TANNARA YELLAND
Arts Writer

Following Bruce Wayne’s death at the end of the multi-series crossover event Final Crisis at the end of 2008, there was a huge shake-up in the Batman family. Dick Grayson, the original Robin who had more recently been a super hero in his own right named Nightwing, took over the role of Batman, installing Bruce Wayne’s 10-year-old son Damian as his sidekick Robin.

Feeling jilted by Dick and adrift in a world that has killed both of his real parents and his adoptive father, Tim Drake, the most recent Robin to work with Wayne, is also alone in his conviction that Wayne has not died — except for most every comic book reader in the world, but that is beside the point. Tim takes up an alternate Robin costume to traverse the world in search of Wayne in the new series Red Robin.

The series opens with the teenaged daughter of a Spanish politician being taken hostage. Tim finds out about this as he is travelling through Madrid, and his decision to save the girl sets him on the first of many compromises of his original goal. Obviously saving an innocent girl from being murdered is an important part of superhero code, but by shedding his regular hero identity and donning the Red Robin costume, Tim had hoped to leave behind those types of obligations in favour of a focused search for Bruce.

Chris Yost, a relative newcomer to the comic book business, writes the perspective of a lonely, scared and desperate teenager exceptionally well. As Tim faces challenges and, eventually, unwanted allies, Yost carries the reader along, all the while carefully toeing the line between making Tim’s thoughts realistic and avoiding the hackneyed clichés teenagers so often actually think in.

Ramon Bachs, who also has little comic book work under his belt, does the art. His portrayal of Drake is spotty; sometimes Tim looks decidedly Asian and other times he looks, though not of a completely different ethnicity, certainly unlike traditional renderings. However, Bachs has a powerful style that works well when not applied to characters whose features readers expect to recognize, and colourist Art Thibert brings the scenes alive exceedingly well.

The Red Robin storyline is an interesting and important accompaniment to the Batman and Robin title that is currently outlining the developing work relationship between Dick and Damian. It is also interesting to see a Wayne protégé make as many compromises as Tim does, given Bruce’s refusal, as Batman, to ever make concessions or take the easy route.

Easy answers are not the order of the day in Red Robin. But then, in the world of Gotham city, they rarely are.