Robin: Son of Batman #12 Review and *SPOILERS*

Lousy Kids and Their Take Over The World Plots

Written By: Ray Fawkes
Art By: Ramon Bachs, Mat Lopes, Tom Napolitano

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: May 18, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

While I love Damian Wayne and his role as Robin to our Batman, this series has been something that I haven't really gravitated towards the way I originally thought I would when it was announced.  Yeah, it has its moments now and again, but for the most part I guess I just wanted more of a Robin book than a Damian Wayne book dealing with Al Ghul business........ while dressed as Robin.  That's on me though and like every other book I go to review, I go in with a happy open mind because despite what some people like to believe, I want to love every book I read........ Especially if they're about Damian kicking some Arkham ass in Gotham, but yeah, we don't have that here.  Let's jump into this issue and see if Damian accompanied by his parents can stop Suren Darga from bringing on the end of the world.......... and the location for the beginning of the apocalypse just so happens to be at Dinosaur Island!  As cool as that sounds though we don't really do much with dinosaurs or the majority of the island...... spoilers bitches!  Let's check it out.

Explain It!

As I said in the opener, our issue takes place on Dinosaur Island, where Suren Darga and Maya were teleported at the end of the previous issue.  It gets weird as hell though because Lu'un Darga loyalists are waiting for Suren to complete the end of the world ritual and immediately shoot Maya with an arrow........ and I'm not going to lie to you, I was initially shocked....... until I read the next page and we find out that she's fine.  It was supposed to be a poison arrow, but Talia apparently made Maya immune somewhere in a previous issue........ or in between issues.  Really though, this is all here so we can find out that Maya has a bomb planted underneath her so Batman gets out of the story by disarming it.  

Damian takes Goliath and goes flying into the ritual area, which is probably the coolest part of the book to me because apparently you can only get to it if your blood is connected to the lazarus pits and I can't say I know how it works, but Damian having this attribute flies Goliath down into a volcano, past the lava and beneath all that we have Suren about to drop the last artifact from Damian's Year of Blood into the heart of the lazarus pits, bringing forth the end of all things........ Which he totally does and our issue then becomes a child on child fight...... which I normally love and would pay to see....... you know, if that kind of thing were legal, but things get crazy because a tree grows out of the lazarus heart and I was initially lost as it became gigantic and towered over the island and our hero and villain just continued to fight.  It did get good though because Damian gets Suren to finally see the light as he explains that he's only being used to expand his father's legacy and the similarities to Batman and Damian are uncanny.  After Robin gets Suren to use his magic to stop the ritual....... and you know, stop the end of the world, it seems like the two might become besties, what with their similar age and background, but Damian just knocks him on his ass because he perceives him as an idiot, who never thought for himself.

In the end, our heroes come together, Batman and Talia fight like normal and Damian has a touching moment with Maya and Goliath proclaiming them as his family.  The fun isn't over though........ even if it seemed like the perfect place to end the book, we then see that Damian plans on breaking Suren out of Talia's capture because nothing good could come from that prisoner situation.  

That's it for this issue of Robin: Son of Batman and even though this book had some fun parts and I enjoyed the art here more than I did in the previous issue, I just can't get into it.  I'm sure there are a lot of people who love this book, but the convoluted Year of Blood story has just worn me down and the only reason I'm reading it anymore is for the site.  I did really love Damian's speech to Suren to get him to knock off the evil shit, that really made the two characters come off as mirror images of one another, but besides that and Damian's decent into the volcano for his final showdown, I was just bored reading this and I guess it's just not for me.  All I can tell you at this point is if you've enjoyed the book this far, then there's no reason to stop reading because we only have one issue left and I really hope that I can get into it.

Bits and Pieces:

Damian continues his Year of Blood atonement with this penultimate issue and at this point in the story I kind of checked out because it got a little tedious for me, what with the take the artifacts, return the artifacts and then stopping the artifacts from being returned.......... it's just not for me, but even with that I could dig aspects of this book and found myself enjoying the art more than I did in the previous issue.  

5/10