Batman and Robin: Year One Announced from Mark Waid and Chris Samnee

DC’s new twelve-issue maxiseries kicks off in October.

July 17, 2024, 5:12pm

The origin of DC’s dynamic duo is about to be told in a whole new way. On Wednesday, DC officially announced Batman and Robin: Year One, a new twelve-issue maxiseries from writer Mark Waid and artist Chris Samnee. As the title suggests, Batman and Robin: Year One will center on the very early days of Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson’s unlikely partnership, both as superheroes and as a surrogate father-son duo. Co-plotted by Waid and Samnee, Batman and Robin: Year One marks the latest book that the duo have collaborated on together, including beloved runs on Marvel’s Black Widow and Daredevil. Batman and Robin: Year One #1 will be released wherever comics are sold on October 16th, and will feature a main cover by Samnee and variant covers by Mikel Janín, Matteo Scalera, Karl Kerschl (1:25), and Lee Weeks (1:50).

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“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 in a statement. “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.”

What Is Batman and Robin: Year One About?

In Batman and Robin: Year One, 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,” Samnee said in a statement. “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.”

Keep scrolling to check out the first look at Batman and Robin: Year One!