The obvious first answer is that Bill Willingham is just killing time. You can tell from the series of seemingly pointless fight issues, that he's been told "don't do anything major with the character, just leave him for the new creative team coming on at One Year Later". While for me personally, the artwork has been a stumbling block (Scott McDaniel is a nice upgrade over Damion Scott, whose fight scenes were almost incomprehensible at times, but McDaniel's style seems too blocky, I guess), the stories themselves haven't grabbed me and for that, the blame falls to the writer.
Two things: First, Bill Willingham seems to be a pretty good writer. I mean, it's hard to find a blog that doesn't sing his praises for Fables, so clearly we're talking about someone with talent, not Chuck Austen (damn, there goes my resolution to stop taking shots at Chuck Austen).
Second, as I've said before, I feel like the book's been hamstrung by the deaths of Jack Drake and Stephanie Brown, and I don't know how much control Willingham had over that. It may have been something he had no choice about, but it may have been something he thought was a great idea. If that's the case, he's an idiot. Still the loss of those two characters highlights what I think is the major missing component in the book, especially since War Games: Tim Drake.
I'll admit this is a bias of mine. I think that Robin, like Spider-Man, is most effective as a character when having to balance super-hero and civilian activities. But since Tim moved to Bludhaven, how much of that have we seen? We saw him go to public school, not react well to what was admittedly some pretty insensitive questions from the other students, and that was pretty much it. 'Uncle Eddie' shows up and pulls Tim from the school, and that's the end of that.
We don't see Tim trying to deal with the fact he's made himself highly unpopular, and so maybe he tries to make some friends. Heck, Tim's stepmom is in a mental health facility, and he hasn't visited her once. Not once! Alfred has been there at least twice that we've seen.
The closest we came to Tim Drake moments was when Darla Aquisita showed up again. That's cool, she had been very interested in Tim before she got shot, Tim and Stephanie had been drifting a bit, so there was a human element there. Of course now Darla is 'Warlock's Daughter' and she's here to kill Robin, so Tim has a bit of a conundrum. And that was actually a nice issue. Both parts of his life conflict, but it's the exception.
Here's why this bothers me. Tim has said, on more than one occasion, he doesn't want to be Batman, and he certainly doesn't want to be the gun-toting version of himself he saw in the future. I think. He's made some comments about wanting to shoot criminals and only maybe being joking, plus all the time he spends with these military folks. . .
Anyway, so supposedly Tim wants to be a great crimefighter/detective, but not a closed off, no life person like the Batman. And Tim does still have friends, and he does still have fun. . . with the Titans. As Robin.
But when your whole life is what you do when you have that mask on, and there isn't anything else to you, then I think you're pretty close to becoming Batman. I mean let's face it: Bruce Wayne might as well be a holographic image for as real as he is right now, and Tim Drake seems to be in danger of going the same route. Or maybe I'm overreacting. Maybe it's just a phase, and the new creative team will get Tim back into more real people stuff. If DC really plans to go in a lighter direction, then that would make sense.
5 comments:
Part of the thing about Tim though is that his becoming Batman is pretty much something they've been building since 1990. It was first *outright* said in Cataclysm (Where Bruce tells 14 year old Tim that Az was a mistake to choose as Batman, Dick served well, but Tim would be ideal) He constantly says he doesn't want to be Batman but that's because even he knows it's all but inevitable.
And Tim's never really had a life outside of Robin. Hell, he was nine when he started stalking Dick and Bruce and that was 4 years before he ever put on a cape. Jack Drake was comatose for most of Tim's early run, Steph was a girl he met through being Robin (The Cluemaster's would-be vigilante daughter). He's cut most of the extraneous stuff out.
That said, I'd also like to see Tim forced to interact with people in his civilian identity. If not in school, maybe rebuilding Drake Industries, he'd definitely be capable of doing it. Though I can't see it being anything more than "Bruce Wayne" is to Batman.
The panel in Identity Crisis pretty much showed it. Tim, half out of his Robin costume above his dad's corpse, pulled into the embrace of the faceless Bat. It's sealed his fate.
But I'm sure they'll institute some sort of civilian challenges in the coming year, he can't be a vigilante every moment. And as a teenager, realistically, he's going to have to do something about his education and circumstances (I can't see him mooching off Bruce) so I'm optimistic.
Bill Willingham is an excellent writer. It's just that he was hamstrung by editorial. He has publically said that the two deaths you mentioned were editorially mandated. As was the move to Bludhaven.
So basically Willingham was stuck with a lot of things that didn't really work well, and he had no other way to deal with it. Plus, I just don't think that Willingham and Robin meshed well. But I'm desperate for this week's Fables and am excited as all get out for the upcoming Shadowpact.
All that being said, you're absolutely right about Tim Drake. And I think we will see more of him after the jump. DC has made it clear that they're trying to bring back secret identities as an important part of superheroes. So hopefully Tim will be one of those.
Well, post-[b]InC[/b], they've got him in a costume with all the colour, except red and black, stripped out, and with more Batman-like elements added, so visually at least he seems to be heading the way of his mentor.
But do I think it's inevitable (as inevitable as it can be when we know that DC won't make any kind of permanent change like change the man under the bat-mask) that Tim become the Bat.
Well, I guess Tim couldn't stay Robin forever, but I guess I've just seen too much, I don't know, joy or upbeatness or something in him to really envision him as Batman.
kelvin: Yeah the costume change certainly seems to signify that trend.
diamondrock: Yeah, I don't like to hate on Willingham's run for precisely that reason, I wasn't sure how much control he had, or if it was just the hand he was dealt. Because I liked his first few issues, when he introduced Johhny, later Johhny Warlock. Then, the supporting cast started dying, and I started enjoying it less.
kali: You're probably right about 'Tim' being fairly limited, though I do remember he had a girlfriend back when the comic first started (Ariana?) who was just a normal girl, and being Robin got in the way of that.
That's probably the Peter Parker element I saw that interested me initially to be honest. Them on a date, traveling on the subway, because Tim has no lisence, even though he can drive an awesome car (the Rebdird). Whatever happened to that girl?
Actually, really early on, Tim's got a license because of his father's injuries/disability.
He'd since recovered somewhat, but if you recall in Rite of Passage, Jack Drake was very badly injured, comatose and paralyzed. So Tim got a specialized license to be able to handle the transportation aspect.
The issue with the subway was that he didn't have a car. The Redbird was work.
And it didn't work out with Ariana. It was actually kinda sweet really. It was an amicable split. Which I thought was realistic, as who really ends up forever with their girlfriend from when they're 14.
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