The story was a gritty re-telling of the origin of Robin - his circus acrobat parents murdered in front of young Dick Grayson after a performance attended by Bruce Wayne.
The characterization of Batman drew criticism due to the quite remarkable cruelty he displayed - being very stoic and harsh to Grayson's grief, even smacking him across the face and expecting him to hunt and eat bats in the bat cave for food.
Odd behaviour aside, the story does run well, and shows a very adult re-telling, with appearances by the Joker, Batgirl and Black Canary. As an "outside continuity" story, it's worth the read - the art, in particular, make the story worth looking through. Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Plastic Man and Superman also have cameos.
There is a fair bit of humour - the catchpharse "I'm Goddamn Batman" starts in issue #1, and seeing an early version of Superman having to run over the ocean to France to fetch a doctor is pretty amusing.
If these covers look different, that's because DC was in the "buy many copies because I made many covers" mode.
