COMIC REVIEW: ROBIN #154
Author: Ryan Hoss
Friday, September 22, 2006

Ever since the “One Year Later” storylines began, I’ve really enjoyed the shift in tone of most of the Batman-related titles. Characters that were dead are now alive -- heck, characters that were alive are now dead! Oh, and Batman is no longer an idiotic paranoid dude, either.

So where does that leave Robin?

Robin #153 begins with the Boy Wonder tracking down some kidnappers who are preying on rich kids. When Robin arrives on the scene, the gang has already captured five unsuspecting children. But hey, this is Robin, right? This shouldn’t be any trouble from the kid Batman expertly trained, right? Wrong. Just when Robin is about to finish the gang off, this new “crime-fighter” named Dodge comes to the rescue.

Dodge has shown up in the past couple issues of Robin and was really nothing more than a pest; he’s kinda like a modern-day Bat-Mite. But wow, in this issue he gets really annoying, causing Robin to lose the kidnappers. So what is Robin to do? Blow off Dodge and do things himself, or try to help him out to become a skilled crime-fighter? Beechen does a good job of comparing this relationship to the one Tim Drake and Batman shared when Drake was learning to become Robin.

To catch the kidnappers, Robin devises a way to seize their attention -- he convinces Bruce to print an article about being adopted (finally, the books start mentioning it!). Anyway, his plan works, and Tim gets carted off to the kidnappers’ hideout. Beechen adds some sharp dialogue in here; Robin analyzes his situation and carries it out similar to how Batman would have.

After the issue concludes, I began asking myself some questions. What about the unanswered questions from the last issue? What about the person in the previous issue, and the bomb, etc.? I really hope that the next few issues tie into that, and perhaps Dodge will become less annoying.

Nonetheless, this turns out to be a decent issue. Williams’ art is very nice, as usual, but Robin’s hair is starting to annoy me. As always, this title has amazing potential. Every issue seems to be adding something new, and I still can’t wait to see how they resolve their arc; let’s just hope it’s a hit and not a miss.