Pete Tomasi and CBR confirm the guests for up coming issues of Batman and Robin, entitled:

• #19 — Batman and Red Robin
• #20 — Batman and Red Hood
• #21 — Batman and Batgirl
• #22 — Batman and Catwoman
• #23 — Batman and Nightwing

Will definitely be getting #22 for Batman and Catwoman alone. ♥

With regards to the guests, Pete Tomasi had this to say:

There are five stages of grief, and we intend to explore it in a very visceral way…Let’s just say there’s a big, epic picture in view over the horizon, but there’s plenty of lightning storms and hurricanes for myself, Pat Gleason and our partners in crime Mick Gray and John Kalisz to still fly through before it all becomes clear.

On Tim Drake appearing on issue #19, Pete confirms:

I wouldn’t jump to conclusions that Tim Drake is coming back in a big way. Red Robin is in issue #19, but not necessarily as a partner.

There’s still hope my Helena Wayne theory may still turn out to be true. ;)

Tomasi doesn’t go into detail about what to expect in upcoming issues in Batman and Robin, but he does confirm that the title is here to stay, and mentions that the next couple of issues will deal with the fallout using five stages of grief. He also discusses why he developed Bruce and Damian’s relationship the way he did, how he personally felt about Morrison’s decision to kill Damian, what the title’s priorities were for the first 18 issues, and so forth. Definitely worth a read.

Of particular interest (to me anyway), Tim Drake will be *featured* in #19, but not necessarily as a partner. Which means there’s still a chance my Huntress theory could still be true.

So apparently April is DC’s ‘WTF Month’ (are you being clever DC?), and Newsarama provides us with the following teases:

• Booster Gold reappears while an entire team disappears

• One team is trapped in a bottle while another is changed completely

• Some heroes change their colors and other change allegiances

• Pandora battles to the death

• A close encounter of The Dark Knight kind

• There’s a new, old Creeper and some old New Gods.

• One hero quits, and another hero dies

While I can’t say I’m personally moved by this latest stunt, I did reread some of the solicitations for the month of April, and quite a few caught my eye:

BATMAN AND ROBIN #19
Written by PETER J. TOMASI
Art and fold-out cover by PATRICK GLEASON and MICK GRAY
On sale APRIL 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• On the darkest of nights, who is the one person Batman meets that could change his life forever?

Could this be the issue where Batman officially meets the Huntress? (Keyword here: Huntress)? For one, she more than qualifies as someone who ‘could change his life forever.’ Second, Damian has already met Helena in Worlds’ Finest #6 and knows her secret. Given those circumstances, it would certainly make sense to make Batman and Robin the title where Bruce officially meets his Earth-2 daughter for the first time, even if he won’t know that at that time. On top of that, the ending to Worlds’ Finest #8 outright hinted that Bruce will be catching onto the Huntress very, very soon.

While it is very likely that the initial meeting between Bruce and Helena Wayne will most likely take place in the Worlds’ Finest book itself (maybe the voyeur watching Karen snog with Michael in issue #11 is Bruce?), the Huntress herself could potentially be the ‘mystery character’ behind the centrefold of Batman and Robin #19. (Or at least this Helena Wayne fan can only dream).

Next up:

BATWING #19
Written by FABIAN NICIEZA
Art and fold-out cover by FABRIZIO FIORENTINO
On sale APRIL 3 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • RATED T
• Batwing quits—and what new member of the Batman family is ready to take his place?

While it is really disheartening to read that Batwing #19 may mark the potential loss of the Batfamily’s only black member (the cover solicitation for BW 19 is a bit worrisome on that front), at the same time it does beg the question of who this new ‘Batman family member’ could be? Again, the first person who springs to mind is the Huntress as she would certainly qualify as ‘new’ and is directly a member of this family, even if from a parallel universe. 

I will admit, it would still be problematic to replace a black member of the Batfamily with yet another black-haired, blue-eyed caucasian character, but at the same time it would make the Helena Wayne fan in me very happy to see Helena officially acknowledged as a member of this family. It’s long overdue at this point. I just hope (pray) it isn’t at the expense of David Zavimbe, who is an equally great character.

I think as a character and concept he works really great. Biological son of Batman and Talia Al Ghul, raised from day one of his life to be an assassin, needing to do some self-work in order to move past his upbringing, how does he compare to his Earth-2 counterpart in the form of Helena Wayne are all very neat concepts that have a lot of story potential.

My biggest issue with Damian mostly lies with how writers portray him. Some writers do a good job at balancing out his urge to kill and arrogance by showing his more humourous and  human side, and then others tend to regress him into an insensitive jerk who pushes all the wrong buttons as a way of provoking angry response in other heroes. 

I have been reading Batman and Robin by Peter Tomasi and Patrick Gleason, and for the most part I feel he’s done a good job writing him during the Nobody story arc. With the current story arc, I am honestly not impressed with the direction it seems to be going. I wasn’t particularly impressed the way he had Damian try to trigger an emotional response from Jason Todd by showing him the crowbar that resulted in his death at the hands of the Joker. Not only did I feel it was a low blow (even if Jason handled himself well in the situation), but it felt like character regression for Damian after he showed considerable growth at the end of the last arc.