Just Imagine: Stan Lee and John Byrne's Robin

Just Imagine Stan Lee with John Byrne Creating Robin
Writer: Stan Lee
Pencils: John Byrne
Inks: Terry Austin
Letterer: Bill Oakley
Colorist: Alex Sinclair
Cover: Byrne and Austin, colors by Sinclair

“On the Street”
Plot: Michael Uslan
Dialogue: Lee and Uslan
Pencils and inks: John Severin
Letterer: Oakley
Colorist: Sinclair
Editor: Mike Carlin
Released: Feb. 27, 2002

In many of the earlier “Just Imagine Stan Lee Creating the DC Universe” issues, we've seen the wrong Rev. Dominic Darrk enlist and empower various minions to do his dirty work. The trend continues in this installment, where we're introduced to the villainy of... Robin?

Yep, Stan and none other than John Byrne open this issue with a literal kick to the gut, as in Robin kicking Batman's gut. Their dynamic duel takes place on the rooftops of several Los Angeles buildings, but just when the man dressed exactly like a bat – who, in case you've forgotten does not have any powers, OK?!? – gains the upper hand, he breaks away to stop a rolling shootout on the street below.

This leaves Robin, dressed in black and, unlike his original namesake, wearing pants, to brood about robins always turning up around him and growing up in an orphanage, where he was walking and talking at just 2 months old. Darrk meets him in an alley and sends him to rob an elderly couple, then soon, a bank.

At the bank, Robin encounters not only Batman in his civilian identity of Wayne Williams, but Beth, who as a high school student Robin's age, came to the orphanage to train as a social worker. She's working at the bank now, and Robin can't bring himself to rob it with her there.

More flashbacks show his time at the orphanage, never getting adopted because of his dark moods, then throwing himself into training and exercise after Beth's work-study time there ends. That's how he developed the skills to single-handedly fight off a street gang that threatens him when he ages out of the orphanage and defeat a bullying martial arts instructor and take his job.

It's at the martial arts academy he sees a notice from Darrk, promising to help orphans find their parents.* He heads over to the Church of Eternal Empowerment, where they've been expecting him. Darrk hypnotizes Robin and bathes him in a purple light show that mystically enhances his already impressive physical prowess.

As Robin returns to the Church in the present, Batman tackles him and gets the rest of his origin story with the help of some truth serum. He helps Robin see he's being used by Darrk (or maybe the serum loosens the mystical hold on him). They enter the church and battle his minions until an apparently innocent parishioner calls the police. The ensuing sirens prompt Darrk and his robed ruffians to depart through a portal.

As you might expect, Batman suggests he and Robin partner up, but Robin's not having it. Trusting no one, he swings off, vowing to find his parents.

The “On the Street” backup finds Beth returning to the orphanage to look for information about Robin. A grandmotherly type named Madame Xanadu banishes the flunky who let Beth in through a purple portal, but grants her request to talk to two other teens who hadn't been adopted: Mike Merlin and Tommy Tomorrow. They answer her questions, Mike in rather surly fashion, and point her to the organization that controls the orphanage, Darrk's Church of Eternal Empowerment.

Once Beth leaves, Madame Xanadu apparently gives Mike and Tommy purple powers of their own and instructs them to bring Robin back in. Mike sees it as a chance to gain Darrk's favor over Adam Strange, whom Xanadu informs them is dead. She also hints, like Darrk did in the JLA issue, that he's got more than one heir, letting the hench-teens think it might be one of them.

Although “grim and gritty” has become a bad cliché in comics, it is a cool idea to make Robin a darker character. It's been done plenty lately, and even before this, but it's a sharp contrast to the bright colors and smiles we tend to associate with earlier incarnations. Flipping the script and making him not only a villain starting out but an adversary to Batman was a nice touch too. And Byrne's art suits the atmosphere well.

But this issue too suffers from clunky dialogue and story elements that feel pretty contrived. The bit about Robin becoming a martial arts instructor seems unnecessarily complicated, as does Beth being a social worker in training who goes to work at the bank he happens to be robbing. Some of that could have been streamlined to make room for more action like we get in the page or so where Robin and Batman throw down with the Church members.

There was no reference to Batman seeing Robin in the vision at the end of the Secret Files and Origins story, which would have been a nice push for his investigation.

For some reason, I'm curious about the young woman who calls the police. She's alone in the Church, has a black eye and seems oblivious to the Church's true nature. I don't know if she comes back later** or if this was just a character given a little extra depth and detail, but there seems to be more to her story.

Next up: what looks to be a very different take on Shazam, with Lee and Gary Frank.

* - And really, where else but a public bulletin board at an establishment that hires people who beat up their prior employees would one look for such a service?

** - I know Robin does.