DCU Comic Book Reviews

ROBIN #146

The Virtual Cell Part One:  The Hard Nine

March 2006

Written by Bill Willingham & Bill Williams

Pencils by Scott McDaniel

Inks by Andy Owens

Cover by Scott McDaniel & Andy Owens

Synopsis

At Titans Tower, Conner Kent (aka Superboy) is sick.  Normal medications don’t help given his unique physiology of clone Kryptonian and human DNA cells.  Robin believes that Lex Luthor would’ve proactively generated a cure for such an emergency and decides to help Superboy by infiltrating an old Cadmus labs facility to find it.  With the rest of the Teen titans, Robin finds the old laboratory and infiltrates the security systems.  Meanwhile, Batman contacts the Veteran, who he knows reasonably well, and asks him to leave Robin alone.  After maneuvering through the laboratory, they come to stumble a cross a huge, zombie-like Brainiac creature.

Review

Despite the continuity glitch described below, I really liked the issue and I especially liked how Robin determined Luthor would be one step ahead of everyone else in terms of the “cure” and how Robin took charge of the team and made sure they got into Cadmus labs.  My Batman-freak of a brother-in-law always claims that Robin should be the leader of the Titans and this issue shows exactly why that should be the case.  However, within the pages of Teen Titans, Beast Boy was the leader and was doing a good job of it, but here his role is reduced to following Robin.  I realize this is Robin and not Teen Titans, but the characterization should be consistent amongst all the books. 

I enjoyed the brief scene with Speedy wondering about her role within the “family” of the Teen Titans and the potential for a cure for HIV. 

It was nice that at least Willingham hasn’t completely abandoned the Veteran story.  However, with only one issue to go before the One Year Later, I am not quite sure where this is supposed to go or how it will finish. 

Supposedly the injuries Conner suffers from is connected to the fight with Superboy Prime, but given the fact that the events in this issue seem to occur after Chemo was dumped on Blüdhaven, I think the timing is way off.  All of those who flew in the plane to Titans tower were at the battle between Conner and Superboy Prime and they could not have gone home after the fight since the attack by Chemo occurred before the battle.  And even if the injuries came from the attack, how do they present as the big welts and why does it hurt so much?  Ugh, my head hurts. 

Later, the issue describes their flight to the Cadmus Labs by going around Blüdhaven.  Since Blüdhaven is supposed to be on the ocean (and described as a whaling town, although I don’t think there are many whales in the Atlantic Ocean) on the east coast, the trip must’ve really gone the long way to get there.-- Review by MRB 

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