| Title | : | Red Robin, Vol. 1: The Grail |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 1401226191 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9781401226190 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Paperback |
| Number of Pages | : | 122 |
| Publication | : | First published January 1, 2010 |
Red Robin, Vol. 1: The Grail Reviews
-
I've been talking to people, letting them know if my comic ever got going and I was approached by DC to take on a character it would be Tim. Not because I love him, but because I believe he hasn't been all that interesting of a character in anything I read. (If you want to hear more about my pitch let me know! I'll post it/PM you!)
However, this is the first Tim-only story I read, and I actually dug it!
So Tim is lost. His parents are dead, Dick took on Damien as the next Robin, and he is the only person to believe Bruce is still alive. So he goes on a search to find him. On the way he's approached by Assassin's hired by none other than Ra. Whom also believes Bruce to be alive and tells Red Robin to join him so they can find him together.
It's really interesting to see Tim's inner turmoil. I feel for the guy. He's a young adult/teenager trying to find his place in the world. He won't give up on Bruce because Bruce wouldn't give up on him, and that's something special. I also enjoy the main storyline and a few twist here and there keep it fresh.
If you want a pretty darn good Red Robin story this is the one to grab. Reading volume 2 very soon. -
This begins with a Spanish politician's daughter being kidnapped and held for ransom. Red Robin, Tim Drake, takes down armed guards and an incendiary cyborg in order to save her. Red Robin seems skillful but cold and objective, almost stoic. And I'm wondering if I'm going to like this...
But then comes the flashback vital to character building, to instilling sympathy in the reader. And I feel for Tim, I really do. Post-Final Crisis and Battle for the Cowl, Bruce is gone and presumed dead. Dick takes over as Batman and Damian as Robin, leaving Tim in an awkward place. Dick says he needs Tim but not as Robin, while Damian, like a little shit, is horribly smug toward Tim. Tim naturally is angry, sad, and most of all lost. So he leaves Gotham to (in his opinion) find Bruce who he thinks is still alive. But meanwhile he's fighting crime on his own around the world to (in my opinion) grieve and find existential catharsis, making him maybe one of the most contemplative men of the Bats family yet.
I loved everything about this. The artwork is sharp and rich. The characterization and dialog are excellent. Tim is complex, far beyond a punch drunk sidekick. And there's real mystery here. He's mixed up with the League of Assassins and the Council of Spiders while piecing together Bruce's whereabouts, and he's got evidence that's he's still alive. How this series ever went out of print, I do not know. But I'm willing to spend $28 to read Vol. 2. -
still my favorite comic book run and character
-
Poor Tim Drake/Robin. Your mother is dead, your father is dead. Bruce Wayne & Dick Grayson, Batman & Robin, took you in when you had no one; Bruce made you his adopted son. Tim Drake became Tim Wayne.
But now, Bruce Wayne is gone. Everyone believes him dead. But you know better. He’s alive. Bruce Wayne is alive. You know it in your heart of hearts … but no one believes you.
Wait -- there is one man who has believes you -- one of Bruce Wayne’s greatest enemies, Ra’s al Ghul.
Thus, the first volume of Red Robin begins. In the aftermath of Final Crisis and Batman: Battle For The Cowl, the Batman books were shaken up considerably. Dick Grayson became Batman, and Damian became Robin. That left the former Robin, Tim Drake, without a hero identity. He became Red Robin, a hero originally created by Alex Ross for his classic graphic novel, Kingdom Come (interestingly enough, in that book Dick Grayson was Red Robin), and off to find the Batman Tim went.
On the original Robin title, writers like Chuck Dixon and Fabian Nicieza spent years transforming Tim Drake from a teenage hero to a mature, credible detective.
The Grail follows that pattern as Tim travels the world (Madrid, Paris, Berlin, Baghdad) searching for clues to Bruce Wayne’s whereabouts. Along the way, Tim reluctantly partners with members of Ra’s al Ghul’s League of Assassins (one of which is a bald woman named Prudence). That partnership forces Tim to ask himself just how much he’s willing to straddle the line between good and evil in order to achieve his desired end.
The Grail is a lot of fun to read, especially if you’ve followed the Tim Drake character over the years. As Tim makes this heart-wrenching transition in his life, he has a few heart-to-heart talks with Wonder Girl, The Spoiler, and even comes to blows with Dick Grayson and Damian. The more you read it, the more you realize this is the next logical chapter in the character’s life.
Yost also conveys Tim’s loneliness and isolation very well. Most of the people in his life think he’s crazy or in denial for believing Bruce Wayne is still alive. But he believes it with such passion and intensity that he ostracizes himself from the people he cares about, and that conflict and frustration come off really well.
This book has a really nice feel to it. Tim is isolated, but he also has some of his trademark wit so the book doesn’t turn into a giant sob story.
The Grail is a good read. It won’t exactly blow you away, but it’s good storytelling, with good characterization and good art. As a reader, that’s what I wanted to see out of this book. Tim Drake has been one of DC’s most intriguing characters in recent years. The Grail doesn’t drop the ball in that respect. -
Following the death of Batman/Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson assumes the cowl and becomes the new Batman with Damian Wayne as the new Robin. Tim Drake feels that Bruce isn’t dead and begins searching the globe, following his footsteps in Grant Morrison’s story “The Return of Bruce Wayne”, to pick up clues that Bruce is still alive and is slowly making his way, through time, back to present day Gotham. In order to find Bruce though Tim has to ally himself with one of Batman’s greatest foes – Ra’s Al-Ghul.
Chris Yost does a decent job of writing Tim Drake as an interesting character but I think there’s not enough meat for a full blown two volume series here. Yost is basically following in Morrison’s footsteps, but “Red Robin” isn’t necessary to read to follow Morrison’s Batman story arc, it’s more of an add-on for the hardcore Batfans out there who’ll read anything and everything about this series.
I like Tim but like Dick Grayson when he was younger and starting out as Nightwing, I think the teen, coming of age heroes are less interesting than when they’re older and have more experience. Here Tim acts exactly his age being melodramatic and hot-headed, making mistakes, and nearly dying for them. That kind of character doesn’t warrant an entire book and the book feels like what it is throughout – side story blown up to become a kind of main story.
Tim Drake/Red Robin is an interesting character with some hidden angles that aren’t really gotten into in this book (he’s darker, willing to cross lines Batman can’t) and I think the potential is there to develop him into a more substantial character but he needs his own storylines rather than playing off of Morrison’s Batman story arc that will always have Drake as a secondary character even in his own book. Decent script, decent art, but a book that fails to show Red Robin as a superhero worth reading – yet. -
My Brief Bookshelf Overview: gave-up-before-finishing, hell-of-a-ride, unrealized-potential
Additional Notes: This collection contains Red Robin issues #1-5.
Tries and (mostly) fails to be serious, though not altogether a waste of time. -
I think I just don't have enough context to properly appreciate this? May return to it after I understand more of WHAT IS HAPPENING.
Other thoughts:
- TIM MY POOR KID I BELIEVE IN U
- damian no
- this isn't news but i'm still batfam trash
- also this was scheduled to arrive on tim's birthday and i am very sad that it arrived late. -
This just wasn't enough, the story is short and it only moves a little bit from what is going to be the big picture. (The Return of Bruce Wayne)
-
Great start to Tim branching off on his own after the rest of the batfam doesn’t believe that Bruce is still alive. Tim will travel the world and go to any lengths to find Batman. Nice opening for the series.
-
To be honest, I'm pretty jaded with comics right now, and DC Comics in particular given everything that has happened to my beloved characters who once formed Young Justice, the remnants of which can still be seen lingering in Teen Titans once scribed by ne'er-do-well Geoff Johns. Okay so he does do well on occasion for instance the aforementioned Titans, and Green Lantern (or so I've heard). Honestly, I don't care for how Johns writes most DC characters, too much like he's writing a movie and doesn't want to alter them or make them in any way shape or form be important outside of their flat iconic OLD representations. Essentially what I'm saying is, Johns writes Superman like if he were writing the 80 some year old legend that is ... rather than, the adventures of Kryptonian come to earth Clark Kent/Superman.
That said, thankfully his hands are nowhere in this book. Still, I was expecting the worst. I didn't, here again before I read this, like the idea of my favorite Robin, Tim Drake, becoming this Red Robin persona. The artwork however, was irresistible. Ramon Bachs does a brilliant job of portraying Tim and Ra's al Ghul, and all the other characters that enter into the story. The books starts off nicely illustrated, this is clearly not someone who has never penciled a comic book or who is finding his feet on the art. He takes the character and makes him his own. And while the inks by Art Thibert seriously detract from the look of that issue, that's really more Mr. Thibert's fault than Ramon Bachs. Art Thibert having such a stylized, a la Jim Lee style of inks. Whatsoever he inks looks like he inked it and doesn't always work with the penciller he's inking. Still the book is beautiful in spite of that little artistic mishap.
As to the story, which was not what I was expecting, Chris Yost, in my opinion shot it out of the park. Not only is this first story arc not presented in chronological order, as most comics today are. He doesn't just throw in the broken flashbacks into the story for the sake of some minor reveal but he purposely plays with them all so as not to reveal everything at once. His fractured flashback storyline works really well to not only give us a sense of how lost Tim feels now that Bruce Wayne is allegedly dead and he's lost the mantle of Robin now that Dick Grayson has given it to Bruce Wayne's son, but he also uses it as a way to reveal the major villain in the story, heightening the mystery of the character, making us wonder how broken Tim and Dick's relationship really is.
Cutting between the present action and flashing back to what happened to lead him down this path, Yost doesn't lay all of his cards out on the table but slowly interests us in the story, while making sure we still care about Tim Drake. He shows us how Tim feels, feeling at times betrayed by former friends and allies, wondering what exactly it means to suddenly be Tim Wayne, when there's no Bruce Wayne to be his father figure and with it he plays up Tim's sense of loneliness and his separation from all the old familiar things. Chris Yost is taking this character to new places but he's letting us see and know where he came from, giving us glimpses of who Red Robin used to be, and how he's struggling to find a new identity.
All in all this book has renewed my interest in the character of Tim Drake even if he's no longer Robin. Yes, he's maturing, and Tim's growing up but this is the same Tim who pines for his friends Conner, and talks to Cassie a.k.a. Wonder Girl and was Batman's protege. Rather than just dropping in and changing everything Yost is respectfully letting us bid farewell to the old Robin and helping us welcome in Red Robin and writing a heck of a good adventure story, even throwing in some current events without making them the center of the tale and trying to pontificate his own world views as way too many Marvel comic books nowadays do. -
We're 3 for 3 on Tim Drake stories where I am constantly begging DC to give him a BREAK
There are great flashbacks to some time after Battle for the Cowl where Tim is just sort of reeling - his parents are dead, Bruce is dead, his friends are sort of letting him go, and Damian is taking over as Robin. Damian, in every panel that he's in in this volume, is the biggest little shit I've ever seen. Even Dick Grayson offers him a THERAPIST (which never happens lmao) and tim is so convinced he is alone they end up fighting for him to just leave Gotham.
I like the stories where a character is isolated beyond belief. He really has nothing (or at least believes he has nothing), so he's crossing some lines of violence to get clues as to where Bruce is (not that we really see this detective work of his, but I'm okay with that). I like when he gets sidetracked by helping the kidnapped girl in Spain, deep down he is still Tim Drake who wants to save everyone. I love the manipulation Ra's uses to help him out of some morbid curiosity - and to learn who is killing his own assassins.
There's only 4 volumes of this run, I'm happy with it so far. Interested how far they'll take Tim with the League of Assassins. And hoping he'll get a nap soon -
Art by Ramon Bachs: Great action sequences and vibrant pictures. The only weak point, for me that is, are the faces of the characters: their features are very rough, not sharp enough, not... well, pretty enough, to be honest.
Story by Christopher Yost: Fascinating story, well written and perfectly interconnected, not told in a linear way, but every scene has its own place. It's a character piece and at the same time, there's a large picture that you don't see until you have all the pieces.
I'm loving this story of Tim Wayne, formerly known as Tim Drake. He has lost everything: his father is dead, his best friend Conner aka Superboy is dead, Bruce aka Batman - Tim's adoptive father - is dead and he has lost his status as Robin to Damien Wayne, an obnoxious brat that Dick, the new Batman, chose as his Robin. Tim's the only one who believes that Bruce is still alive, somewhere, but his friends think he needs psychiatric help, that he lost it after Bruce died. And consider the irony - the only one who believes him is Ra's al Ghul and his League of Assassins that Tim ends up leading against the Council of Spiders. Yes, for Tim, everything is about shades of grey these days... -
Their was only one major problem I had with Chris Yost's storytelling. There's no doubt that Yost understands the character of Tim Drake, and the obvious similarity - personality and mindset - he has with Batman. But when it comes to the execution of the story, I was confused on plenty of occasions.
Yost constant use of flashbacks - especially when it didn't further the plot - threw off the pace of the story completely. I think there were parts of the story were the flashbacks weren't even properly stated to inform that reader it's even a flashback. I could wrong, maybe I should read it again. But from the first read, I cannot say I enjoyed it very much. -
Hmmm... not sure what to say. It could be that I'm just not feeling very well and can't focus ont the book, but I'm just bored and right now I can't finish it. Not sure what I expected, but maybe I will revisit it some day.
-
BEST TIM DRAKE COMIC EVER.
-
Tim drake is truly the best Robin. He’s the smartest, strongest and kindest. Best bat family member!
-
Con toda la restructuración de la franquicia de Batman que siguió a RIP y Crisis Final, parecía que Tim Drake (ahora Tim Wayne) se había quedado fuera de la ecuación. Dick Grayson era ahora Batman, y Damian Wayne, Robin. Entonces... ¿qué es ahora Robin? Pues la respuesta llegó de mano de Christopher Yost y Ramón Bachs en esta serie, pues después de la muerte de Bruce Wayne, Tim Drake se consiguió en el nuevo Red Robin. Y además, Yost le dio a la serie un nuevo enfoque que se centra en un hecho, y es que Tim Drake es incluso mejor detective que Batman, lo vimos en Año Tres, la saga que sirvió de presentación al personaje y en la que un jovencísimo Tim Drake descubría que Bruce Wayne era Batman y que Dick Grayson había sido Robin. Y Tim tiene una convicción que le hace apartarse del resto de sus amigos y compañeros, y es que Tim está seguro de que Bruce Wayne está vivo.
Así que la trama que Yost comienza aquí, en Grial, es el viaje de Tim Drake por el mundo para tratar de descubrir pistas sobre dónde (o cuando) está Bruce Wayne. Así que Red Robin deja atrás Gotham y en este tomo le vemos viajar a Madrid, Toledo, París, Praga, Berlín o Irak, y lo hace mezclándose además en un un espinoso asunto: alguien está matando a los miembros de la Liga de Asesinos, y Ra's al-Gul tiene un interés personal en averiguar el paradero de Batman...
Entendiendo que las colecciones "secundarias" de DC pasaron un auténtico descenso de calidad en el tiempo que fue entre Crisis Final/La Noche Más Oscura y Flashpoint, lo cierto es que Yost consigue plantear una historia con ritmo, interesante y bien planteada, aunque de momento este tomo de cuatro números USA, sabe realmente a poco. -
Red Robin #1-5.
I loved this series when it first came out, so I'm happy to find it mostly holds up. Yost understands Tim and does well with the concept: he is the only person who believes Bruce is still alive, so he goes on an international quest to prove it while getting involved with Ra's Al Ghul and yheeague of Assassins. This volume alternates between scenes of the action-packed and espionage-soaked present, scenes from the recent past to show how and why Tim left his past in Gotham behind, and scenes developing the growing threat of the Council of Spiders. Yost's understanding of Tim is best displayed in the narration, where his smarts and his headstrong nature are played well against his endless compassion for those around him. He's a man on a mission, but one who has people at the heart of everything he does. This is also a nice progression from recent events for the character: he's now out on his own, playing by his own rules.
Ramon Bachs's art is generally good in composition and figure work, but the digital inks by colorist Guy Major look rough and unfinished. Major was the colorist on the Robin book for a long time, but never an inker; I wonder if this was a new style DC wanted to try at the time. This art is what brought the rating down from a 4 to a 3 for me.
Looking forward to the next volume, which concludes Yost's year-long story! -
4.5
I really enjoyed this. All of the Robins have a schtick, and Tim Drake’s was probably the one with which I’m least familiar. That gets solved real quick, as his character and motivation are really well defined here. He’s on his own and is essentially cutting all ties to get to the bottom of one of the most important mysteries of the DC Universe (at the time). He’s jumping around the world, fighting off assassins, and going head to head with one of the biggest bads in the pit. He demonstrates just how effective he is alone and damn if he didn’t earn my respect. He’s a total badass!
The art is really good throughout. Nothing crazy stylized but clean, dynamic, and nice to look at.
One arc in and I already have my fingers crossed that DC prints this run into an omnibus. -
Fast read, but overwritten and overcomplicated. Feels like Chris Yost is trying to ape a Miller-type grittiness and losing site of proper tone, pacing, and clarity. The non-linearity becomes so confusing, and the plot of the League of Assassin’s being hunted down by a more dangerous assassin is cool on paper but does not work here, and is way less interesting than Tim hunting for Bruce and catching the attention of R’as. We also see very little of his investigation, and it feels like it all comes in monologue recaps, while we watch the same crime stopping scenes we’ve seen a million times before.
-
Even though I always saw people recommending this series, somehow I never got around to read it until now - and oh boy I should have done this ages ago. IT IS SO SO SO GOOD. It gives me that amazing feeling that comic books should give me all the time but they somehow fail (especially the new series).
I am very excited to see Tim's journey on finding Bruce, trying to deal with his losses and his depression, and also taking on Ra's Al Ghul. I'm also once again considering breaking the fourth wall so I can give this boy a hug. He deserves it extremely. -
I never thought I'd be a fan of Tim Drake. Jason Todd being my favorite of the Robins when he became Red Hood, I wondered how Tim Drake would grow out of being Robin. However, I became intrigued, so for my birthday I bought all four volumes of Red Robin and started reading them in one sitting. I wanted to know where the story was going and how he would outsmart a few villains and prove that Bruce Wayne was in fact, still alive. Amazing! I recommend this to everyone and give Drake a chance!
-
More like a 2 1/2 really - it's got some good bits to it, but only seems to really become engaging when it is more Gotham/ Batman family heavy. Some of the art towards the end is insane - there's one particular picture of Pru in the fourth issue where her limbs look like she's been badly mangled off frame and now has only arms that stop at her elbow - but weirdly the insane art in the last two issues is a good deal more likable than the blandly dull stuff in the first three issues. Weird
-
I'm jumping back and forth in the DCU Batman universe and I don't know it very well - and maybe that's why I liked so much this volume. Flashbacks and jumpy narration - I always appreciate books where the reader has to build the story from puzzle pieces. And Tim Drake's characterization really speaks to me here.
-
Decent story with some teen angst and solid art. Unfortunately, there are too many characters to keep track of for the uninitiated.
-
This just in: Tim Drake-Wayne is precious.
It's official. All four batboys are my fave. -
I adore Tim Drake - this was heartbreaking and hopeful and fantastic to read
-
I didn't know tim drake was such a bad ass
