Friends We Made Along The Way: Reviewing ‘Robin’ #11

Wrapping up any sort of story arc, especially one that has run through almost a dozen issues, comes with having to navigate a lot of threads to make sure some closure is brought to as many things as possible. Sometimes for both creator and audience alike, it can be akin to housekeeping of sorts, but other times it’s a perfect time to really showcase character moments and growth while teasing what will come next and laying down more mysteries.

That’s where Robin #11 lands as the fighting tournament storyline comes to its end.

Over these eleven issues, Joshua Williamson has been building a story that through the trappings of the fighting tournament and then the deep family revelations made, is really a big story dealing with Damian Wayne coming to grips with grief and guilt. After being part of what got Alfred Pennyworth, father figure and ally and friend to the Bat-Family, killed by Bane, Damian was struggling to deal with that and seemed to be falling back into many of his old ways. Yet, here we see him not only being the voice of reason to stop the war of the al Ghul family but wrapping up the fighting tournament loose threads alongside characters that he now calls friends.

Damian is a character that has grown much over the fifteen years that he’s existed in comics, but truly this series might have been one of the ones to have moved him forward the most as a character. Sure he’s still a bit snippy and snarky, as is his way, but claiming others as friends rather than just as a team or allies (except for his BFF Jon Kent of course) is a huge step forward.

Even the moments that are clear setup for where many of these characters will end up, and where the book is going next are well crafted and engaging as they give us more peeks into each character. Hopefully, this is not the last we see of folks like Hawke and Flatline as they work well with Damian. Ravager and Respawn, whoever he might be under that mask that shocked Ravager so much, are most assuredly set to appear in the Shadow War crossover between this book, Batman, and Deathstroke Inc. soon.

It’s good to see Gleb Melnikov return to the book, helping wrap up this storyline he was part of kicking off in the first place, with Luis Guerrero and Troy Peteri still on colors and letters. Melnikov’s artwork has been able to convey a lot of the lighter and more fun aspects of this story while still hitting all the levels of depth and darkness that are necessary. Along with bringing all the emotional weight through facial expressions and body language that help with all those aforementioned character moments.

Melnikov’s paneling work is top-notch as he not only is creative at the placement of panels depending on the mood or need of the page but knows when to break through those barriers. There are numerous moments where characters are standing or pointing or existing/crossing over into other panels. This is a larger-than-life sort of story and world and it’s great to see the art existing that way too. Many of the panel choices bring that dramatic energy that boasts some of the reveal or mystery pages even more.

While there is that dynamic energy through all the art, especially again in the awesome fight scenes, it’s also found within the colors. Guerrero continues to hit all the right moods with the perfect mix of bright shiny colors, shadows, and more fantastical/otherworldly hues. Each location they visit, Lazarus Island and Corto Maltese, has their own personality and energy on display here. A lot of more natural but still bright or shadowy colors for Corto Maltese, against the more supernatural and often very green-tinged (befitting of Lazarus) tone that one can find with Lazarus Island.

Completing the package is Peteri’s letters which continue the theme of energy and color and fun in the best ways. Greens and reds play heavily into many of the emphasized dialogue, which portrays yelling and whispering correctly with font size changes and styles. The always favorite code name logos in dialogue is still here, which is just a delight every time as it feels perfectly comic booky in the best ways. All this time we’ve gotten a lot of SFX that are powerful and right there in the action and can be ‘heard’ but I don’t think I’ve talked as much about how fun and adorable they can also be. Flatline and Robin doing a tag-team with a ‘Cute!’ SFX done in a cute font and color is the type of comic stuff I happily gobble up.

Every element of this run, no matter who has been involved in any given issue, has leaned heavily into the idea that a hard-hitting character exploration can’t also be fun and still have all the fantastical elements of this comic book world. Damian Wayne fans have been waiting for a series like this, and it has delivered for almost a year now, and there is more to come. I can’t wait to sit down and re-read the whole story arc as a complete whole.

Robin #11 is now on sale in print and digitally from DC Comics.