This is it! Red Robin versus the Council of Spiders deep in the heart of the League of Assassins' headquarters. It's seven on one, with Red Robin facing some of the deadliest killers on the planet. Even if he can get out alive, can Tim Drake get out clean? Or has Ra's al Ghul's influence corrupted him? There's a line Batman and Robin swore they'd never cross...but to save Tam Fox's life, Red Robin may have to perform deeds he's never dared. Plus, Ra's al Ghul's master plan starts to reveal itself.
All right, folks. This month’s
RED ROBIN reviews will cover issues 7-8, the second half of the “Council of Spiders” story arc.
I don’t really have a whole lot to say about issue #7. It contains many of the obligatory flashback sequences that have plagued this series; this time they focus on some Council of Spiders members. The rest of the issue is basically a huge fight sequence at the League of Assassins’ headquarters (The Cradle). During all of this, writer Chris Yost spends time doing what he does best—characterization. Tam Fox is fleshed out a bit more, and we find out that Lucius named his daughter after Thomas Wayne. Red Robin makes it back to The Cradle just in time to save Tam—and see “Ra’s al Ghul” get killed be the Council of Spiders.
Now, I’m gonna dive into issue #8—which really surprised me. For the past few months, I’ve done a little ritual of sorts before reading an issue of RED ROBIN. I’ll flip through the issue really fast and look at the upper corners of the pages, just so I can see exactly how many “Chris Yost flashback intro titles” I can count, so I get a good idea of what I’m in for.
This month, there were only two—at the beginning and end of the issue. And they made sense being there as well. What a sigh of relief!
The story picks up right where the previous issue left off—with the “death” of Ra’s al Ghul. And as expected, it was only one of his body doubles that was slain. In a bit of perfect characterization, Tim realizes this fact way before any of the Council of Spiders members do. For a few moments, Red Robin analyzes the threat of every COS member in the room, and exactly how he’s going to take them down—really cool stuff.
The rest of the issue consists mostly of Tim fighting off the entire Council of Spiders at once; his inner monologue is wonderfully written by Yost and Marcus To’s extremely fluid pencils are a perfect match. Before leaving The Cradle, Tim does what he planned from the beginning—he causes a massive explosion across the League of Assassins’ computer network, effectively crippling the entire organization. And before the issue is over, Tim lets the real Ra’s know that he’s coming for him next.
Look, I’m not going to say that RED ROBIN is the most wonderful part of this whole “Batman Reborn” thing. The first arc was a muddled and disjointed mess, and the second one was largely plagued with the scripting issues from the first. However, it’s been consistently improving after each issue, and the book is really starting to shine now. I’m really looking forward to the next (final?) arc of the series, starting next month. I just hope that it’s worth it in the end, and we don’t end up with Batman coming back as a caveman or a pirate. Oh, wait…
