Robin #2

Robin #2

DC Comics 2021

Written by Joshua Williamson

Illustrated by Gleb Melnikov

Coloured by Luis Guerro

Lettered by ALW’s Troy Peteri

After the shocking events of Robin #1, Damian has learned the deadly rules of Lazarus Island the hard way! Now he must prove that he belongs in the tournament and uncover its secrets! But his only ally is the daughter of one of his greatest enemies: Ravager! In this tournament, only one fighter can get out alive-ready for round two? Fight!

Joshua’s brilliance as a writer and his understanding of the villains point of view is what attracted me to the first issue and what brought me back for the second. Last issue left off on something of a cliffhanger, we knew he wouldn’t or couldn’t be dead after all but the question of how he’d survive Flatline was something we really wanted to see. That along with the Ravager being there and her reasons for it while touched upon still remain a mystery. One that is going to drive the reader bonkers and ensure that they keep coming back time and again. So will seeing Hawke within these pages and the fact that Damian is unaware of his parentage is interesting to me as well.

I am very much enjoying the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented exceptionally well. The character development that we see is wonderfully rendered through the dialogue, character interaction as well as how they act and react to the situations and circumstances they encounter. For someone who wishes to distance himself from both parents he certainly remains steadfastly stubborn and his behaviour hasn’t changed one bit. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing more of the story and the twists & turns along the way we remain captivated by the events we see unfold.

I like how we see this being structured and how the layers within the story continue to grow, evolve and emerge anew. These layers add that depth, complexity and drama that we want to see in Damian and those around him. How we see everything working together to create the story’s ebb & flow as well as how it moves the story forward is achieved extremely well.

The interiors remain a bit too all-ages for my tastes but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t good solid and quality work. How we see the varying weights and techniques with the linework being utilised to create the detail work is rendered very well. I’d like to see sharper detail work considering it’s Damian and less of that Young Justice, Nauck work. Also we need to see more backgrounds being utilised here as this is supposed to be an island and we’re missing that feel of one. Still we get some decent depth perception, sense of scale and that overall sense of size and scope to the story. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show a solid eye for storytelling. The colour work we see is nicely rendered as well. How the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work have some beautiful moments to them.

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Thankfully the story here is super strong and can carry any style of work on the interiors. This is so intelligently written with some great characterisation and those moments that seem to sneak themselves in that expand the scope of the story. It really is nice to see some familiar faces that haven’t been utilised in many years and new ones that have been created just for this arc. There really are some spectacular moments that remind us all that Damian isn’t a thinker he’s a fighting machine and if he’s to win this tournament he’s going to have to stop being so stubborn and learn to accept his limitations and grow from them with help from someone he can trust and rely on.