Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jul 17, 2024 | 6 comments

EXCLUSIVE! The series you’ve been waiting for is happening!

Celebrate good times, come on!

We here at 13th Dimension‘s subterranean HQ have for a long time now been beating the drum for an early days Batman and Robin series — read: Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson — that captures the best of what makes the Dynamic Duo so great, while told with a modern sensibility.

I’ve even suggested that Mark Waid, given his work on Batman/Superman: World’s Finest and its Teen Titans spinoff, be the one to write it and that his longtime collaborator Chris Samnee — the one artist more than any other I’ve wanted to see on a Batman title — illustrate it.

O happy day! We’re getting it, folks: Batman and Robin: Year One, a 12-issue, monthly series co-plotted by Waid and Samnee, will launch in October.

Dig the solicitation info — and the fabulous main, Easter-egg-jammed cover for the first issue:

BATMAN AND ROBIN: YEAR ONE #1

Co-Plotted by MARK WAID and CHRIS SAMNEE
Writing by MARK WAID
Art and cover by CHRIS SAMNEE
Variant covers by MIKEL JANÍN and MATTEO SCALERA
1:25 variant cover by KARL KERSCHL
1:50 variant cover by LEE WEEKS

$4.99 US | 32 pages | Variant $5.99 US (card stock)

ON SALE 10/16/24

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!

From Mikel Janin’s variant cover

“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,” Waid said. “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.”

Added Samnee: “Dick is everything Bruce is not—impetuous, flamboyant, reckless. 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.”

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A few thoughts, including some unfinished interior pages:

A Samnee interior panel.

— We have an EXCLUSIVE FIRST LOOK at one of Samnee’s interior pages. It’s a beaut! Click here!

— Click here for a dive into the cover’s Easter eggs! Click here for a look at the gorgeous variant covers!

— The key to a good story is conflict and I take it on faith, especially given what we’ve seen in WF and TT, that not everything will be smooth between our leads. But that doesn’t mean Bruce has to be portrayed as an emotionally stunted/borderline abusive, tripwire taskmaster. A serious-minded mentor who exhibits tough, paternal love, on the other hand, yes. Waid is exactly the kind of writer to pull off that balance.

— And Samnee is exactly that kind of artist. Ever check out his #BATOBER? We’ve been running his best for the last seven years. Click here.

— I cannot wait to see the trade dress on this one.

— I take full, complete credit! It was my idea! Mine! Just kidding. I’m just glad that the stars aligned for something like this to happen. Waid and Samnee are storytellers who know how to balance the inspirational and aspirational with the inherent darkness of Gotham City. I don’t expect we’ll see a smiling Batman in this series — but I do expect we’ll get a Batman who is capable of it.

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MORE

— BATMAN AND ROBIN: YEAR ONE — This CHRIS SAMNEE Interior Page Shows Off the Duo’s Dynamic. Click here.

— Samnee’s BATMAN AND ROBIN: YEAR ONE #1 Cover is a Grand Homage to BATMAN ’66. Click here.