Really you just can't go wrong with this collection of stories. I want to rate it lower, for Damian Wayne in his first appearance in which he was an annoying little jerk that nobody liked, but it's just overall a good collection. Morrison starts his run off by introducing Damian Wayne into the Batman mythos as Bruce's son, and eventually the 5th bearer of the Robin mantle, ensuring a lasting impact on the franchise (Which is something I heavily admire) The prior edition of Batman and Son only included the titular storyline, which was made up of issues Batman #655-658, and the later Three Ghosts of Batman storyline made up of issues #664-666. This edition includes #655-658, #663-669 and #672-675, so there's a good deal amount of extra content that wasn't originally included. Specifically, you have the issues from the prior Batman and Son Trade Paperback and the Batman The Black Glove Trade Paperback. So what you're really getting is 2 seperate trade paperbacks in 1, for a cheaper price than both trades cost seperately. Always a good deal in my opinion (Especially if you can then find it somewhere else for even cheaper lol) So going in, this is the start of Grant Morrison's most important work on Batman. Notably, this is not the first time he has written the character, that would be Batman Gothic back in the 90's, which I highly recommend to everyone, but this is the first part of his run on the character, which would last for a few years. So this is the first volume you should get if you're looking to catch up on Morrison's work, which ran through Bruce Wayne dying in Final Crisis and Dick Grayson taking over the role of Batman afterwards. It also saw Tim Drake, longtime 3rd Robin, leave the role to become Red Robin. The first story collected again features the introduction of Damian Wayne, but also the character of Jezebel Jet, who will take on the role of Bruce Wayne's girlfriend for the early part of Morrison's run and therefore continue to appear as a supporting character. In the background, Talia Al Ghul, Damian's mother and Bruce Wayne's old love interest is constantly appearing and acting as an antagonist lurking in the shadows. We see the beginnings of her plan here, with a ninja army of manbats (Not even joking lol comic books) And she'll continue to appear through some of the other stories as well, setting her up to be one of the final villains down the line. Overall, this story is fairly fastpaced, but decent. Nothing amazing, but a good introduction by Morrison nonetheless. The next story included actually isn't a comic, but a prose story about the Joker titled The Clown At Midnight. I'll be honest, i've personally never cared too much for this, but Joker fans (Of which i'm not a major one) more than likely will. Next we have the Three Ghosts of Batman storyline, featuring the titular 3 Ghosts and in my opinion this is where things really start to pick up steam. The character of Damian Wayne and the events of his conception (Bruce and Talia spending a night together in the desert) harkens back to the Son of the Demon storyline by Mike Barr in 1987, which I also recommend (Specifically pick up the newest Birth of the Demon trade, which collects Son of the Demon plus two other tales featuring Ra's Al Ghul) During Son of the Demon, Bruce and Talia finally consumate their relationship/marriage and Talia is impregnated, but lies about the child to Bruce because she doesn't wish him to risk his life over it. The tale ends with the child being put up for adoption. Damian is that child, just with Morrison changing things around slightly so that most of the events of that story happened in completely different ways (Bruce says that Talia drugged him for one smh) So in this way, Morrison already makes it clear that he has a decent understanding of Batman lore and no problem bringing up older stories and concepts to tie into his own, this will become clearer and clearer as his work goes on, and can again be seen in the 3 Ghosts of Batman storyline. The basic premise is that Bruce is faced with three different men that have taken on the mantle of Batman, and over the course of the story it is revealed that they are the part of a psychological experiment conducted by a Doctor Hurt (Another character that will become important) and the government, who wished to study Batman in order to create replacements for him should he ever die. The 3 Ghosts, which Batman at first thinks he only ever imagined, are the end result of that gone horribly wrong. This story is also broken up by Batman in Bethlehem (Featuring a dark future where Damian Wayne is Batman, and is fighting the final "Ghost" of Batman) and The Island of Mister Mayhew (Featuring the Club of Heroes, another old Batman concept about a group of heroes that all gained their inspiration from Batman) I don't much care for the first, but the Club of Heroes story is great. It's nice to see that Batman's legacy is so powerful that it effected people in different places around the globe. It also introduces a group or "Club of Villains" designed to take down Batman, which will also become important. The next story is then titled Space Medicine, and is where the 3 Ghosts storyline picks up again. The first part featured only two of the Ghosts, and this story features the last, which is the same person we saw Damian Wayne fighting in the dark future where he was Batman. This is also the story where you gain a lot of information that fully explains the 3 Ghost storyline and what was done to Batman, so it's very important to Morrison's run that you read and understand this storyline, and it is then important that you read and understand the earliers storyline's to understand this one lol it might seem complicated but its really not. Just keep track of what's going on, who's who, don't be afriad to go back and re-read and you'll be fine. As you work through this volume, and the volumes after it, you'll realize that Morrison sets up a lot of concepts and characters early on, for bigger payoffs later. Also, a "Black Casebook" is mentioned in this volume, which is described as everything Batman and Robin, specifically Dick Grayson the first Robin, have come across that they could never explain. This is actually a real comic book made up of Batman stories from the 60's and 70's, from various authors. I highly recommend getting that, as it will help you better understand Morrison's work going forward. As I said previously, he has a solid grasp of Batman lore and references all of those stories in some way across his run. The 60's and 70's were a wacky time for Batman, and comics in general. He went to other planets, fought robots, gained superpowers, and much more. Over the course of his run Morrison references and explains most of those adventures, why they happened, and what they really meant. You can get by without the book, but I again think it's better to have it than not.