As part of my reading challenge (to read three books in as many weeks) I realised that I haven’t been indulging in much comic book reading of late and I have a huge backlog thanks to digital comics.
One of the series I am interested in catching up on from day one is Robin. I was reading and collecting Batman at the time when Tim Drake became Robin and have always been interested in his career, if only for this fact (eighteen years or something now - wow).
Tim was actually the very first Robin to have his own mini series.
So I went back and grabbed the first mini-series which took place immediately after Tim was given the mantle of Robin. The storyline is simply that after being confirmed by Batman as Robin Tim feels like he hasn’t earned the right to be Robin and goes away to Paris to train with a master martial artist, sort of like how Bruce Wayne did in his early years.
It was a five part mini series and if you haven’t read it before it really fills in some blanks for some of the storyline showing up later in the Batman mythology. Especially Lynx who was still an ongoing character up until 2006 and King Snake who I thought was killed but apparently survived several encounters.
We also discover why Robin chose a Bo staff as his weapon of choice.
The story and art holds up today, if you can get past Tim getting his arse handed to him for pretty much the entire first issue as he trains at the dojo and then by some ex CIA or FBI guy and then later on by Shiva. Apparently taking a beating makes the Robin.
I don’t know though if it was worth five whole issues though, I would have possibly wrapped up the main story in possibly three and maybe have him finish the training he actually sought out in the first place.
Of course it must be said that my reading the early Robins is simply leading me up to a post titled: how much do I hate Robin’s current costume?
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21/04/2008 at 2:32 am Permalink
getting your ass handed to you during training…hmm sounds formiliar somehow *ponders*.
@ the suit: it’s the bright green & red isn’t it it hurts the eyes.
Arjan’s last blog post..Upcoming
21/04/2008 at 5:18 am Permalink
digital comics?
You interest me sir.
Dan’s last blog post..Five, four
21/04/2008 at 10:16 am Permalink
Robin’s costume has always been a problem. Bright red isn’t very stealthy.
swollenpickles’s last blog post..Someone searched for that?
21/04/2008 at 2:07 pm Permalink
At least he wears pants with legs now. The shirt-and-underpants looks never sat well with me.
21/04/2008 at 6:51 pm Permalink
Arjan - the newer costume is primarily red I believe. It’s just an awful lot of red - hang on I’ll say no more as I do not wish to spoil all my material for a post LOL
21/04/2008 at 9:44 pm Permalink
Dan - yes I will send you a care package I think.
21/04/2008 at 10:03 pm Permalink
Swollenpickles - There was a line that they wanted to include in Batman (the 89 movie) when Robin was still going to appear where Batman said something like ’sure that’s going to scare the shit out of them’ in reference to Robin’s bright costume.
21/04/2008 at 10:08 pm Permalink
Ian - to be fair Tim only ever wore the bare leg costume once - and you’re right it never sat well with me either before that. He always seemed a little more vulnerable.