Robin: Year One

Rating:
Summary: A Compelling Look At The Boy Wonder's Rookie Season
Review: Following in the well-tread footsteps of Frank Miller & David Mazzuchelli's Batman: Year One comes this tale of Robin's first year in the green and yellow. Writers Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty provide some interesting plotlines, including a bizarre kidnapping/white slavery plot undertaken by the creepy Mad Hatter, and tell of Robin's first fateful encounter with Two-Face. They also manage to throw us a new villian, The Shrike, who would go on to vex the grown Robin, now called Nightwing, in his own DC series. The art, by Javier Pulido and Robert Campanella, is relatively simple-looking and attractive, and the interactions between Batman, Robin, Alfred, and Comissioner Gordon all rang true to this long-time Bat-fan. I think it's worth the purchase price just for the brief first meeting between Boy Wonder & (Future) Dominoed Dare-Doll Barbara Gordon. Robin: Year One doesn't break any new ground, but it's a well-told tale that deserves a look.

Rating:
Summary: Great collection
Review: Picking up where "Batman: Year 3" left off, we see Robin as he
begins his career as the sidekick after months of training under the master. You get the villians - Hatter, Mr. Freeze, Shrike, and Joker(briefly). And above all, Two-Face, who's savagery comes through in living color.
Alfred, the narrarator, is perhaps the best supporting character here. His feelings, fears and hopes perfectly accentuate the story. The retro art is first rate, echoing a bit of Ditko and Dick Sprang as well as Tim Sale, Mazzuchelli and Miller. With the glut of Bat-books, this may have been easy to overlook, but it's very much worth the time and money.

Rating:
Summary: Great collection
Review: Picking up where "Batman: Year 3" left off, we see Robin as he
begins his career as the sidekick after months of training under the master. You get the villians - Hatter, Mr. Freeze, Shrike, and Joker(briefly). And above all, Two-Face, who's savagery comes through in living color.
Alfred, the narrarator, is perhaps the best supporting character here. His feelings, fears and hopes perfectly accentuate the story. The retro art is first rate, echoing a bit of Ditko and Dick Sprang as well as Tim Sale, Mazzuchelli and Miller. With the glut of Bat-books, this may have been easy to overlook, but it's very much worth the time and money.

Rating:
Summary: A good story for the Boy Wonder
Review: Robin is one of the more popular, from a Pop culture commentary at least, comic book characters in in history. The early days of the character, his motivation and the reason's behind Batman's choice for acquiring a protégé is an interesting subject and worthy of exploration. This book unfortunately only covers these matters on a very surface level, and this is the one thing lacking in this book.

The story presented in "Robin: Year One" is very well organized and told in a direct manner and the artwork for this story is very well done. Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty do a great job of establishing the plot of this book and make a good choice of using Alfred Pennyworth as the narrative voice for this book. By using Alfred the authors are able to use him both as a device to move the plot of the story as well as due to provide an additional level of characterization to the three feature characters, Batman, Robin, and Alfred. The limitation of using this device is that while Alfred continuously questions Batman using a protégé the question is never put to Batman nor is it explained in another way, leaving this questioned unresolved throughout the story results in an unresolved plotline to the book.

The artwork for this book is provided by Javier Pulido and Robert Campanella. The style of these two artists is more characteristic of the animated "Batman" shows than the current line of Batman comicbooks. This choice of artistic style does not distract from the story, if anything it adds another dimension to it. The artists' styles give the story a timeless quality to it and add a classical feeling to the story itself. The clean lines and efficient presentation of action and scenery gives the story a tighter feel and can appeal to most reader's, without getting a dated look for later readers that many recent artists' styles have done.

Rating:
Summary: A good story for the Boy Wonder
Review: Robin is one of the more popular, from a Pop culture commentary at least, comic book characters in in history. The early days of the character, his motivation and the reason's behind Batman's choice for acquiring a protégé is an interesting subject and worthy of exploration. This book unfortunately only covers these matters on a very surface level, and this is the one thing lacking in this book.

The story presented in "Robin: Year One" is very well organized and told in a direct manner and the artwork for this story is very well done. Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty do a great job of establishing the plot of this book and make a good choice of using Alfred Pennyworth as the narrative voice for this book. By using Alfred the authors are able to use him both as a device to move the plot of the story as well as due to provide an additional level of characterization to the three feature characters, Batman, Robin, and Alfred. The limitation of using this device is that while Alfred continuously questions Batman using a protégé the question is never put to Batman nor is it explained in another way, leaving this questioned unresolved throughout the story results in an unresolved plotline to the book.

The artwork for this book is provided by Javier Pulido and Robert Campanella. The style of these two artists is more characteristic of the animated "Batman" shows than the current line of Batman comicbooks. This choice of artistic style does not distract from the story, if anything it adds another dimension to it. The artists' styles give the story a timeless quality to it and add a classical feeling to the story itself. The clean lines and efficient presentation of action and scenery gives the story a tighter feel and can appeal to most reader's, without getting a dated look for later readers that many recent artists' styles have done.

Rating:
Summary: Not your normal "Year One."
Review: The "Year One" story has become commonplace in comics today, and far too often the writers attempt to retell or update the character's origin, failing in the attempt. (For a perfect example of this see "Spider-Man: Chapter One." Better yet, don't.) This story evades that trap entirely and turns into a great character study of the boy who would become Nightwing and his relationship with his shadowy father-figure.

Chuck Dixon, between his work on Robin, Nightwing and the Birds of Prey, has got to be the most successful writer of Batman's "family" there ever was. In this book he teams with Scott Beatty to craft a tale not of the origin of Dick Grayson's Robin, but of his early adventures after he already secured the job. It shows off a new villain, makes it clear that things were not as easy as it would seem, and showcases the precarious nature of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in a fashion as good or better than any I've ever seen.

Dixon and Beatty also fill in a few blanks along the way. In encounters with later Robins -- Jason Todd and Tim Drake -- we learn that the criminal Two-Face was obsessed with Batman's junior partner. This story shows off how that began. We get to see a lot of the lamer villains -- the Mad Hatter in particular, in a far creepier light than usual. We even get some good character moments between Robin and then-Captain Jim Gordon, who is one of the best supporting characters in the history of comics.

All in all, a really good book for the Batman or Nightwing fan.

Rating:
Summary: Not your normal "Year One."
Review: The 'Year One' story has become commonplace in comics today, and far too often the writers attempt to retell or update the character's origin, failing in the attempt. (For a perfect example of this see 'Spider-Man: Chapter One.' Better yet, don't.) This story evades that trap entirely and turns into a great character study of the boy who would become Nightwing and his relationship with his shadowy father-figure.

Chuck Dixon, between his work on Robin, Nightwing and the Birds of Prey, has got to be the most successful writer of Batman's 'family' there ever was. In this book he teams with Scott Beatty to craft a tale not of the origin of Dick Grayson's Robin, but of his early adventures after he already secured the job. It shows off a new villain, makes it clear that things were not as easy as it would seem, and showcases the precarious nature of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in a fashion as good or better than any I've ever seen.

Dixon and Beatty also fill in a few blanks along the way. In encounters with later Robins -- Jason Todd and Tim Drake -- we learn that the criminal Two-Face was obsessed with Batman's junior partner. This story shows off how that began. We get to see a lot of the lamer villains -- the Mad Hatter in particular, in a far creepier light than usual. We even get some good character moments between Robin and then-Captain Jim Gordon, who is one of the best supporting characters in the history of comics.

All in all, a really good book for the Batman or Nightwing fan.

Rating:
Summary: Not your normal "Year One."
Review: The ???Year One??? story has become commonplace in comics today, and far too often the writers attempt to retell or update the character???s origin, failing in the attempt. (For a perfect example of this see ???Spider-Man: Chapter One.??? Better yet, don???t.) This story evades that trap entirely and turns into a great character study of the boy who would become Nightwing and his relationship with his shadowy father-figure.

Chuck Dixon, between his work on Robin, Nightwing and the Birds of Prey, has got to be the most successful writer of Batman???s ???family??? there ever was. In this book he teams with Scott Beatty to craft a tale not of the origin of Dick Grayson???s Robin, but of his early adventures after he already secured the job. It shows off a new villain, makes it clear that things were not as easy as it would seem, and showcases the precarious nature of the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in a fashion as good or better than any I???ve ever seen.

Dixon and Beatty also fill in a few blanks along the way. In encounters with later Robins -- Jason Todd and Tim Drake -- we learn that the criminal Two-Face was obsessed with Batman???s junior partner. This story shows off how that began. We get to see a lot of the lamer villains -- the Mad Hatter in particular, in a far creepier light than usual. We even get some good character moments between Robin and then-Captain Jim Gordon, who is one of the best supporting characters in the history of comics.

All in all, a really good book for the Batman or Nightwing fan.