#reckless robin

Ok, so if you’ve never read Impulse, first of all, I highly recommend it. It’s a delight. Anyways. In this issue, Bart finds out what April Fool’s Day is, which is... no one should have told him. So he runs off to Gotham to prank Robin. But he ends up in the middle of a hostage situation involving the Joker. Batman tells him to go home, but Bart kind of really wants to help. Again, Jason isn’t mentioned directly here, but he’s clearly on Bruce’s mind.

“I can’t work with someone with your reputation for not following directions and being... impulsive. I won’t allow you to help because I refuse to put anyone - not the hostages, not you - at risk. Especially around that maniac. You’re untried, untrained. If anything were to happen to you... believe me... it would be on my conscience for the rest of my life!”

Joker ends up saying that he’s going to kill everyone if Impulse doesn’t run him a bunch of errands, so Batman reluctantly lets him help. If he doesn’t talk to Joker and doesn’t go within 20 feet of him. Bart agrees, and does his best to follow Batman’s rules. Joker notices and starts taunting Bart and Batman (who is outside disabling one of Joker’s traps). Which is where the next Jason mention comes in. Joker tells Bart that he blew the last Robin up, which is why Batman didn’t want Bart helping.

But Bart ends up running circles around the Joker, he and Batman save the hostages, everything ends well. Batman even tells Bart that his grandfather Barry would be proud of him.

Reckless Robin: 10

Symbolic Memorial: 7

Long post!!

I will be including flashbacks, mentions of his name and symbolically important inclusions of his memorial case.

To the surprise of no one, the mystery person from last issue is Tim. His meeting with Dick happened in New Titans, which I’ll get to at some point probably. In this issue, he’s at the manor with Dick and Alfred, where he marvels at their art and introduces himself. Then he voices the same concerns literally everyone has been having since Jason died. Bruce is going off the deep end.

Tim tells his story about how he figured out Robin’s secret identity, and from there Batman’s. Which brings him full circle to being worried about Batman, and trying to convince Dick to be Robin again.

Meanwhile Batman and Two Face try and out think each other. They each set up a trap for the other and lie in wait, but then they both leave because the other’s trap was too enticing. Two Face goes to Club Gemini to steal 22 million dollars, Batman ends up at a suspension bridge, trying to save the Wright twins, Alan and Richard.

“If you listen to me, you’ll make it out alive. So don’t be a hero, okay? Just do as I say, Jason--” So here it begins. The first instance of blaming Jason for his own death. Jason disobeyed Batman, tried to be a hero and died because of it.

Anyways. Batman saves the two kids. Over at Club Gemini, Two Face flips a coin and leaves without the money. Nightwing leaves the cave, and Alfred gives Tim the idea of being Robin himself. The issue ends with Two Face’s radio giving him ideas for more plans, and Bruce brooding because he’d been too busy pushing people away to think about asking Gordon to stake out Club Gemini, or to save the twins. The last mention of Jason is during his brooding.

He’s finally acknowledging that he’s not doing great! Awesome!

For the most part, Tim was talking about Jason pretty neutrally. He didn’t really have an opinion, which makes sense because he doesn’t know anything about the situation. And Alfred and Dick are mostly trying to get answers from Tim. Bruce, however, is clearly projecting on the Wright twins, trying to save them like he couldn’t save Jason. He’s also trying to save himself from the blame if he fails though. If the Wrights die, it was because they didn’t listen to him. Like it was with Jason.

Reckless Robin: 1

His Own Fault: 1

Continuing from last time, the issue starts with Commissioner Gordon, the Joker and Batman all remembering various laughs. Jim is remembering his daughter’s laugh, her joy as she did gymnastics, Joker is remembering laughing when he first murdered someone and Batman is remembering the laughs of his Robins.

“Perhaps darker, colder, but still young and filled with life.”

The memories continue with Jim remembering Joker shooting Babs, with Joker remembering that he almost died, with Bruce remembering that Jason died.

The issue continues with the police figuring out that there’s a Joker impostor, there’s a Joker-on-Joker confrontation, which real Joker leaves with a bullet in his arm and another crisis of comedy. Then fake Joker sets up another confrontation at ACE Chemicals, and to prove that he’s better than the real Joker, he jumps into the same acid that real Joker fell into. Unfortunately, this vat contains a stronger concentration of acid than it did when real Joker fell in, and fake Joker dies horribly. Batman and the Commissioner both wrestle with their desire to see justice done, but also their desire to see the clown dead. Joker goes back to Arkham, comedy back and ready to face the world.

Reckless Robin: 3

Brooding Bats: 8

Death Scene: 4

Another long one, another cut.

This issue very heavily references the events in Detective Comics, where Tim and his parents, Jack and Janet, go on a vacation that goes horribly wrong. Janet is killed by someone called the Obeah Man, and Jack goes into a coma. I haven’t gotten to those comics yet, but I will. Eventually.

People who previously didn’t have any kind of criminal experience are suddenly going around killing people on a whim, all while wearing the same ghost-like mask. Both Batman and Vicki Vale are investigating.

Meanwhile Tim, not quite Robin yet, is having a pretty major nightmare. He’s in a graveyard, and two of the tombstones are dedicated to the parents of Dick and Jason. In this case, I think it’s referring to Sheila Haywood, as it specifies “The mother of Jason Todd: Murdered” and Catherine wasn’t murdered. So yeah, they don’t know what happened.

Jason is seen in the nightmare to be standing next to Janet’s grave with Alfred and Jack, while Batman and Nightwing lower her coffin in. Tim tried to pull of Batman and Nightwing’s masks, to see what they’re hiding, but they have masks under their masks. Jason peels his face off, revealing what looks like a corpse, and Tim wakes up.

When Tim wakes up, Batman (yes, he’s in cape and cowl) asks Tim if he wants to talk about it, but Tim does the tough guy thing and says he can handle it. Then Batman reminds Tim that today is his mom’s funeral.

Batman and Vicki do more investigating, then five minutes before they have to leave for the funeral, Bruce asks Alfred how Tim is holding up, to which Alfred replies, “Broken hearted, angry, confused, afraid.” Bruce sympathizes, and heads downstairs to get him.

Considering the placement of the Robin mask when Bruce says that the anger will be Tim’s friend one day, I’m marking that down as another “angry Robin” reference.

At the funeral, Dick and Bruce discuss Tim and how he’s going to want to put on the suit. Bruce says that he won’t though. Meanwhile, Vicki does even more investigating, and she’s getting pretty close to figuring out who is behind all these masked murders. Later in the cave, Bruce says Tim can’t come out with him as Robin. Tim asks why not, and Bruce says, “You tell me.”

Tim, previously pretty neutral when it comes to his opinion on Jason, says that Bruce thinks that “[his] anger will boil over, the way Jason’s did.”

Ok, so there’s the placement of the mask a few pages back, Tim’s opinion on Jason and his anger, and Bruce saying that if Tim disobeys him, he can forget about being Robin, with a very conveniently placed memorial. That’s three counts of Reckless Robin in one issue. Good job.

Anyways, Tim plans on showing Bruce that he can totally handle being Robin. 

The issue ends with Vicki finding out that someone has been drugging people to make them do the crimes they did, and tracking that drug to a warehouse. Then she turns around and someone is trying to murder her.

Reckless Robin: +3, total: 6