Batman and Robin, Father and Son

The New 52 Batman and Robin, a comic book series that isn't about an awkward relationship between a grown man dressed as a bat and a young orphan in tights, but instead a rather poignant look at the relationship between father and son. A book about the Bat - family as a whole, the relationships between previous robins, the odd quest for respect and approval from the father figure all held together with violence, a murderous 10 year old and a long suffering, ever caring man named Alfred, the true hero of the Batman mythos some might say.

If you haven't picked it up yet you really should, even if its only for the odd moments in which the attempt at being a family is made, which is the true selling point. Watching a group of incredibly driven heroes, trying to function as a family, made even more difficult by the fact that each 'brotherly' fight is deadly since each of them has been trained in hand to hand combat by the Batman himself.  Especially Damien, Bruce's son, a killer, and desperate to gain his fathers approval even if his ideas of how to go about it are flawed.

We also have Bruce himself, learning that being a father is very different from just being a leader. His struggle to connect to his son after being wrapped in the shroud of the Bat for so long mixed with the need to teach him to control his power and refrain from killing, doing what he has been trained to do since birth. It is this new side to the Batman that keeps things fresh, we get a new take on an old story and a chance to relate to the Batman in a new way, to see him as human. The idea that even the Batman still struggles with life, that being a father can be far more difficult than taking on an entire city of crime, both with his fists and through his wallet.

Go read it, then tell me that being a father isn't more terrifying than the Joker holding your hand as you walk towards a fun house.

Read it, and see that Bruce Wayne has a family, that Gotham's orphans  have been drawn together by the symbol of the bat and are slowly becoming a family, with all the issues that entails.