Bruce and Damian CAN be compelling
There's something to be said for the great possibilities of having a former Robin with his own Robin. And Batman and Robin Vol 1 did a good job exploring that. This one had a bit of a rocky start. It felt to some of us readers that it was a regression for Damian. But this issue really picked things up.
First of all it has one of my favorite Bat-elements - metaphors. Of all the comic book properties, Batman has always trucked in visual metaphors and tying them into the story. We get a few here with Alfred playing Chess with Damian and comparing Bruce to the black (dark) knight piece. It ends up working on 2-3 levels and I really enjoyed that.
It was also cool to see just how Boss Alfred is. Damian, as usual, thinks he's better than everyone else and it's great to see Alfred outsmart him.
The only bad thing about the book is that it gets very action-y so it's a quick read. Still, it had a great cliffhanger and good story beats so it ended up making my second choice for that week's Comic Pow! (A blog where I pit my selection against another person's selection and we try to see who has the better issue)
