The maniac, gun brandishing, child shooting Batman wannabe is named, if not shown, to be Jason Todd.  Tim Hunter aka Robin dresses up as Batman and gets his behind handed to him by Todd, after putting up a decent fight.  Todd shoots Damien, Bruce Wayne’s son, point blank in the chest.  He survives only because Dick Grayson aka Nightwing, and the one who should have put the cowl on in the first place after Bruce’s “death,” takes care of him, forming a bond that will serve to be a template or copy for a Bruce/Dick, Father/Son type relationship that existed between the two when they were Batman and Robin, so Damien can play Robin to Dick’s Batman.

Ooops, did I give away too much?  I might be totally wrong but it does make sense doesn’t it?  Next issue I predict that Dick puts on the Bat Suit finally, Damien will take his place next to him as Robin, well maybe not next issue but by the time the new BATMAN AND ROBIN series debuts in a few months, Tim will become Red Robin and operate as part of the Bat-Family and Jason Todd will get his turn at getting his behind handed to him.

This really isn’t a bad issue.  The art is great and Dick’s journey to assuming the mantle of the Batman isn’t without some drama and human interest.  His slow build up to donning the cowl is necessary.  Would we really take him seriously if he just jumped at the chance to be Batman?  No.  He would have then been little better than Jason Todd, who I really, really despise and feel is utterly useless as a character and should have stayed dead. There’s enough Punisher/Guy Gardner like heroes running around in the comic book universes.  At least Guy Gardner has a fair share of redeeming qualities.  Speaking of Green Lanterns, DC seems to be delivering on great stories in those and the Superman Family titles right now with SUPERMAN: WORLD OF NEW KRYPTON and BLACKEST NIGHT, so what’s going on with the Bat-Titles?  If DC isn’t careful they’re going to drive their most profitable silver screen character’s books into the ground.  If Bruce really is going to stay “dead” at least for a little while, hurry up and wrap up this Battle for The Cowl stuff and get back to worthwhile Bat-tales.  Or, at least give us something not as seemingly predictable as this tale has become.