Robin & Batman #3
The battle between Good vs. Evil, Dark vs. Light. A constant battle that Batman has fought with his entire life. Now Dick Grayson as a young Robin is fighting the same battle. With Robin & Batman #3, Robin comes to terms with who he is, and who he is not. Lemire and Nguyen end their series with a young superhero breathing life into a dark and unforgiving future.
DC Comics
Written By: Jeff Lemire
Art and Colors By: Dustin Nguyen
Release Date: January 11, 2022
Story
Everything we have seen of Dick Grayson in this short series comes to a head in Robin & Batman #3. The duality of Robin and Dick, crime fighting vs school normalcy. Dick is still growing up. In the beginning, not long after he donned his own suit, he wants so badly to be like Batman. He wants to skip right past the kid stage and be an adult, he’s already choosing his “next” name. In Robin & Batman #3 more than the previous two, it just feels wrong. It feels wrong that a young school kid is so disconnected to his life as a normal person. He is too attached to “Batman.” Robin & Batman #3 breathes life into that circumstance with some of the best Alfred moments we have seen in the comics lately.
Alfred is the moral compass of both Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. Bruce’s Batman is already to far gone now. He accepts that Dick is not normal and to just accept his crime fighting duties as the most important. What Lemire does is it creates another father figure for Dick. Alfred sees how maybe he has failed Bruce in his upbringing and doesn’t want the same path for young Dick. It hurts a bit to see Alfred try, fail and then even win in this issue. We all know where Robin will end up, we know where Batman will end up. Alfred knows to, but he tries anyways.
Art
Nguyen’s colors shine through during multiple times in the finale issue. They grow. From the dark and grimy fight scenes as Robin. To the bright and light scenes at school with Dick. Then with the final pages as Dick learns to be Robin, but not lose who he really is as Dick. There’s a certain page/sequence in this finale issue that is of particular brilliance from Nguyen. His best so far of the short series. Its simple, its beautiful and it shows who Robin is and why he is one of the best DC heroes of all.
Nguyen’s style is his own. His blend of pencils and water colored brushes are distinctly his. For Robin and Batman, the art is a sum of its parts. Its not just one issues or one panel or page that show the greatness of the art. Its the evolution of it throughout.
Final thoughts
Robin & Batman #3 ends this series. It did what was almost the unexpected. Lemire and Nguyen have created a definitive Batman and Robin story, by making a Robin and Batman story. Dark vs Light. Light always prevails.
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