Writers: Kyle Higgins and Tom DeFalco
Artist: Eddy Barrows
The biggest challenge in front of the Bat-books with the New 52 relaunch was compressing the bulk of their rich stories into just five years of continuity. More specifically, how Batman's sidekicks fit into this short time frame has been the apple of discord amongst fans. Gail Simone took good care of figuring out Batgirl's timeline; in this issue, Kyle Higgins repeats the same feat by giving Dick Grayson a neat new start. The first Robin started his career not as a child, but almost as an adult, and his motivation does not lie in the heart of tragedy as Batman's, but rather in the spirit of moving forward. An interesting aspect of this new Dick Grayson is his ability to read body language; it is almost his super-power, and another quality that makes him unique. The dynamic between Batman and the first Robin seems to indicate theirs was not a long association, which works just fine within the limited five year period. All in all, Perpetual Motion is a very satisfying tale.
Robin by Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, and Rod Reis
Still a terrible issue.
ReplyDeleteSo Dick Grayson decides to fight crime as a way of moving forward and not as vengeance. It's one thing to do that as a cop but as a masked vigilante? How's that make any sense? Now a big part of Robin's origin is now gone because Bruce took Dick in and raised him because he saw him as a kindred spirit and felt that had this boy gone on in life he might turn into one of those lost souls, not anymore, nope Dick wants to fight crime and Batman says no! So much for storied history.