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scans_dailyA repost from two S_D incarnations ago.... Discussion of the no-kill rule here reminded me of this in Robin 140 by Bill Willingham and Scott McDaniel
We start with a cover which just screams "WRONG!" on every level to me. Robin with a rifle, surrounded by hand grenades and hand guns just seems deeply disturbing...
To summarise the plot so far, after the loss of his father and Steph, Tim has moved to Bludhaven to be by himself (aside from occasional visits with Cass/Batgirl) which is JUST what you'd recommend for a stressed out teenager with abandonment issues.
during this time Tim had been attacked by assorted random weirdos (new villains) and had learned the Penguin had put a bounty on his head (hence the villain attacks), so when a new guy called the Veteran showed up, Robin assumed he was a villain and they had a fight. During this Veteran gassed him, took Tim back to his own apartment, undressed him and put him to bed... And no, I'm not making that up.
Tim investigates the Veteran (As you do when strange me drug you and leave you undressed in your own bed the next morning) what is known about him at any rate and finds he's something of a military urban myth. So the next case he's on, when the Veteran gets involved, Tim leaves a note inviting them to meet up. They do, and the Veteran literally says: "I'm here to steal you away from Batman."
Methinks the Veteran has been watching the Teen Titans cartoon and is empathising with Slade just a little bit too much. (The Veteran knows Tim's secret identity through the magic of plot power)
Anyway, he shows up and offers Robin a job working for the military, though in a non lethal capacity. Bizarrely, Robin agrees to consider it (Him not killing I can accept, but being prepared to work with others who do as a matter of course should be ringing alarm bells)
He is driven to their base by the team as a guest, and is shown military courtesy down to the point of not quite disdain, very much a "You're a civilian to us, so we call you sir. That's the sum total to our interest in you as a person". Nice recruitment technique there, real charm offensive, though possibly quite realistic.
The Veteran is a new character (Though the implication is that there has been a Veteran for a long, long time, just not necessarily the same one), but generates a SMUG vibe at the megawatt range. Clearly he's a Willingham favourite because we'll never see him set a foot wrong, even when he's at odds with the entire ethos of the Bat-titles.
To be fair I can see the start of the argument quite well; Batman DOES train up exceptional "special ops" candidates, moreso than any other hero. And their reason for not recruiting Batman is plausible, inasmuch as he is the ultimate Type A personality. However their smug (Forgive me if I use that word more than once, it seems a singularly suitable one) dismissal of ANYONE who has saved the world on multiple occasions should have Tim reacting a lot more strongly than he does here.
That last page just plain baffles me, the point seems to be that there is an untold story about trying to recruit Dick Grayson when he was Robin. Again, fair enough, but their "need to know" bit at the end could easily by shot down by Tim saying "Fine, I'll just ask Nightwing, let him decide how need to know it is before I think about joining you"
Tim is offered a chance to spar with either of two members of the Veterans team, and sportingly offers that, to be fair, he'll fight them both at once, just for fun.
I love Scott McDaniel, I really do, his stuff on Nightwing was drop dead gorgeous, but I think that his work on Batman wasn't as good, and the reason for it is, bizarrely, the capes. His kinetic multi-pose-strobe style works terribly well with Nightwing, but with Batman and Robin the capes get in the way, hiding a lot of the physicality, if that makes sense.
So it's a relief here that Tim decides, for no apparent reason, to strip down to his long pants for the fight... oh, and the mask, ALWAYS the mask! :)
So the true First World War was the combined Napoleonic Wars,
The Second World War was what we call the First World War
The Third World War was what we call the Second World War
The Fourth World War was the Cold War
The Fifth World War is the current "War on Terror" which "most of the world want to close it's eye and pretend doesn't exist"... I sense a subtext heading towards text here...
However, I leave it to better military historians and commentators on current events than me to comment on the accuracy of these. I will add from vaguely remember high school history, that AFAIK the First World War wasn't named as such until the Second one came along, until then it was "The Great War" or optimistically "The War to End Wars".
I'm also not sure the Cold War counts as it was precisely NOT a war as such, it was a long form standoff and game of political one-up-man-ship without war ever being declared, and the "War on Terror" is a nebulous concept at best.
It could be, as Tim suggests, they are trying, unsuccessfully, to distract him, but it's terribly satisfying when the civilian teenager kicks the crud out of both of them with one smooth movement. Way to go Boy Wonder!
And this page approaches the WTF and zooms past it at a rate of knots. Apparently, the Batclan now avoid lethal conflict, not because of a sworn oath never to take a life, a guiding principle of the current Batman history, but because it saves on the paperwork and fuss involved in court appearances???
Tim reports his meeting to Batman, who (because of his mood as a result of War Games) seems fairly ambivalent about whether Tim takes the Veteran up on the offer or not. But then starts a complete investigation into the myth of "the Veteran". This is flatly contradicted a few issues later when Batman talks directly to the Veteran and it's clear they've known each other for years, so who knows what that bit was all about.
We start with a cover which just screams "WRONG!" on every level to me. Robin with a rifle, surrounded by hand grenades and hand guns just seems deeply disturbing...
To summarise the plot so far, after the loss of his father and Steph, Tim has moved to Bludhaven to be by himself (aside from occasional visits with Cass/Batgirl) which is JUST what you'd recommend for a stressed out teenager with abandonment issues.
during this time Tim had been attacked by assorted random weirdos (new villains) and had learned the Penguin had put a bounty on his head (hence the villain attacks), so when a new guy called the Veteran showed up, Robin assumed he was a villain and they had a fight. During this Veteran gassed him, took Tim back to his own apartment, undressed him and put him to bed... And no, I'm not making that up.
Tim investigates the Veteran (As you do when strange me drug you and leave you undressed in your own bed the next morning) what is known about him at any rate and finds he's something of a military urban myth. So the next case he's on, when the Veteran gets involved, Tim leaves a note inviting them to meet up. They do, and the Veteran literally says: "I'm here to steal you away from Batman."
Methinks the Veteran has been watching the Teen Titans cartoon and is empathising with Slade just a little bit too much. (The Veteran knows Tim's secret identity through the magic of plot power)
Anyway, he shows up and offers Robin a job working for the military, though in a non lethal capacity. Bizarrely, Robin agrees to consider it (Him not killing I can accept, but being prepared to work with others who do as a matter of course should be ringing alarm bells)
He is driven to their base by the team as a guest, and is shown military courtesy down to the point of not quite disdain, very much a "You're a civilian to us, so we call you sir. That's the sum total to our interest in you as a person". Nice recruitment technique there, real charm offensive, though possibly quite realistic.
The Veteran is a new character (Though the implication is that there has been a Veteran for a long, long time, just not necessarily the same one), but generates a SMUG vibe at the megawatt range. Clearly he's a Willingham favourite because we'll never see him set a foot wrong, even when he's at odds with the entire ethos of the Bat-titles.
To be fair I can see the start of the argument quite well; Batman DOES train up exceptional "special ops" candidates, moreso than any other hero. And their reason for not recruiting Batman is plausible, inasmuch as he is the ultimate Type A personality. However their smug (Forgive me if I use that word more than once, it seems a singularly suitable one) dismissal of ANYONE who has saved the world on multiple occasions should have Tim reacting a lot more strongly than he does here.
That last page just plain baffles me, the point seems to be that there is an untold story about trying to recruit Dick Grayson when he was Robin. Again, fair enough, but their "need to know" bit at the end could easily by shot down by Tim saying "Fine, I'll just ask Nightwing, let him decide how need to know it is before I think about joining you"
Tim is offered a chance to spar with either of two members of the Veterans team, and sportingly offers that, to be fair, he'll fight them both at once, just for fun.
I love Scott McDaniel, I really do, his stuff on Nightwing was drop dead gorgeous, but I think that his work on Batman wasn't as good, and the reason for it is, bizarrely, the capes. His kinetic multi-pose-strobe style works terribly well with Nightwing, but with Batman and Robin the capes get in the way, hiding a lot of the physicality, if that makes sense.
So it's a relief here that Tim decides, for no apparent reason, to strip down to his long pants for the fight... oh, and the mask, ALWAYS the mask! :)
So the true First World War was the combined Napoleonic Wars,
The Second World War was what we call the First World War
The Third World War was what we call the Second World War
The Fourth World War was the Cold War
The Fifth World War is the current "War on Terror" which "most of the world want to close it's eye and pretend doesn't exist"... I sense a subtext heading towards text here...
However, I leave it to better military historians and commentators on current events than me to comment on the accuracy of these. I will add from vaguely remember high school history, that AFAIK the First World War wasn't named as such until the Second one came along, until then it was "The Great War" or optimistically "The War to End Wars".
I'm also not sure the Cold War counts as it was precisely NOT a war as such, it was a long form standoff and game of political one-up-man-ship without war ever being declared, and the "War on Terror" is a nebulous concept at best.
It could be, as Tim suggests, they are trying, unsuccessfully, to distract him, but it's terribly satisfying when the civilian teenager kicks the crud out of both of them with one smooth movement. Way to go Boy Wonder!
And this page approaches the WTF and zooms past it at a rate of knots. Apparently, the Batclan now avoid lethal conflict, not because of a sworn oath never to take a life, a guiding principle of the current Batman history, but because it saves on the paperwork and fuss involved in court appearances???
Tim reports his meeting to Batman, who (because of his mood as a result of War Games) seems fairly ambivalent about whether Tim takes the Veteran up on the offer or not. But then starts a complete investigation into the myth of "the Veteran". This is flatly contradicted a few issues later when Batman talks directly to the Veteran and it's clear they've known each other for years, so who knows what that bit was all about.
no subject
Date: 2011-01-15 09:13 pm (UTC)