Red Robin #7 written by Chris Yost and with art by Marcus To and Dexter Vines is part three of a four part arc called “Council of Spiders.”
Yost who through the past six issues has bombarded the reader with so many flashbacks, flash-forward’s and flash sideways that you did not know where you were half the time. Were you in the present with Tim, were you in the past, or were you with someone else?
These were questions I kept asking myself, thankfully, Yost has found some middle ground with this issue, although he does more jumping around than I’d like, at least it doesn’t feel like he’s using them to fill a mediocre issue. Story wise, Yost has crafted a very nice set-up issue here. I cannot wait to see how the next issue plays out. Though, just because I like Yost’s writing this issue, doesn’t mean I don’t have problems with the issue.
My issues are mainly art related with this comic. Although the art is ok, it does have some very serious continuity problems.
The first of these is when Tam is in the leagues hideout and she finds a sword and hits a member of the council of spiders in the face. My problem with this is that Tam used the sword and hit the assassin across the face with the sword, he should be dead. Instead the comic treats this like he got hit with a stick, even the word treats the shot like that, with a “Krack” sound on the image. Tam hit him with the metal part of the sword not the handle, so the assassin should at least have a scar and at most, be bleeding to death. Also, Tam found the sword in a box. It is nice to know that the league buys their weapons in bulk. They must get them at a nice discount.
Next page Tam has a gun, points it at the assassin before Tim shows up and the gun disappears, where did the gun go? Only Marcus To knows, and he is not telling.
The same problem happens to Red Robin later in the book, when he is stabbed in the back, we are given one panel of Red Robin holding his back before carrying on like nothing happened, and with no rip on his cape. These problems and others run through the entire comic and I have no one to blame but the artist himself.
The coloring for this comic, is just as bad as the art. It cannot decide whether it should be too bright or too dark. One part of the coloring is so bright, I had to shut my eyes a little not get a headache because of the brightness. On the next page, it gets really dark. This happens more and more when we get the flashes back and forth near the end of the comic, really ruining any tension for the last two pages the comic could have had.
Last month I badmouthed Yost for and giving us a pretty mediocre comic, not helped by a new team who seemed to be finding their feet I rated the issue badly all round. This month, I have to commend Chris Yost on a well handled story, which when jumping around, actually felt enjoyable, and everything that he had put in here felt like it had a purpose. It’s a real shame that inconsistent continuity in the art, a color pallet that didn’t know what it wanted from the comic let him down.
Red Robin:
Reviewed by Suavestar
