Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Red Robin #1

Nicely done, Christopher Yost. It wasn't an easy task to explain why Dick Grayson chose Damian to be the new Robin over Tim Drake, but this issue explains it perfectly. Grayson sees Drake as an equal, someone who needs no help with either morals or crimefighting. But Damian needs mentorship to avoid turning into a villain, so Grayson is going to take on the lesser sidekick. Tim Drake is understandably upset by this, and he goes off to Europe to seek out his old boss, Bruce Wayne.

It's a neat idea, and I love the casual way Red Robin is traveling the continent solving crimes. He is a hero by habit here, he's not emotionally invested in what he's doing, but he still stops crime because that is what he knows. I'm not sure I like seeing Tim taking out baddies so brutally, but it makes sense because he is mentally switched off. I am surprised that the Red Robin identity is as compromised as Tim states. Jason Todd did bad stuff in it, and now Tim is in brutal mode further demeaning the costume. For something Dick Grayson wore in Kingdom Come, the uniform has certainly come to mean something very different than the idealized sidekick we saw in the classic limited series.

I'm looking forward to seeing Tim deal with more super-villains, but I do like the idea of Europe being a little bit of a different environment for him to explore. I haven't read the Return of Ra's Al Ghul yet, so I'm not exactly sure why Ra's is interested in Tim at this point. But Ra's is a great villain, so I'm keen to see it.

Ramon Bachs isn't one of my top artists, but he tells the story cleanly enough. I don't care for his uber-muscular take on Tim Drake though. Tim looks like a huge adult here, not like the athletic kid we usually see him as.

Fair

2 comments:

Martin Gray said...

Yeah, Tim is too big in his Dr Midnite garb. As for the dirty Red Robin suit, it was also used by the wicked General in the last Robin run.

Timbotron said...

Ooh, was that by Fabian? I'm waiting for the trade on that. Looking forward to it, especially if the General is in it.