DCU Comic Book Reviews

ROBIN #164

Making The Band

September 2007

Written by Adam Beechen

Pencils by Freddie E. Williams II

Inks by Freddie E. Williams II

Cover by Patrick Gleason & Wayne Faucher

Synopsis

At the Gotham General Hospital, Dodge and other criminals break inside and then put a force field around the building so that no one can get in or out unless they say so.  Dodge then tells the police that he wants Robin.  Before, Dodge approaches Mr. Baptiste to join him in an effort to get rid of Robin once and for all.  Mr. Baptist decides to do it and offers one of his henchmen, Brutus, to help.  Meanwhile, at school Tim Drake (aka Robin) gets an offer to join the tennis.  He mentions this to Batman, who dislikes the idea.  Elsewhere, Dodge searches for more recruits to help with his plan:  Macro and Micro, Tapeworm, The Cheater, and Skill.  It is the Skill who notices Killa ‘Nilla, Robin’s snitch running to tell the Boy Wonder about Dodge’s plan.  Dodge lets him go as the plan is in place.  Later, Robin gets a page from Officer Harper.  When he goes to meet her, he finds Killa ‘Nilla, who tells Robin what is happening.  Which happens to be right now as Dodge tells the police he wants Robin. 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

I think I might’ve like this issue better than I do for two reasons.  The first is that the same thing, a criminal finds other criminals so that as a group they can take down a hero, was done just a few months ago in Flash: Fastest Man Alive (with Inertia gathering the Rogues).  Watching Dodge round up his gang seemed like a strong sense of deja vu.  The second is the choice of villains, most of whom were introduced for the first time in this very comic (except for Tapeworm, who appeared in Willingham’s run).  I think if Beechen could’ve found better villains then the idea would’ve had a little more merit than it does.  Having said that, I liked the issue, it flows well and Williams’ art is always a pleasure.  Beechen set up the conflict well enough, but more importantly started to bring together a number of different elements from his run together, especially the way he was able to work Kill ‘Nilla back into the story and included Zoanne as well (and look, he didn’t forget Officer Harper). 

It didn’t occur to me, but someone pointed out to me that Skill might be Cassandra Cain in disguise.  An interesting idea, if true. 

One of Batman’s reasons for not letting Tim play tennis is flawed.  Any physical taken for any type of high school sport would not be invasive enough to detect broken bones.  No school would ever perform x-rays as part of the physical.  First, no school as access to that kind of equipment and second it would be too expensive.  Granted, if Tim were in a private school with tons of money available from private funds, then such concerns might not apply, but it is not likely. 

On page 21 there are no lines emerging from the speech balloons to indicate who’s saying what.  It is not really needed as it is pretty clear who is speaking what and when, but still it is very odd to see, like the letterer forget to add them in.   

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