DCU Comic Book Reviews

ROBIN #165

The Other Hand

October 2007

Written by Adam Beechen

Pencils by Freddie E. Williams II

Inks by Freddie E. Williams II

Cover by Patrick Gleason & Wayne Faucher

Synopsis

Dodge and several other villains have taken the meta-humans injury ward of Gotham Hospital hostage and have demanded Robin or else.  Robin enters the hospital and gets attacked by the various, villains, but he easily defeats and gets away from them.  However, he has trouble with the Cheater, who clearly plans to kill Robin.  When Dodge realizes this, he gets upset.  The plan was never to kill Robin.  Cheater doesn’t care about Dodge’s plan.  Suddenly, Brutus and Skill join the attack, but in the confusion Robin is able to fight back.  The villains are tripping over themselves, so Dodge teleports them away from Robin and out of the hospital.  Dodge then decides he has had enough of them and tries to leave, but Skill tells him to stay.  They need his help and if doesn’t help them, she knows where his family lives.  And she has the plan to take down Robin:  she knows his real name 

Review by Binkley (e-mail)

Before I even picked up this issue, I had thought that this one would’ve been the final one of this story, wrapping up Dodge’s role in this title.  Robin would’ve won the fight and Dodge either would’ve seen the light and changed his ways or would’ve gone to jail.  It just seemed like the direction Beechen was headed.  So, I was a little surprised that the story has been stretched out one more issue.  But, based on this issue, I think the possibility that Skill is Cassandra Cain (and possibly Robin’s “ace in the hole” that he mentions) certainly becomes more and more likely.  After all, it was Beechen that originally was tasked with turning her “evil” so this would be the time to redeem her before he left the title (and his last I believe is the very next one).  Keep in mind, as well, that Beechen created Dodge, so I have to believe that he will close the door on that character as well.  Overall, the issue was good.  We get to see Robin doing what he does best, but still getting slowly in over his head.  It will be interesting to see when and where Dodge’s group will attack (and what might happen if they attack Wayne Manor).

The character of the Cheater is perplexing to me.  Robin asks about his power and the Cheater states it is all in his name.  So then he fades away, throws his voice, reappears, and uses a defibrillator on Robin.  So, exactly how is this cheating?  Seems like a good battle tactic to me.  The other thing that confuses me is the “urban legend” comment that Robin makes.  Is this supposed to be a joke (“that no good cheater took my money” which is a reference to a specific person when you usually think it is a description) or is Beechen using that to convince us the Cheater is more powerful than the stupid name implies?  And, yes, sometimes I think about really lame things.  Why do you ask?

I love how the eyebrows on Skill’s mask move to mark her emotions.  It is a mask!  Eyebrows don’t move on a mask.

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