Comics / Comic Reviews / DC Comics

Red Robin #1

By Hervé St-Louis
June 14, 2009 - 14:12

Tim Drake – Wayne cannot accept that Dick Grayson, the new Batman has refused to allow him to be Robin in favour of Damian, the original Batman’s son. Drake cannot find a place for himself in this world and after the loss of both his parent and now, his adoptive father, he has to find who he is. Enter the Red Robin, the identity of the an alternate Robin from another universe, now used by Drake as he travels the world for clues on the missing Batman. Will Drake find what he’s looking for?

This series was fun to read but the writers sure need to take some geography classes. There hasn’t been a state called Czechoslovakia for over a decade now. It’s the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. It’s details like that make the rest of the world think that Americans are clueless idiots that don’t know anything about the world around them when it’s outside of their borders. Were this some small African state that we barely can point to on a map, I’d be more forgiving, but the status of what was once Czechoslovakia is not a small matter. Will Yost treat us to stories about Red Robin in Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, while he’s having the protagonist all over the world? If one writes a series about a travelling hero, one better make sure he brushes up basic geography. And that’s why, I think this story will suffer. It will be nothing else but an American in Paris, where none of the sensibilities and odours of the locales where the writer pits the heroes will ever come out. It’ll be just a backdrop as bland as the fictional Gotham City.

Bachs is a great artist. I hope he stays with this series long. In fact, as long as he stays, I’ll excuse the poor geography skills of Yost. One thing does concern me though. Tim Drake is not the standard six feet high yet. He’s still growing up. It wasn’t easy to perceive that he was a smaller compact guy in the artwork. I hope Bachs remedies to that.  Tim Drake did look young out of costume though.

Rating: 6 /10

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12