DCU Comic Book Reviews

RED ROBIN #4

The Grail, Conclusion

November 2009

Written by Chris Yost

Pencils by Ramon Bachs

Digital Inks by Guy Major

Covers by Francis Manapul

Synopsis

Before, Dick Grayson (aka Batman) tells Tim they need to talk.  Now, Tim arrives in Baghdad to find three of Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins ready to help him with whatever he needs.  Tim is about to turn down their help, he is accosted by the U.S. military.  He is wanted for questioning due to the name of the passport he used.  However, one of Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins produces documentation he works for Wayne Enterprises and Tim is really the son of Bruce Wayne.  Tim is allowed to go free.  In Berlin, Lucius Fox’s daughter is also searching for Tim Wayne.  Meanwhile, Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins help Tim locate a cavern in the desert, where Tim finds an old cave drawing of the Batman logo.  Before, Dick tries to convince Tim to accept that Bruce really is gone.  Tim can’t do that.  As crazy as it sounds, he is determined to find the truth.  If there is even a chance Bruce is alive, he has to try.  Now, Just as Tim emerges from the cave, the Widower kills Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins and the mortally wounds Tim.

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I don’t know, maybe it is just me, but should an issue that is titled as a “conclusion” end with the cliffhanger we got here.  Shouldn’t it end with some type of, well, ending?  You know, closure to the story that is being told.  And since this story is about Tim’s belief Bruce is alive, the page where we see the cave painting seems to the perfect end.  I was really surprised when the issue continued onward.  I realize that whatever comes next with the Council of Spiders was connected to the assasn subplot and will be part of the eventual trade paperback so it is part of the story in some.  But it just felt odd to me.  I suppose I am just nitpicking the writer’s and/or editor’s choice of title for the issue.  It doesn’t really have much of an impact on the rest of the issue. 

Overall, this is an improvement than the previous issues.  It is less muddled than the others, as if Yost is finally certain where he wants to take the plot.  The flashbacks were less distracting, perhaps because it only flashed back to one point in the past, Dick’s attempt to stop Tim.  And there were no more sidetracks to assassins killing other assassins (since they appear at the end.).  For the first time, I think, the story moves forward rather than meandering around from past to present.  Unfortunately, Yost still doesn’t address the most glaring part of this book:  there is no concrete explanation on how Tim found the cave drawing (which seems to call back to the final page of Final Crisis).  While I like the fact that it exists and the image managed to survive over the centuries (millennium?), I do have to wonder:  how the hell did Tim know it was there in the first place?  I do not recall any clues or hints that brought Tim to where he needed to be.  It feels like the writer is more interested in the Council of Spiders subplot and detailing Tim’s departure from Gotham than he is in trying to locate Bruce.  All we need is something, anything, that lets us know that Tim is following clues rather than simply leading us to the cave. 

Now, raise your hands, if you realized that the moment the assassins were made a little more human and less like threatening warriors was the moment you realized they were going to be dead.  For three issues they were presented in one way and just as we learn there is another side to them, that they laugh at each other and they have an understanding of the world, they are dead.

 

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