RED ROBIN continues this month with the second installment of the “Council of Spiders” arc. Like many of the issues before it, the story is still unbalanced and tedious -- even if the concept is a good one. Even so, I’ve gotta say that I was really impressed with this issue -- it’s the best of the series so far.
But first, I’ll catch up on the story. Like the beginning of every issue of the series thus far, it (of course) starts with a seemingly pointless flashback. Once the story picks up with Red Robin himself, we discover that he’s been given the “privilege” of sifting through the entire League of Assassins database. Tim comes to the conclusion that the person spearheading the League of Spiders is likely someone from the League of Assassins itself.
The rest of the issue follows Red Robin and the LOA simultaneously facing off against some of the Council of Spiders’ deadlier members. And there are multiple flashback sequences inserted in all of that, of course. One of these actually turns out to be quite interesting, and involves Vicki Vale and a certain billionaire philanthropist (or somebody masquerading as one).
So, what really made this issue so great? For starters, Marcus To is the new penciller on this title, and his artwork is incredible. It’s very sleek and streamlined, and it works extremely well with Chris Yost’s frantic writing style. It actually reminded me a lot of Graham Nolan’s work on Bat-comics in the 90s, and that’s a very good thing. And about that Chris Yost—he really nailed Tim Drake’s characterization in this issue; it’s probably the best of the series so far. Yost also managed to reference both BLACKEST NIGHT and BATMAN AND ROBIN, putting this issue into a firm continuity without being too obtrusive to the story.
And about the flashbacks -- they’re still there, and they’re still a huge pain. However, I might not have to complain about them in the months to come. On DC’s official blog, Yost said that the flashbacks were “almost over!” Reading that gives me a lot of hope for the title, and definitely makes me look forward to next month’s issue.
