Rating: *** 1/2*
The past two issues of Grant Morrison‘s Batman and Robin have left me scratching my head - but in a good way. We discovered that Dick Grayson the current Batman has been keeping the body of the former Batman Bruce Wayne hidden in a sarcophagus in the Wayne Foundation building. His mission is to resurrect his former mentor by using a newly discovered Lazarus pit. Our last issue ended with Dick, Batwoman, and Kinght and Squire witnessing the supposed resurrection of Bruce Wayne from the Lazarus pit. Is this how Bruce Wayne returns to the land of the living? Thankfully, no.

It seems that the body that Dick Grayson has is one of the replicas created by Darkseid during the Final Crisis. All of them had been destroyed except one as Darkseid stated he could use the deceased body of the cloned Batman for some future use. This is a bit confusing as how could Darkseid have known that he was going to kill Batman and that he could use this clone body for evil purposes? Am I missing something here? Whatever the case the Batman that comes out of the Lazarus pit is a raving lunatic and begins attacking everyone in the room.

The clone Batman is able to escape thanks to a cave in and uses a Bat-copter to escape and head back to the Wayne Foundation. There he beats up Alfred and confronts a wheel chair bound Damian who thinks his father has returned to him. And we end there.

This has been a good storyline, my only problem is that I really don’t believe Dick Grayson would try to resurrect Bruce Wayne using the Lazarus pit. Dick is well aware that when a person uses the pit to come back to life, they are not the same person. The pit corrupts them and makes them more evil and insane as it has done to Ra’s al Ghul over the years. Morrison writes that the reason Dick has decided to do this is that he made a promise to Bruce to watch his back and help him out by any means necessary. I think Dick should know that the real Bruce Wayne would not have wanted this. He would have much preferred what has already happened and that is that Dick Grayson has assumed the role of Batman and is continuing his work.

An interesting mystery develops in this issue with Batwoman as she is half dead after the cave in. She believes that if she survives, she will be a quadriplegic. She tells Dick that she has to die. Thinking she doesn’t want to live, Dick tries to convince her otherwise, but instead she says she has an idea. Knight and Squire rescue Dick and Batwoman, but Dick announces that she’s dead. What’s going on here? Will Batwoman enter the Lazarus pit as well in order to get better? If so, how will this change her as she continues on into her own monthly title sometime later this year? Will we have a crazy Batwoman running around?

Cameron Stewart does a great job as artist for this story arc. I especially like the way he maps out panel-by-panel the fight between Dick and the clone Batman.

I love Knight and Squire and I hope they continue to show up in Batman books for many years to come. How about a mini-series too?!

The best Batman book out there today. Pick it up.