Review: Tim Drake: Robin Vol. 1: Mystery at the Marina trade paperback (DC Comics)

Given previous rough entries in writer Meghan Fitzmartin’s Tim Drake canon, I had low expectations for Tim Drake: Robin Vol. 1: Mystery at the Marina. Fortunately my worst expectations did not come to pass, and if one tilts their head and squints, there’s some semblance of a Tim Drake series here fully in line with earlier, classic runs.

The difficulty I’ve felt in Fitzmartin’s work so far remains — the story will be going along swimmingly and then there’s some leap in logic or dissonant note that suggests a script still in need of seasoning. I generally adore artist Riley Rossmo’s work, but even here, characters look unfinished, faces are missing, and so on. This book is far from the disaster that Fitzmartin’s Dark Crisis: Young Justice was, but something just isn’t coming together.

[Review contains spoilers]

Fitzmartin’s first volume sees Tim striking out on his own, having moved to the titular marina, a neighborhood for Gotham’s alternative or impoverished. With sidekick Darcy “Sparrow” Thomas, he’s embroiled in a mystery in which Tim himself increasingly seems the target, one that involves clues that reference famous detective stories.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

All of that feels nicely familiar. Over the course of Robin runs by Chuck Dixon, Jon Lewis, Christopher Yost, and more, we’ve seen Tim adapt to new locations — boarding school, that time his father had to sell the mansion — each replete with their own new supporting casts and new mysteries. And I appreciate that Fitzmartin recognizes Tim as the “detective Robin” — some of Tim’s best (especially early) cases involved putting together clues, and it’s great that Fitzmartin’s story fits within that genre.

But there’s a clear tendency from early on for the story to zip through plot holes or venture things that don’t make a lot of sense. In the first main issue Robin defeats the apparition of an orangutan by giving it a straight razor to help it “feel like a man.” There’s a deductive leap here — I guess because the faux orangutan could then shave off all its hair — that I don’t think is logical to the reader, plus it immediately contradicts the set-up that the apparitions are dismissed in accordance with the mystery stories they relate to.

Robin is accused of stealing a diamond from a museum basically because the TV news says so, with no reason presented for why the police would think that. When Robin is led by boyfriend Bernard (who doesn’t know Robin is Tim) to hide out at Tim’s boat, Robin proceeds to take a shower(!), despite the innumerable ways this would put his identity in jeopardy. A lot of the end of the book turns on small white disks having created the apparitions because a disk is “the alchemist sign for body,” as if that obviously explains how a disk can create a glowing white orangutan. Fitzmartin can think of no better way for Tim to defeat a rampaging shark apparition than for him to make himself vomit on it.

Also, surprisingly despite Fitzmartin’s good emphasis on Tim as on-the-street gumshoe, we still get into some computer whiz technobabble nonsense. In the same breath as Batgirl Stephanie Brown asks Tim, “You think [the culprit] is the same person who tried to kill me with an elephant,” she also says, “Aren’t you a computer genius? This isn’t a quick search?” Fortunately Tim demurs, but it’s a strange view of crimefighting and the internet that Fitzmartin thinks searching “Who committed this crime I’m trying to solve” would result in a solution.

Along similar lines, Tim is given names as clues¹; he notes that he “did a quick google [sic] search for [the names] and detective novels, but nothing came up.” For someone that the other characters consider a “computer genius,” this seems awful basic tech; also I did that same search and the solution to the mystery was the first result (Raymond Chandler’s “Goldfish”). It’s a bunch of fun to see Tim teamed up with the Batgirls in these pages — again, just like old times — but a lot of times it’s as though the writer’s first plot concept went down on the page without further reflection.

As compared to another prominent relationship, Superman Jon Kent and Gossamer Jay Nakamura, it is an interesting conceit that Tim’s boyfriend Bernard doesn’t know his secret identity. I’d say “refreshing,” even — it’s a thornier idea in these enlightened times that someone should be dating and have a double life, but it’s also in the marrow of superhero tropes. From the aforementioned Super-characters to TV’s Arrow and Flash on through, secret identities (and, to an extent, the superhero character having a “normal life” at all) has become passé. Even in the Batman titles, there’s so much Bat-family now that nearly no one has to hide their superheroics socially; to that extent, the fact that Tim does — even, still does, since he famously had to hide his identity from his father and etc. — is a nice change.

At the same time, if I have hopes for Meghan Fitzmartin’s next and final volume after Tim Drake: Robin Vol. 1: Mystery at the Marina, it’s that we might get resolute confirmation that Tim is happy, whether Bernard knows his secret or not. After coming out, one might hope things would be easier for Tim — an answer, perhaps, for why he hadn’t felt totally “himself” up to that point — but much of this book still involves Tim mulling over his place and where he fits. This is not wholly out of character for Tim Drake, but it’s somewhat removed from the character who seemed, way back when, the once and future Robin, born for his role. If this series can leave us there, possibly fair is fair?

[Includes original and 20-some variant covers, including some awesome retro variants]

---

1. Confusingly, Fitzmartin has him think at first, “I recognize the names,” which leads the audience to think Tim does recognize them, but eventually we understand Fitzmartin means he doesn’t recognize them, they just sound familiar.  ↩︎

Rating 2.25