I honestly haven’t been paying much attention to what has been going on in the Batman and ________ (not Batman and Robin, since Robin is sort of dead) comic. It’s been there in the background for me for a while, but I haven’t been keeping up on it… until now. After a rather long buildup, it sounds like a certain someone is coming back now… or will he? Let’s find out. Is it good?
Robin Rises: Omega #1 (DC Comics)
After a recap of Damian’s history, we return to the present where we see a small army from Apokolips facing down Batman, Frankenstein, and Ra’s al Ghul with his forces. The Apokolips forces are after the Chaos Shard, the one Ghul was planning on using to resurrect Talia and Damian. With Batman and Ghul refusing to hand it over, an all-out epic battle between them and Apokolips takes place.
Get ready to rumble in three… two… one…
Getting straight to the point here, this issue was a lot of fun to read. It had some problems and it was essentially just one long fight scene with a bit of talking at the start and end, but it was a blast to read regardless. The story itself was simple and does get the new arc off to a decent start, with how it starts and where it appears to be ending. Now whether or not it will result in Damian’s resurrection I’m not really sure, but we’ll eventually see. Either way, the setup and the big long fight scene here to make the comic as a whole enjoyable.
With the writing, it’s perfectly fine for the most part. The dialogue is decent enough outside of one or two silly, cheesy sounding lines, and the characters do seem in character for who they are, though I thought Batman got past his anger issues in previous issues of this series. The pacing is good and knows when to slow down or speed up. My only real issue with this comic is the timeline/past events that are mentioned. I tend to ignore the Batman five year timeline because it makes no sense for how certain events happened within that limited amount of time, and for a lot of the events mentioned in the present and during the flashback, it just doesn’t add up. It also mentions events like Final Crisis, which really can’t fit into the New 52 continuity. Again, it really doesn’t make much sense and will just give you a headache trying to figure it all out.
Nope. Not exactly sure when or how this all happened.
The artwork for the issue is provided by Andy Kubert and it’s perfectly fine. I’m not a real big fan of his work, due to his characters always feeling a bit of off when I look at them, but it works here. The fight scene is dynamic and epic, the layouts are easy to follow, the colorist does a decent job here, and the characters (despite feeling awkward from bad posing or musculature) are fine as well. It works well and fans of the artist will certainly enjoy the art here.
Is It Good?
Robin Rises: Omega #1 is a good start to this new arc, promising an interesting direction for the Batman and Robin series and providing a long, but fantastic looking fight scene. The continuity is pretty messy, but if you can get past that and you are excited by the possibility of Damian coming back, then this maybe the right time to check out this particular series and its one-shot starting point.
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