A Robin 'Rises' yet again for the Dark Knight

Batman will be celebrating the new year with a sidekick, whether it's his resurrected son or someone else by his side.

Out Wednesday, DC Comics' Robin Rises: Omega No. 1 begins an emotional, planet-hopping, action-packed journey for the Dark Knight that continues in Batman and Robin and finishes in December with the return of a Robin back into the DC Universe.

It just might not be Damian Wayne, the previous Robin — and Batman's kid — who was killed in the pages of Grant Morrison and Chris Burnham's Batman Incorporated series.

Writer Peter J. Tomasi took up the tragic aftermath in Batman and Robin, and with artist Patrick Gleason, their "The Hunt for Robin" arc has seen Ra's al Ghul stealing the bodies of Damian and his daughter (and Damian's mother) Talia from Gotham City to take them to a Lazarus Pit so they can live once again.

Now Batman's main objective is to get Damian's body back.

"He just wants to put the soul of his son at peace," Tomasi says, "and he can be at peace, too, as long as he knows his son is buried and not being used for nefarious reasons by his grandfather."

Batman has tirelessly chased Ra's al Ghul from Paradise Island to what remains of the mystical city of Nanda Parbat, and he teamed with Frankenstein for a battle against Ra's and his minions in Batman and Robin issue 32 that ended inexplicably with Glorious Godfrey and Parademons arriving via Boom Tube from the hellish planet Apokolips.

Why they've arrived and what Damian has to do with Apokolips will be revealed in Robin Rises — illustrated by Andy Kubert, the artist who first introduced Damian during Morrison's Batman run in 2006 — and a massive battle breaks out with Godfrey and his soldiers on one side and Batman, Frankenstein and Ra's on the other.

Taking Batman out of Gotham and putting him on another world makes the whole adventure feel tonally and visually different, according to Tomasi. Plus, having the Dark Knight deal with supernatural aspects and a major threat from another planet isn't having to punch the Joker for the umpteenth time.

"This was a determined effort to really put Batman in a scenario he's not as comfortable and familiar with," Tomasi says, "and get him off the mean streets of Gotham and put him into a situation we usually don't see him in unless it's the pages of Justice League."

Tomasi has also enjoyed being able to navigate the expansive DC Universe with a personal character drama.

"It's been nice to start what we started," he says, "being a real true book about the intimacy of a father/son relationship and now flowing it out into these big platforms and arenas where we can play with other DCU elements in a massive way — and still actually keep it grounded in a father/son story."

Kubert's fight scenes are top-notch, the writer adds. "He's never drawn this much action in one issue, even when he was back in his X-Men days." And the artist returns in December's Robin Rises: Alpha issue, which acts as a conclusion of the story line.

Omega is "an ending for Batman in a way," Tomasi says, "and our December issue of Alpha is a new beginning for him with a new Robin."

It's also the end of a long tale that reads almost like a War and Peace story for Tomasi. He penned a "silent" issue of Batman and Robin in March 2013 that showed Bruce Wayne mourning Damian's murder, and since then has seen a turnaround in fans' thoughts of the young hero.

"It's really grown from just not liking the character to 'Oh my God, I can't believe you killed him as I was starting to love him and understand him,' " Tomasi says.

They wouldn't even mind him back from the dead and taking his mantle again. Tomasi won't spill on whether Damian is the Robin who rises, but he teases that readers will have a clearer sense of where the story's heading by October and in December somebody is definitely in a Robin uniform.

"Batman needs a Robin, at least in terms of having someone to play off of and a lightness of tone as opposed to being immersed in all the darkness." Tomasi says. "It's a nice balance having a Robin around."