Review: Tim Drake: Robin Vol. 2: A Case of Chaos trade paperback (DC Comics)

Meghan Fitzmartin’s Tim Drake: Robin Vol. 2: A Case of Chaos ties a bow on the writer’s Bat-saga; it seemed unfortunate DC was collecting the Batman: Urban Legends beginning from way back here with the end, but it also turns out surprisingly relevant. Tim’s boyfriend Bernard Dowd particularly shines in this volume; though Fitzmartin doesn’t seem to have an ongoing work with DC, hopefully whomever picks up Tim next will write Bernard just as strongly.

The book is far from flawless. As with Fitzmartin’s previous DC volumes, characters say or do things that fall apart with little scrutiny; there’s an emotional beat in the end that felt particularly unearned. But this is also a book where Tim Drake inspires Batman to defuse a situation with a hug, where canonically a lot of people profess to care about Robin Tim Drake when, for a period of time, he seemed like an also-ran in DC’s eyes. It may not last — Tim’s not the “Robin” in Batman and Robin, after all, nor any upcoming movies — but it’s nice to have a Tim Drake fandom resurgence, if only for a moment.