Fledgling Talon
Written By: Patrick Gleason, Ray Fawkes
Art By: Scott McDaniel, Andy Owens, Chris Sotomayor, Tom Napolitano
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: December 23, 2015
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Better late than never, that's what I always say....... at least that's what I always say when i have reviews that are late as hell like this one. With the second issue of Robin War coming up, I figured I'd better get off my duff and put this up so that I don't get called out later on. In the previous chapter to the Robin War, we saw our Robins take on the Talons keeping them in their cage after Tim and Jason display a strange but clever ruse, but it's a out of the frying pan and into the fire situation when we find out that a group of Elite Talons were waiting on the roof for our heroes........ so don't break out the pinatas and RC Cola just yet. Also in that issue, Jim Gordon and Dick Grayson discovered that Council Woman Noctura is working with the Court of the Owls and I'm left wondering why no one cares about that street Robin Travis, who shot the cop and who was eventually gutted by a Talon at the end of the first issue of Robin War.......... I just thought it was going to have a bigger impact........ still wondering though. Okay, let's jump into this issue and see what Damian's title has in store for us with this event. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with our Bat-Family Robins doing their damnedest to take on the Elite Talons, while our Midtown Robins........ and whatever slacker Robins happen to be with them do their damnedest not to die......... because really, there's no reason that these Robins should ever go up against a Talon, especially not an Elite Talon! So yeah, the fight is on and going against every damn thing I yell at the book, the rest of the street Robins begin fighting as well...... all except Riko that is. She's too busy having a nervous breakdown, while singing the Court of the Owls nursery rhyme to be any good in this fight and I have no idea how it was managed, but by the time the fight is finished and our heroes come out on top, not a single fatality occurred. Elite Talons my ass, these boys are getting soft. Hell, Damian even went and got to use one of those exploding barrels he was trying to detonate two issues ago, when he tricked a Talon into scratching it and even though he was right next to the damn explosion, Damian was peachy keen.
After the fight is finished and Riko gets her senses back, she tells everyone how she saw other Talons over at Gotham Academy and the team decide that they better go take care of that problem before anything else.......... only thing is, Damian has now gone AWOL. Isn't it just like our little pumpkin headed boy to go and do something rash on his own? Oh Damian. So yeah, our Robins head over to Gotham Academy and they find what looks like to me to be the last boss in the original Contra, hooked up to a bunch of coffins. Apparently, the Court of The Owls are birthing these Elite Talons out of this monster machine and thanks to Jim Gordon Batman showing up and using his fancy schmancy rocket launchers, Gotham is saved from a future brood of these so called Elite Talons........ seriously though, they were taken down by a bunch of once side kicks and some street urchins, so I don't know how elite they actually are. With that taken care of we move to Dick Grayson, who is just beating the hell out of Talons as he moves his way through the Owl's labyrinth looking for whoever's in charge. As it turns out though, all he had to pull was a "Take Me To Your Leader" because the Talons are apparently all about it.
In the end, Dick is brought before the Court leader and while it may not be a shock to some, it's strange to me that it's Lincoln March.......... you know, after the Owl genocide he committed during the Court's first story arc. So yeah, it's Lincoln March and even though Dick thought he would be safe because this whole event seemed like it was set in motion to get Grayson back in Gotham so the Court could get back to recruiting him, we see that things have changed when Lincoln throws what appears to be some kind of acid, even though it most likely is just a drug in Dick's face and tells Dick that the Court no longer needs him because they have someone better to be their "Gray Son". As our issue ends we see Damian surrounded by Talons, rocking a Court of The Owls mask.
That's it for this issue of Robin: Son of Batman and this chapter of the Robin War and right off the bat I'm happy as hell that this chapter was at least a bit different than the previous two because damn was The Cage boring as hell. Just a way to get the majority of our Robins out of the way so Dick could catch up to what we knew from the first issue. While most of this story was entertaining with our Robins overcoming adversity and taking the Court of the Owls down a notch, I just don't see what all the hubbub was about because I don't have any idea how Elite Talons factor into this story more than Talons = bad and Elite Talons = worse. The only thing that really gets the story feeling like it's moving again is Dick Grayson confronting Lincoln March and us finding out that Damian has gone to the dark side. As for the art, I think that Scott McDaniel did a half decent job at times, but the majority of the book looked rough and I just found myself wondering what the book would have looked like if Patrick Gleason had been on pencils like he usually is. So yeah, not the best chapter to this story and I hope beyond hope that Robin War #2 can tie everything together because right now the only decent issues have been the first issue to the Robin War and the Grayson tie-in.
Bits and Pieces:
While this isn't the best Robin War tie-in that we've gotten so far, it does manage to move the story further than the previous two chapters to this event and moving is something that I can really get behind at this point. But when it's all said and done, the only reason to really read this issue is for the cliffhanger because the rest of it is full of a Talon side story that I don't fully understand because it just came out of nowhere.
5.5/10
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