC Comics, such as Batman And Robin; Superman; Super Sons; Batman: Detective Comics; Green Lantern Corps; and Superman/Wonder Woman; as well as Batman: Arkham Knight; Brightest Day; Green Lantern: Emerald Warriors; Nightwing; Black Adam, and many more.

In the course of his staff career at DC Comics, Tomasi served as a group editor and ushered in new eras for Batman, Green Lantern, and the JSA, along with a host of special projects like Kingdom Come.

He is also the author of the creator-owned titles House Of Penance with artist Ian Bertram; Light Brigade with artist Peter Snejbjerg; The Mighty with Keith Champagne and Chris Samnee; and the critically acclaimed epic graphic novel The Bridge: How The Roeblings Connected Brooklyn To New York, illustrated by Sara DuVall and published by Abrams ComicArts.

In 2018 New York Times best-selling author Tomasi received the Inkpot Award for achievement in comics.

Reviews

[Jayson · Rating 3 out of 5]

(B+) 77% | Good
Notes: A thunderclap right off the bat, a blaze of brash severity, but dims its spark in later parts, and hurts for lack of clarity.

[Anne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Warning: Some Spoilers
Although, I wouldn't consider them spoilers b/c of the f-ing title.
Just sayin'.



Anyway. Robin's back!
And whether or not this makes you happy probably has a lot to to with whether or not you liked Damien to start with.
Pro: He's a snarky assassin
Con: He's an annoying 10 year old
shrugs
Whatever. The main problem is that no matter how you may feel about Damien, he existed.
And you can't just kill of a character's child without fundamentally altering the character. And if Batman was dark and moody before his son was killed...?
Yeah. He's not coming back from that.



Therefore, it had to be done. The question wasn't if Damien would stay dead, as much as it was when/how they were going to resurrect him.
My vote had always been for dipping him in a Lazarus Pit. I mean there must be hundreds of those suckers sitting around unused in the DCU, right?
But apparently, that wasn't good enough for DC. They had to throw Apokolips in there to keep us on our toes.



All this basically meant (to me) was that magic dressed up as pseudo-science was bringing the kid back to life. Which was fine. And as an added (or not) bonus, there's a decent reason for a showdown with Darkseid.



To be honest, I didn't understand the vast majority of what happened on Apokolips. Even the art (while cool) seemed designed to hide the fact that nobody really knew what was going on.
shrugs
And, I mean, that's ok, because the main thing is that we got rid of the Batman-Mourning-His-Child storyline.

Alrighty. Damien's ALIVE!
And he has...superpowers?



Um? Ok, that might turn out to be kinda cool.
But I'm still really confused about if/why/how he's a tiny Superman.
Again, it's fine. I'm sure it will make more sense to me by the next volume.
Right?

[Chad · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tomasi and Gleason are firing on all cylinders with this book. Batman heads to Apokolips to try and bring Damien back from the dead. Batman is absolutely kick-ass flying around in the Hellbat armor fighting Darkseid and his minions. The second half of the book is Batman trying to deal with the fallout of Damien's return as there are some peculiar side effects. Peter Tomasi's characterization of Batman and Robin's relationship is spot on and the best feature of the book.

[Sam Quixote · Rating 5 out of 5]

Batman’s unrelenting search to find a way to somehow bring his son back from the dead has led to Damian’s corpse being stolen by a succession of supervillains for an unknown purpose. All roads lead to Apokolips as Batman, in the Hellbat suit, and joined by Jason, Tim, Babs, Titus and Cyborg, launch a daring rescue to save Damian from under the nose of Darkseid and his demented son Kalibak in Robin Rises!

Given the low quality of the last two books, I wasn’t expecting much for the finale to this uneven Batman & Robin series but WOW - credit where it’s due: Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason finish really strongly with Robin Rises. This comic was superb!

The first half of the book is the Apokolips rescue and I can’t fault any part of it: it was brilliant. Absolutely thrilling to read with Batman in his Iron Man-esque Hellbat suit kicking parademon butt, while his Robin support - Jason, Tim, Babs and Titus - held their own. Also, giant robot dinosaurs. Yup!

The showdown between Batman and Darkseid was awesome, the final battle against Kalibak was great (which was guest-drawn by Andy Kubert) and Damian’s resurrection was pure superhero-comics-logic-silliness at its best. Also, Bat-Cow moos at Kalibak. If there’s one thing we need more of in Batman, it’s Bat-Cow.

I don’t want to give away what happens in the second half of the story or how the series concludes but it’s very unexpected. Tomasi and Gleason run with a potentially bad idea and turn it into a fantastic, hugely enjoyable final adventure.

This extra-long volume closes out with the annual where Batman and Robin battle moon parasites that are planning to invade Earth. It’s a fun standalone story and I always enjoy Juan Jose Ryp’s artwork. There’s also a short piece drawn by Ian Bertram which is a prologue to Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin run where Dick and Damian were briefly the Dynamic Duo. I think these two stories got thrown in because it’s Tomasi’s final Batman & Robin volume and there’s nowhere else to put them. They’re fine extras at any rate.

I loved Patrick Gleason’s art - he killed it with the Apokolips rescue but my favourite pages were Damian’s nightmare sequences and some of the scenes in the second half where he gets to draw Damian doing… unusual things!

Tomasi manages to bring Damian back to the DCU despite Grant Morrison killing him off and he does a fantastic job of it too. I had initially wanted Damian to stay dead for a few years at least to give Morrison’s Batman run more impact but Tomasi and Gleason sold me on Damian’s return with this excellent book. He also manages to resolve the outcome of Scott Snyder’s Death of the Family arc as the Bat-family unite against Darkseid’s forces to save one of their own. Hats off to Tomasi for concluding both so convincingly!

Robin Rises is an unexpectedly amazing end to this uneven - but mostly good - Batman and Robin series. It’s definitely one of the most gripping Batman stories I’ve read this year and enormous fun to boot. The last two volumes are heavy-going build-up but the payoff is worth it. Batman & Robin fans everywhere will LOVE this one - highly recommended!

Moo!

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

So this marks the end of the run, and I'm happy to announce it ended really strong!

While the last volume felt like ALOT of set up the payoff at the start of this volume is a fucking blast. Batman is going ALL fucking out. Taking out EVERYONE in his way on his way to save his son. Who decides to join him on this mission? Well Batgirl, Tim, and Jason of course! All coming to Apok with Batman in a super saiyan like armor suit they go to rescue Damien's body and bring the boy wonder back. Once back the remaining volume focuses on Damien using his new found powers but also giving us more of the father/son relationship this series badly needed again.

Good: Love, love, LOVE when Bruce and Damien are together. It feels so real, so much like a father and son trying to work on their relationship, I can't help but love it. I also thought Batman going batshit insane to get his son back, including punching Darkseid in the fucking face, was fantastic. Last but not least the final annual is great and such a great "goodbye" to the team.

Bad: The cyborg stuff was getting annoying and slowing down the pace a lot. I also thought the power thingy was a little tacked on and could've done without it even though it brought out the lolz.

Overall this was great! I really enjoyed it. A flew flaws but overall a very very good "Goodbye" by Peter for his overall great run on Batman and Robin. A 4 out of 5!

[Artemy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read this once again as part of our second chance buddy read, this time because I'm not very into Peter Tomasi's writing. It's not like I absolutely hate the guy, but a couple of his Superman volumes made me so angry that I considered shunning his books completely. I also disliked the first volume of this particular series, though that was during my "Zack Snyder forever ruined Batman for me" phase, which I think I finally got over. Anyway, when both Sam and Chris suggested that I read this final volume of Batman & Robin as a highlight of Tomasi's writing, I agreed. It's second chances galore! And I'm glad I agreed, because this really was quite good.

This is not the most accessible volume to read out of context, because not only does this wrap up Tomasi's long run on the series, it's also heavy on general Bat-continuity. Luckily, I'm more or less familiar with all of this stuff so I didn't have a hard time with it, though I'm sure I missed some story beats that Tomasi set up in previous volumes. Anyway, SPOILERS for DC events that are long since undone: the book opens up with Batman in his metal as hell Hellbat suit right in the middle of Apokolips, fighting Darkseid and his brother Kalibak, trying to resurrect his then-deceased son Damian. I mean, what more can I say? It's quite awesome, and this is exactly the kind of off-the-rails and yet emotionally and personally charged story I wanted Snyder's Metal to be (which it wasn't, and was instead an incomprehensible mess). The story loses a bit of momentum after that gets wrapped up, but I still loved seeing Damian and Batman back together, and the issue where they team up with the Justice League was some pure superhero comics fun at its best. I didn't particularly care for the last two one-shot issues about some aliens and Damian's origin, but I think it's more their placement at the back of the trade after the main story's end that kind of makes them read awkwardly. Otherwise, hell yeah, man! This was a fun book, and so much better than anything Tomasi did with his craptastic Superman (thank god for Bendis doing and excellent job with Supes).

Patrick Gleason's art is... better than it looks in Superman. I didn't hate it, but also didn't love it. It does its job. Although look, here's the thing: the trade includes his original pencils in the back, and they look fantastic! After discovering that and remembering that his art looked absolutely gorgeous in the recent Action Comics #1001, I looked up the inkers on both issues, and I think the problem is clear: Gleason NEEDS to ink his own pencils like he did on Action Comics. Mick Gray, his inker on both Batman & Robin and Superman, makes his art look to blotchy and weird, adding too much plain black where there previously was detail. This is the first time I'm noticing inking in a comic book, and boy does it make a lot of difference.

Overall, Robin Rises was a surprisingly enjoyable and fun read, and I'm glad I gave Tomasi another chance with this book. He really does write a great Damian, and I'm all for more Damian if he's written well. And hey, at least Tomasi didn't fry Damian's dog to a crisp, eh?... *sigh*


P.S.: damn, I forgot how fugly Superman's New52 suit looked.

[Lost Planet Airman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Titles pretty much got it covered. Batman, ever the secret technological billionaire, secretly synthesizes technologies into a secret supersuit to get him into and out of Apokalipse alive, with a shot of reviving Damien.

So Robin rises.

The revival is not without a fumble or two, and the Bat Family reunites to kidnap Cyborg (Master of Boom Tubes on Earth, Apparently) and go help. Then, of course, after what Damien's body has been through, there is one more surprise.

After that, the story isn't a story, it's more a series of vignettes. And, off camera, Batman battles an old foe deep in the Batcaves and is not seen afterwards, but you are never told this, so the last story is quite confusing... the Where's Waldo of DC comics.

[Donovan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was pretty damn good. I frequently -- yeah, snicker is the best word -- snickered while reading this. You know, smiling and laughing quietly through your noise. Or is that a chortle? Regardless, it's just a feel good comic with spectacular artwork from Gleason, Kubert, Gray.

It's wasn't anywhere near as JLA-y as the cover or reviews had misled me to believe. Bats starts on Apokolips, then there's really cool adventure and fight stuff involving the Bat family and Cyborg, blah blah blah, hooray!, woah that's cool and preposterous, hooray!, and what a great ending.

"He's an Al Ghul. Dying is hard."

I mean, Damian is on the cover. Should I still not say it? Okay, I won't say it. But it makes me happy. He finally won me over. And it's total comic book hyperbole. And that Bruce had visions to know exactly what to do? What are the odds, hmm?

So a few things. Bat Cow is alive and well and still hilarious. Alfred the Cat also seems to be around. Bruce and you know who go fishing. Yes, fishing. Wearing flannel. There's the moon. And, oh yeah, he was invincible for a while. What a crazy end! If anyone knows what to read next Damian wise, let me know. Because I need more Batman and Robin.

[Subham · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was another good volume.

Bruce and the bat family fight their way through the hordes of New Apokolips and also something with Kalibak and its a great battle and when the fight with Darkseid happens its so good and then the resurrection of Damian which was like my favorite moment in the series and the unity of the family and then the Superpowers arc which showed a team up with JL and I quite enjoyed it and Damian's banter with Shazam is just golden. And then a mission to save earth from alien threats. Such a great volume and Tomasi excels at showing this great relationship between Father and son and showing Bruce going to hell to rescue and bring back his son from death, makes you love Bruce and Damian too. This series had all the things that makes you love Batman and much more.

[Jesse A · Rating 4 out of 5]

Finally Batman and Robin are back together! The interaction between father and son as well as their struggles with their roles were what made this series great. After a couple lackluster volumes this one rounds back into form. Well done.

[Blindzider · Rating 3 out of 5]

While there wasn't really anything wrong with this volume, I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the rest of the series. The first part was entertaining, with Bruce heading to Apokolips to save Damien's body and has to fight off Darkseid himself (again) while the rest of the Bat crew pull together nicely to help. This part of the story and the immediate epilogue had that father/son emotional content which was such an integral part of the series and what I find most appealing.

The rest was mainly about what happens afterwards, wherein Damien undergoes a change and just how the two of them learn to deal with it. For some reason this didn't seem that interesting to me and felt like filler that was stretched out. Again, it wasn't bad, just not anything I cared about.

In the end, it is still a necessary read to finish the storyline and the whole series was well done.

[Quentin Wallace · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another great volume of Batman and Robin. In this one we see Damian brought back from the dead by a method I won't get into, but its very much a comic book return from the dead. He also comes back with powers very similar to Superman's but thankfully they didn't seem to be permanent.

We also got to see Batman on Apocalypse in a (brief) rematch with Darkseid. (Batman is wearing an Iron Man type batsuit so it's not as one-sided as it sounds.) The other members of the Bat family show up to help as well. Then theres a guest appearance from the Justice League as we see Robin showing off his new powers. Then things return to "normal", although we seem to have some type of reborn Talia running around now.

Overall another strong volume in the series.

[Chelsea 🏳️‍🌈 · Rating 4 out of 5]

I definitely enjoyed this more than the last volume. As far as finale's go, this is one of the better ones in the New 52. Some of that familiar joy from the early volumes returned, Damian is bullheaded and stubborn as ever. Only, this time, you get the sense Bruce chides him in a fonder way than before.

Damian's resurrection left him with some super powers that, strangely enough, seemed slightly kryptonian? He has heat vision, he can fly and he can't be injured by bullets. The heat vision was the only thing I really questioned.

I enjoyed seeing Bruce, Alfred and Damian (and Titus!) get back into the swing of things. Alfred and Bruce working to try to figure out Damian's powers and drain them. I realized a while back that the Batfamily is the only family where no one has any super powers. (I thought about the Arrow Fam but Black Canary has abilities). It's interesting that that's one thing the entire Batfam has in common.

Anyway, solid recommend because it's a pretty good curtain call on a series I enjoyed.

[Campo Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

pretty well written, good art, but it did get a little weird especially in the beginning and this story doesn't flow well with what's going on in the main batman title it's weird that neither book references each other. like if they saved robin where was he during endgame? and when in batman did he divert to go on this magical journey? I don't know but this book continues the series well and it's worth a read for sure but it's not my favorite of the series. I just wish they kept robin dead I was really enjoying the new element of grief that everyone had to deal with and come to terms with. I Mean I never liked the fact of him dying in the first place so I had to learn to live with that I was really enjoying Damian and Bruce learning to live with each other and building there chemistry. so you killed him at the height of this all and when I'm learning to live with it you being him back jeez DC leave some one dead. and marvel you're not safe you just pulled the same shit with Spiderman.

[Gavin · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars.

Damian back was obvious, and Bruce going to hell for him, sure. The Robins banding together, Babs, J-Todd and Timmy McYawnz. Also Cyborg kinda gets raped a few times...if you can rape a computer android human hybrid...

The dialogue is so ham fisted and lame it really is like ugh.

Superpowers? Why not? Because.

Also apparently Bats can take Darkseid by himself, doesn't need anyone else. Pimp.

My first DC book in months and months and I'm recalling why I stopped.

[Relstuart · Rating 4 out of 5]

Batman sets out for Apokolips, against the will of the JLA, in a search for Robin's stolen body when Darkseid's son steals it. Batman's special suit for this trip is pretty awesome as is his facing down his adversaries there. This is a really fun story with some great art and a satisfying conclusion.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Damian lives!

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

First Batman book I've enjoyed in quite a long while. This book needs more light touches, smiles and a few laughs. I like a happy Batman.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

made me genuinely emotional several times. the callbacks to the silent issue were especially right in the feels.

[Rob · Rating 4 out of 5]

As an unapologetic Damian fan, I was awaiting this collection with baited breath. I thoroughly enjoyed the Tomasi/Gleason combo: seeing Darkseid back in action was nice, even if he was rather underwhelming when compared to the Grant Morrison villain. At least this was intelligible. Plus, Batman and Robin on the moon is always a plus

[Jonathan Roberts · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was really not very good. When did Batman become a sci-fi epic involving everything from Darkseid to alien shape-changers on the moon.....yeah this was moving away from Nolan towards Schumacher and even that is putting it nicely. I will go to Detective or some other comic for my dark brooding detective stories and not this book. Sad

[Seth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This volume started out kind of odd for me. I was just having problems wrapping my head around Robin having Superpowers. But by the end of the story everything was back to business as usual, and for that you'll never get complaints from me. If you've made it this far in the series, you better keep going!

[Rod Brown · Rating 2 out of 5]

Well, at least this wasn't as horrible as previous volumes. But the only reason I'd been reading this series was to see when and how they resurrected Damian, and now that it is done, I can stop, realizing that I have completely wasted my time and should read nothing more by this creative team.

[Robert · Rating 1 out of 5]

When you read a volume and think, "It couldn't get any worse", it does. Combine Robin as snarky Superboy with a parade of terrible artists and you get a read that was a chore rather than a joy.

[Shannon · Rating 1 out of 5]

I just really hate Damian.

[Michael · Rating 3 out of 5]

This will serve more as a series review than a Volume 07 Review.

Sadly 3 stars for this volume and the whole series sums it up for me, which really bums me out. Last September I read Volume 01 and fuck me was it incredible. 5 stars. I would give it 6 if I could. I even met the author and got him to sign my copy. He was a cool dude.
But from there, DC clearly didn’t give much of a shit about this series. As Volumes 02-03 were hamstrung by editorial interference. Any further character development past Vol. 1 was halted and replaced with mandatory crossovers with other bigger comics such as the mainline solo Batman series. Court Of Owls & Death Of The Family took up at least half, if not more of the storytelling in these two volumes. And that wouldn’t be a problem if they were good. Which more often than not, they weren’t.

SPOILERS FROM HERE ON DOWN (however it’s obvious and doesn’t even happen in this comic series) Skip to the last paragraph for final thoughts.

And then DC really showed it’s colours when the most overrated writer in comics, Grant Morrison just decided to kill off Robin. Lovely. Batman & Robin without Robin cause God knows we don’t have enough solo Batman comics. However it briefly looked as if it might be okay as Volume 04 was great. Not as good as 01 but better than the rest.
That hope was short lived as from there it just went into a boring solo Batman story about him fighting Two-Face and a forgettable Irish woman with the Mafia (oooooo we’ve never seen that before).
From there it got slightly more interesting with these last two volumes about Batman trying to retrieve Damian’s body from Ra’s Al Ghul and Darkseid. Showing Batman on a bloody war path. Only problem with it, like before, nothing interesting was done with the premise. Batman is just slightly louder than usual. Aside from that, there is nothing you get here that you can’t get elsewhere. Damian is brought back to life (shocker, we never saw this coming) conveniently at the end of what could have been the best Batman & Robin comic run. Damian is brought back and he has super powers. I won’t even go into how wrong of an idea that is as it completely misses the point of the Bat Family if they have powers (okay I went into it a little bit).

SPOILERS END

At the end, I don’t blame Tomasi, Gleason, Mahnke or Kubert for any of this. Despite it all, Tomasi made the editorial interference readable, and the artists made this book a damn beautiful sight to look at. It’s just a shame that DC clearly prioritized other titles above this one when, if you ask me, Batman & Robin, Vol. 01: Born To Kill might be the best single volume story in all of the New 52. It’s a shame that this series went from “one of the best”, to just “one of the others”. Bound to fade into obscurity with only Volume 01 to be remembered.

[Henry Blackwood · Rating 3 out of 5]

This ended a lot better than I thought it would. It was going pear shaped for a while after Robin was murked in Batman Inc. I still felt this was a convoluted way to bring back Robin. I mean why was robin’s dead body so valuable? Why did his body basically turn into the Death Star able to destroy planets? Some thing to do with the chaos shard I guess but to me It didn’t make sense and was a reach.

But it was definitely a better than most of the come back to life stories. And I really liked the last issue of this how it came back around to Dick and Damien back as partners. Other than that I was pretty fatigued with the whole situation I wish it came to this conclusion earlier instead of having batman running around like a dickhead

[z e e · Rating 5 out of 5]

I couldn't stop smiling that was so cute
MY BOY IS BACK and he has superpowers???
That hellbat suit is so cool.




He stopped squashing fireflies i'm :')
I Loooved the parallels with issue #18

[Jenny Clark · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pretty good in the first 3/4. I liked Damien having super powers, but thought Bruce was a little overbearing at times, but he just wanted to keep his son safe. The moon issue had great art, the final issue had strange art, the rest was alright. Over all, a good ending to the series, bringing in more of the JL.

[Andrew Kline · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first half, a typical Batman-in-god-mode story. I wanted to see what the Hellbat armor was all about, but the forging and explanation of the armor was in the previous volume, I guess. So, while totally badass, I was quite confused with how the suit actually worked.
The second half, stained family dynamics. Damien has super powers for, like, a day or two? I dunno, I got bored quick.