Reviews

I loved the moral and ethical issues brought up in this series. It doesn’t shy away from showing Dick involved in intense violence, dealing with issues that many adults would even struggle with. The darkness of his surroundings is contrasted with the brightness, his joy, and his youthful innocence. It also planted the seeds of discord between Bruce and Dick, and displayed how Bruce is honestly incompetent at showing love properly. The art helped to show this as well, and was really enjoyable.

I really liked this!

howdyellie's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional hopeful mysterious tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

4.0

I would've torn through this a lot faster if the Alfred blurbs had a better font. It's very hard to read in some panels (bold cursive). I can definitely see the Frank Miller influences in this comic.

Content Warnings

fandom4ever's review against another edition

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adventurous dark emotional funny hopeful tense medium-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? Yes
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

Robin: Year One is just as the title suggests, Dick Grayson’s first year as Robin the Boy Wonder. It’s a meaty four issue arc that sees Robin facing the likes of Mad Hatter, Killer Moth, Two-Face, the first Blockbuster, Mr. Freeze, and Shrike. As such, the story contains Robin’s first adventures leading up to his first firing by Batman and the subsequent fallout of that decision. The overarching story is told through Alfred’s journal entries as he observes Bruce and Dick and their interactions with each other as they both unknowingly help the other heal. I loved seeing the evolving relationship between Dick, Bruce, and Alfred and how they're slowly becoming a family and learning to rely on one another.

This was the second time I’ve read Robin: Year One. The first time was before I started a Nightwing (1996-2009) and eventually Prodigal read. I’m glad I had read this first because this story features importantly in both Nightwing (with the Shrike storyline) and in Prodigal (with Dick having to confront his fears of Two-Face). But reading it again in a story timeline order, I now also got to see how strong this comes off from Dick/Robin’s origin in Dark Victory and The Gauntlet. And not only that, but I got to pick up on a joke about Blockbuster. Robin says he wouldn’t want to go against the massive man if he also had a large intelligence, and of course Blockbuster is Dick’s biggest foe in Blüdhaven as Nightwing! I just love seeing that if you know the right stories and the right order, events flow so seamlessly into each other.

I would absolutely recommend this story to any DC or Dick Grayson fan. There is amazing character depth, great action, and a whole lot of heart. It has definitely become a favorite of mine!

daileyxplanet's review against another edition

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4.0

Every author of a Year One has the option to attempt to emulate the Frank Miller / Klaus Janson classic or avoid it. Robin Year One doesn't tell the origin story at all, picking up after the Grayson's have been avenged.

There are some Spider-Man influences, Grayson straddling his responsibility with school and trying to be a kid.

ssxras's review against another edition

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adventurous emotional funny hopeful inspiring reflective fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

oddmara's review against another edition

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3.0

I enjoyed the new duo of Alfred and Robin, it was a very sweet read to see the balance between his life at school and life at home, and I enjoyed seeing more of Alfred and his inner thoughts. I really like the binary storytelling that Batman comics have, always interchanging between two characters, one on the field and one related to it, and I thought the balance Alfred/Robin was just as good as the Gordon/Batman balance.
Their fight was heartwrenching, Robin's goodbye letter was angst in its purest form, but honestly, I wish we would have seen Batman's reaction a bit more to it. I know this is Robin's story, however, if we had an issue about Batman's time without Robin in it (or even half of one), where we don't see ANYTHING of Robin's life, the tension that would have come out of that would have been so much better than the parallel storytelling between the two of them, which didn't do much besides creating a vague sense of sadness.
I also found it weird how helpless Batman was portrayed in this story. Without mistake, every single mission he went in with Robin, he was downed and Robin had to save him. And while that would have made sense if, let's say, Batman's mistakes were based on him getting distracted out of concern for Robin, all of his mistakes were because of himself. Which is weird considering that even in Year One he got downed less, and he had no fucking clue what he was doing (wasn't even wearing a bulletproof vest) while here everything happens AFTER The Long Halloween and Dark Victory.
I also liked the Dent exploration as an actual villain (and Bruce referring to him as Harvey while Dick referred to him as Two Face did hit me in the gut), I loved his hissy fit over Robin not wanting to play his game (because he learned his lesson and also has trauma tm now), however he felt a lot less daunting and scary than in all of the previous stories. He fully felt more in line with the joker this time, which is a bit upsetting to me since the reason he is such an amazing villain is because he doesn't fall within the spiralling villain tropes and is a lot more cold and calculated, so in terms of Dent's character, this was a huge downgrade.

x_bird's review against another edition

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adventurous dark mysterious fast-paced

Plot- or character-driven? A mix
Strong character development? Yes
Loveable characters? Yes
Diverse cast of characters? No
Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

5.0

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