scans_daily

Much to my surprise, I see that we don't have much of this quintessentially awesome issue of Brave and the Bold on s_d, where Batman teams up with... well, ALL his Robins. And in true Brave and the Bold fashion, they happily break the laws of continuity if they think it'd be FUN! :)

The preview pages were posted last November, but since then, nothing.

Now it could be down to the fact it was the very devil to find in the shops, it took me months to find a copy in my neck of the woods, and by the time I did I think I must have assumed it had been posted already, but apparently not.

I considered this for a "One Perfect Moment" post, but couldn't pick one within my own rules of the thing (one scene, no more than two pages), so decide to make this a more general crowning moment of Awesome for the concept of Robin-inity.

Basically, Batman is dying, he's been shot, but not by a supervillain, but he was caught in an inadvertent spray of bullets as a gun fell from the hand of a very nervous mugger, who was robbing a couple and their young kid... in Crime Alley... That's the sort of thing Batman tends to take VERY personally and he sort of lost control for a moment. The end result, he got careless and got very shot indeed.

Whether he lives of dies will depend on the actions of the heroes Phantom Stranger has gathered through space and time, the heroes Batman trust (or will trust) more than any others in the world, his Robins. They have until dawn by the PS's estimate.

Now not all these characters know each other, Dick recognises a couple (but we don't know which ones, or how) but it's not long before the bickering starts, with Damian making snide comments about how girls can't be Robin's, which Steph and Carrie find more amusing than anything... Steph can only understand about one word in four that Carries says, and Jason is determined to go and sort things out on his own. It's wasting time, and eldest brother doesn't appreciate that.

Cruel little jibe to Jason there Damian, but it's adorable that Dick is the one person you WILL defer to.

The team (flock?) realise that they have one chance, get to a Lazarus Pit, and they known of one located within a distant mountain. They get there by Batplane in short order, and Dick takes the team into the cave complex to get the lie of the land before they risk transporting batman to the Pit. He asks two of them ("Tim and... Stephanie, right?") to stay behind. Damian thinks it shows Dick has good judgement, and Steph is irked, but Tim is calm about it.

Meanwhile inside, the flock has found the assembled ranks of the League of Assassins between them and the Pit. Damian attempts to order them out of the way as he is the heir to the League, but since he's in the past, that doesn't work. So they have to do it the old fashioned way....

I love they define the differences between them so succinctly.

Meanwhile, Tim and Steph are discovered by Ra's. Rather than fight him, they explain the situation, and Ra's decrees that Batman is a worthy foe who deserves a better death than being randomly shot by some nameless thug, and orders his men to take him to the Lazarus Pit, where he will be cured.

After dunking him into the Pit, Ra's mentions to the flock that there is one tiny little drawback he forgot to mention. The Pit will cure Batman, but also drive him insane.

Dick is NOT convinced...

Batman is somewhat perplexed by so many Robin's he doesn't know....

As Batman and the flock are returned to their own times and places by the Phantom Stranger's magic, the Stranger himself is talking things through with his ally Madame Xanadu, who now understands why her cards couldn't predict whether Batman would live or die, because so much depended on the actions of so many others...