In which I describe my one false note in detail...
I did like this issue and I'm interested to see where they go with Damian's rescue. Toad's death was a good next step and I liked the cops scene and showing Dick without the control he wants.
These scans cover both my favorite and least favorite moment in the thing.
I love Alfred's advice to Dick about performing Batman. I love it when people remember Dick is show people, which Bruce would have played down, and it's a nice bonding moment with Alfred in my mind, because Alfred was an actor too. It's imo the right way to approach it so he doesn't get lost in trying to be a different person and Alfred would totally get that. Plus maybe Alfred can help--the 2 hams in the family are set loose!
However, I totally rolled my eyes at Alfred yet again working in a speech about Damian as if Damian is his OC instead of a kid. Damian works for me as a kid with certain specialized skills who's socially repulsive, therefore has no friends and clings to a fantasy that the man he's heard is his father will recognize him as his natural heir and validate him. (How upsetting when the guy's got sons already.)
Alfred's version of Damian's story makes Alfred sound a bit daft to me (as well as a bit as-you-know-Bob). Damian didn't have loving parents (I thought Talia was loving?) but he's with them now not out of a childish need for the father of his fantasies but because he recognized a nobler way to live? Please give that schtick up Alfred, along with how you can see he's inherited Bruce's courage and determination to do right (and I don't buy Dick's finding him aristocratic either). It's only GM who makes Alfred tell this story.
I like him as a character with certain unusual skills that hide a painfully ordinary kid so any hints that he's like a fantasy character with his father's noble heart just throw me right out. Dick and Alfred already share the commitment to making the kid Robin no matter what, so Alfred seems to be trying to convince me the reader about Damian the character far more than he's convincing Dick to do anything.
This for me tends to call attention to the central belief suspension question for me. I get how Damian is good for bringing out Dick's problems being Batman. I enjoyed the scenes showing that. But I have a bit more trouble buying why Dick has chosen to do that to himself. It's not that I couldn't buy Dick doing something like this, but I don't feel it with Damian. I've always felt like I understood Bruce's Robin decisions. I get the story logic behind Dick's decision, but it doesn't have the emotional logic I got from the others.
In fact, that's maybe why in my head it's beginning to form into a really strange, kind of creepy story: Alfred fastened onto Damian after Bruce's death, needing to see him as some spiritual heir (so basically encouraging Damian's own fantasy). Since Dick's so used to Alfred being sane and knowing about people, he's easily guilted into believing Alfred's got the kid's best interest at heart and ignores his own instincts. I guess because I really don't see why Damian as Robin is a tribute to Bruce. Trying to redeem the kid sure. Needing him to be Robin under these conditions? Seems more editorial.
Which is why I really think it would be great if it ultimately turned out that Damian wasn't Bruce's kid (especially if Alfred knew it).