After being interrupted last month by a two-part crossover,
RED ROBIN’s main narrative now continues with the conclusion of “The Rabbit Hole” arc. If you’re just now joining me, this might get a little confusing. You’ve been warned.
So, Tim has to stop the Madmen from acting as living “servers” of the “Unternet” before its ruler—the Russian oligarch Viktor Mikalek -- gains the ability to control the minds and desires of everyone that uses the “Unternet” and the internet. Got all that?
The only thing that should be unfamiliar to those not following this arc should be the newly-introduced Madmen. So, who exactly are these guys and why should we care about them? The Madmen were a group of four D-list crooks that were part of the original Blue Beetle’s rogues’ gallery. It turns out that years later -- during FINAL CRISIS -- the same guys that experimented on Batman also experimented on the Madmen, turning them into living servers, capable of tapping into both the internet and Unternet. And I know what you’re thinking -- no, FINAL CRISIS won’t just die.
And apparently, when you’re a “living server,” that makes you spew out one annoying pop-culture reference after another. And Red Robin doesn’t like that. Not one bit. Tim finally defeats the annoying foes with the help of former Anarky (Lonnie Machin), who has been acting like an “antivirus” program within the Unternet. The pair of heroes then shut down the Unternet for good. Or do they? One of Red Robin’s allies may not be all that he (or she) seems.
Overall, the best part about “The Rabbit Hole” arc showed that Tim Drake can’t be in control of everything at once. He follows in Bruce Wayne’s footsteps as “The World’s Greatest Detective,” but he’s also making a lot of the same mistakes as his mentor. But hey, it’s really cool to see Tim work through these issues and become a stronger hero along the way. However, a couple of things did hurt this short arc. For one thing, being broken up in the middle of the story by that crossover didn’t help. And for this issue in particular, the Madmen were brought into the story during the eleventh hour and given this over-complicated backstory crammed into only one page. If they were going to be used at all, it would’ve been nice to have seen them earlier in the story.
On the post-story side of things, DC recently brought back the “letters page,” this being the first one in an issue of RED ROBIN. You know what the letters page is, right? From back in the old-school days when people wrote their thoughts down (on paper) and their letters were printed and answered in the comic book (on paper)? All joking aside, the two-page column almost makes up for the missing two pages of story content in DC’s books. Almost.
Next month’s issue of RED ROBIN is part of another crossover, this time between BATMAN and GOTHAM CITY SIRENS. That’s right, two crossovers across only three issues of this title. Come on, DC. Enough is enough. But hey, maybe it’ll be good. If it is, I’ll gladly eat my words.
SYNOPSIS: When Red Robin and his friends are trapped in the unknown world of the Unternet by the Calculator's fail-safe program, it's Batman and Robin to the rescue – but which Batman and Robin is it? If the Unternet is a telepathic communications gestalt where the villains' dreams come true, can Red Robin become its waking nightmare?