Review: Tim Drake Robin #5

Overview: In Tim Drake: Robin #5, the new nemesis of Robin is getting closer and Tim must seemingly do it alone to stop him.

Synopsis (spoilers ahead): As Tim Drake: Robin #5 begins, Robin takes to the night to search for Bernard.  He enlists the help of Nightwing and Starling in his search but no one has any luck.  He even has Batwoman check on Clayface but he is still in his cell.  Everyone vows to keep looking.

Robin blames himself as Nightwing tries to comfort his brother.  This conversation is interrupted by Sparrow.  She tells Tim that he has to see something at the Marina.  Tim arrives to find Bernard tied up and laying on the dock.  Tim finds that Bernard still has a pulse and tries to shout for help.  Someone comes up behind Tim and hits him in the back of his head with a pipe.

When Tim wakes up, he is tied up upside down and his captor appears to be Bernard.  Tim surmises that his captor is not Bernard but instead his landlord James.  Robin frees himself and begins to notice various symbols around him.  He also frantically searches for Bernard once again but he is soon faced with a gauntlet of creatures trying to kill him.   A voice taunts Robin throughout this ordeal with messages that he knows the vigilante and that he understands his search for a new identity.  He tells the boy that that is what he wants as well.  He tells Robin that he was just a goon but he wanted more.  He needed a hero to face.  A hero to make him better.

With all the fighting and taunting, Robin starts to notice a pattern in the symbols.  He sees the disc as the alchemist’s sign for the body.  But it is also the sign of salt.  He finds himself in a pare house with a barrel of acid.  He uses the acid to dissolve the salt that was holding the creatures together.

Now we see Robin running on board a boat.  He grabs the battery from the motor and uses the acid to dissolve more of the creatures attacking him.  Now it is Robin’s turn to taunt.  He declares himself as not a match for his adversary and demands to know where Bernard is.  Now the adversary finally shows his face.  He has named himself Moriarty.  He still is holding Bernard hostage and if Robin does not accept his proposal, he will die.

Analysis: There is no change to the art in Tim Drake: Robin #5.  My issues continue to persist.  I do not like the design of Bernard.  He continues to look like a female and not a male.  I do not like the design of Robin in this either.  He is shown as very cartoony with a pointed nose.  The type of style that does not suit this genre.  I did find the drawing of the creatures interesting but they are supposed to be monstrous and out of this world.  For them, this style suits their depiction.  Overall this art does not speak to me and takes me out of the story.

Story wise this is a much faster-paced chapter than the ones we saw previously.  The threat is real and palpable.  From the frantic search for Bernard in the beginning to Robin thinking his boyfriend could be the big bad in the story.  To rejecting that idea and being faced with numerous creatures all holding clues to how they can be beaten.  Finally culminating in the surfacing of the true villain of this arc.

Who is Moriarty?  I have no guesses.  He gives us clues, he was a small-time goon who hooked up with someone that told him how to become more than a goon.  He even equates himself to the Joker at one point in his monologue.

I do believe that the pacing of this story is a little too quick.  As in other parts, Robin appears to magically make connections without the proper build-up.  He makes conclusions without gathering clues and an adequate explanation of how he draws those conclusions and deductions.

I am becoming more and more disappointed in this story and I hope that it ends sooner than later.  I just do not care about this story and the longer it gets the more I do not care for it.  I am more interested in Tim’s relationship and his attempts to define himself.  We do not see Tim at all in this issue, he is Robin, and the constant mentioning of Batman shows that he is still in the shadow of the Bat, even in the Marina facing his own villain.  I do not see Moriarty as becoming like Anarky who was created solely as a foil to Tim Drake’s Robin.

Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with a copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.