Robin and Batman #1: Poetry is an Orphan of Silence

It’s a tale nearly as old as the superhero genre itself. Boy loses parents to horrific gangster attack. Boy meets Bat. Bat dresses boy in flamboyant colors and places him in harms way. Fans rejoice.

As over-reductionist as that statement may be, that is the general early trajectory of Dick Grayson in nearly every incarnation that has tackled his younger years. Eventually, feeling spurned by the Bat, Dick strikes out on his own, casting off “childish things” and becoming Nightwing. What sets Robin and Batman #1 apart from the many and varied similar stories is this story is the first time that I can remember that broaches the subject of Dick’s psyche as a newly orphaned child. That is where the poetic prose of Jeff Lemire and the remakable artistic stylings of Dustin Nguyen really take flight. The central tension between Dick as child and Bruce’s desire for Dick to cast aside the notion of childhood in order to become The Soldier is everpresent in this issue in several very tangible ways. Nguyen’s shifting color schemes from scene to scene, cycling between the brightness of Robin and the darkness of Dick accentuate every story beat, keeping the book from getting away from itself too far.

The final act of this first issue also sets up an incredibly interesting scenario. By shifting the focalization of the narrative, we follow a sequence in which Dick narrates about who he could be and whether or not he deserves to be down here in the ugly and the dark. But as he narrates, we follow the steps of Killer Croc seemingly grappling with the same demons. Gotham has no shortage of orphans and the idea of juxtaposing these two and their struggles to adapt to life as an orphan is fascinating. I can’t wait to see where this series goes from here.