Tim was out of focus for so long post-New 52 that it's hard to remember he had by far the most effective Robin solo run, and this is a strong start to a new one. Read Full Review

Tim Drake: Robin #1 is a terrific start for a character that deserves the spotlight. A Robin that is often overshadowed by those around him, Tim now has a whole books worth of space to shine. There is an excellent blend of his upbringing having an effect on his personality and what he has developed for himself. He is gathering a supporting cast that is unique to him and all are brilliantly brought into the comic, taking place within a magnificent mysterious story. Read Full Review

The introductory chapter of this new series did a good job introducing the reader to Tim Drake's new life and setting up the world that now surrounds him. Read Full Review

Fitzmartin does a good job weaving together Tim's personal life and his life as Robin in a way that assuages my worries over whether the character would have any real identity. That said, the overall character arc of self-discovery seems out of place. Even so, the writing is the strong point of TIM DRAKE: ROBIN #1 thanks to Rossmo's style ultimately proving distracting. Read Full Review

Good start to the new series, setting up quality writing for the main character, supporting cast and superhero action. There's a lot of potential for this series and I'd say we're off to a very good start. Read Full Review

Tim Drake: Robin #1 is a promising start of a new era for the titular character. Tim Drake is given the narrative space and page count to explore what his new status quo really is. Read Full Review

Tim Drake: Robin #1 is a nice departure from the typical two-fisted action that the character typically gets roped into in other titles. Some of the art though is a bit too stylish for its own good. Read Full Review

In terms of tone and character, the comic finds its feet quickly, it now just needs the chance to build on the detective element. Read Full Review

Tim Drake: Robin #1 will probably get all the Tim Drake stans out there flocking to this book, me being one of them, I don't know if this is the book to properly get our Boy Wonder back in the hearts and minds of DC fans.  It feels so off in both writing and art.  Of course, things can constantly improve from here, but this first issue felt more like an Elseworld of the Fitzmartin-verse than the continuation of a Robin who's been kicking ass and taking names for over three decades.  Read Full Review

FINAL THOUGHTSWhile it is great that Tim Drake finally gets his own ongoing series again Tim Drake: Robin #1 was a massive disappointment. The writing constantly gets in its own way and artwork is a bad fit for the character and world. Even the one solid aspect of this first issue, Tim's dynamic with Bernard Dowd and Darcy Thomas, is not enough to make up for how the writing is all over the place. It all leads to a comic book that feels like a step back rather than step forward for Tim Drake. Read Full Review

While I enjoyed the theme of this issue and the character relations are pretty fun, both of these elements are pretty much thrown out the window to make place for the dumbest mystery I've read in a while told in the least interesting way possible. The art on the other hand has some great work that gives you the right amount of balance between action and information but sometimes fails to give you anything other than style, Squidwards and squigglies Read Full Review

Tim. It just doesn't work. Nothing in this issue works. Read Full Review

Strangely enough I liked it. I hadn't liked Meghan Fitzmartin's work until now but here she opened up a different narrative for the character that needed to find her voice. His new home, his surroundings, his neighbors, all contribute to making him happier. And that to me is Meghan's very good idea to bring joy to the young man who has been far too self-effacing in recent years. Tim is changing and that's good for him. He also remains a great detective and it shows (it doesn't matter here the investigation, it's just a pretext to give Tim back his detective spirit). Let's talk about Art. Riley Rossmo has an art of his own, very cartoonish but so alive. Tim doesn't look like a fashion print, so what? He is still engaging. He has a playful side that suits him perfectly. He gains in naturalness and sympathy.
Don't be put off by the design, you would be wrong, and let yourself be caught up in the atmosphere. And you will see that you will end up being seduced.
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SomeRandomSmartA55 - Sep 28, 2022

Glad it worked for you…but for me the characterization is just ALL WRONG, and the plot is just not doing it for me.

Batmanaholic - Sep 28, 2022

You liked it...... that doesn't make it a 10/10 lol 10/10 means it's a classic that will stand the test of time like tdkr or the long Halloween. This book is sales time for the dollar bin at your local comic shop.

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Characters were fun, I loved the art (though can completely understand not liking it) but found the mystery underwhelming. One more draft and this could have been a home run.

DC Editorial needed to knock this one out of park, considering the natural hate it would get from babies on the internet.
All that nonsense whining aside, I shall proceed with my own:

MEGHAN FITZMARTIN has her heart in the right place, but a strong heart a good writer does not make. The book feels so Batman-lite that Drake and his supporting cast may as well be empty shells without personality. Everything that happens here is like "yeah, I guess" which is disappointing considering what she's working with.
Drake is somewhere new, he has a new relationship, and is trying to uncover new things about himself but none of that is explored effectively here and it's a huge missed opportunity.
As a queer person, I am completely underwhelmed with how it handles the topic of Drake's sexuality. There's almost nothing apart from a few Hallmark Card musings.
This is a similar problem Son of Kal-El has but at least there the characterization is stronger to make up for it.

Mainstream comics do not know how to handle queer characters who've come out of the closet. The best ones thus far have been Ice Man and Harley Quinn. Which speaking of...
I really loved Riley Rossmo's artwork in Harley Quinn, but there it made sense with the chaotic, fun, crazy atmosphere and tone the book was going for.
It is completely misplaced here. I love Rossmo's work but it is not for this book. It's distracting and makes me read what's happening completely wrong.

Tim Drake is a misfire on a book that needed to be excellent. I do not expect this book to continue for long and the return of this character to his own title lands with a disappointing thud. more

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SomeRandomSmartA55 - Sep 28, 2022 (edited)

The thing is nearly everyone I know is okay with Tim being bi, but they just hate the execution, and this just further proves that Fitzmartin is not up to task, in fact she is doing more harm than good. It's feel likes they approached this saying "how do I make this as gay as possibe?" and just used every gay stereotype from the effeminate way Tim & Bernard are drawn to the "fairy gay father", I want to see stereotypes being broken not reinforced, it just makes me wonder how this was approved?

BDG Comics - Sep 29, 2022

Sucks... sorry that your sexual orientation and likely a substantial part of your identity is being exploited for the sake of some quick, cheap marketing gimmick.

Jawsh - Sep 29, 2022

I wouldn't even mind the femininity, though there's always ways to explore that but even that I feel is too much for this creative team. Just the writing's not great :/ I hope it'll get better but the track record so far doesn't give me much of it.

hesfkshgf - Sep 29, 2022

I am not a Rossmo fan at all, but you are right, the style fit Harley almost perfectly. It is such a distraction here and this book did not need distractions like that! It feels like Fitzmartin was afraid to go too far with Tim’s sexuality, but didn’t go far enough with the actual story either, so the whole thing kind of falls apart.

Jawsh - Sep 29, 2022

Like the detective elements in this are soooo basic, as well ;___; It is HARD to write satisfying mysteries and detective stories, which is probably why DC has difficulty with Tim's character solo, but this was def not it. Like most Batman stories nowadays don't even have HARD detective elements at their core, but that's sort of a big part of Tim's character. The Sherlock line was so cringe lol

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This comic the story was not terrible but the artwork was absolutely atrocious

I typically try to stick to the rule of “If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all” but the art in this book was so bad I feel obligated to put it out somewhere in the universe that the reason I won’t buy issue #2 has nothing to do with Tim Drake as a character, and everything to do with the horrible art.

I held off on reading this given everything that was noted about it but being a Tim Drake fan decided to go ahead and see for myself what this was about and it's as disappointing as most people seem to think it is. I actually don't mind the art so much even though I don't really think this character version looks anything like Tim but I know different styles mean different character interpretations. The art really isn't the problem with the issue though. It's the writing. I couldn't get into it. I thought the plot was stupid. It was an okay gimmick in the Pride stories for Tim but Fitzmartin really fails to make it seem smart. Tim just sounds really dumb in this though not as stupid as he sounds in her YJ series. But Fitzmartin tries really hard to make you believe Tim is doing something intelligent here. The thing is though she has to tell you because nothing in the story makes you believe it. She has to tell you everything actually so I fail to see where there is any real story involved in this. Writing is considered an art for a reason.

I do think she was trying to be funny with some of the one-liners but they read really flat. Nothing about this amused me. It was also really disjointed and cringe at times. Her pacing is really weird which is something her YJ run suffers from as well. It's like she is trying too hard to get you to like what she is doing because she knows the story can't do it with how she's written it. The side characters are okay but this isn't a story about them. It's Tim Drake's story and I feel like more effort was put into making her own OCs than in the title character she gets to write. She even tells you this is Tim's story but it doesn't feel like that at all. It feels like Fitzmartin's story and Tim is just the guy who gets to tell it. I'm pretty sure that is what was being said to us at the end of this comic - it's her story and we just have to shut up and deal with it. I dunno. I felt really bad reading this. It doesn't make me like Tim or want to see anything more from him with this writer. I know they're changing the artists so I'm hoping maybe they'll change writers too. I want to see a Tim Drake comic again but not one that makes me question Tim Drake's character and his intelligence and who is he. I like that he is bisexual because it made me and my friends feel seen when it was announced but I don't like this feeling like I have to support this comic because of just that. And it feels like a lot of people are saying this comic is bad but we have to support it because bisexual Tim Drake. He's more than that! I don't want to end up hating a character I've loved because of someone's bad writing. Someone else has to be able to write him better and still keep him bisexual. But I liked him before he was bisexual and he's losing everything that was cool about him in this comic. And I know being the "smart" robin isn't all he is either but it's what puts him on par with Bruce and there is nothing in this comic that makes me think this kid is some sort of genius detective. Take the ending - he didn't sound smart there. It's more like the writer threw down random things for him to find because another detective story said so but instead of it making sense for Tim and for the ending of this comic it just came off as really weird. Like you know that meme "Random bullshit go"? That's what all that clue finding felt like. She seems really confused about her own stories and doesn't know how to actually write them. Maybe she had a good idea going but I can only suspend my disbelief for so long. If anything made me laugh it was how bad this ended up being. I feel sorry for Tim Drake. more

Writing is very bad. Art is very bad. They are killing Tim.

Utterly flabbergasted

What the fuck

Terrible writing compounded by an art style that doesn’t fit. Poorly executed idea of representation that makes a caricature of bisexual romance. Calling a character bi does not make you the ally you think you are when you write the character as nothing but his sexuality and destroy his character. Plot is mediocre - there’s no real detective work here just a writer who thinks she is more clever than she really is. Absolutely no understanding of who Tim Drake actually is. A total joke.

The term bait and switch is probably the most polite way to describe going from the cover to what is inside. The writing is beyond terrible as the writers clearly don't understand the character or his skill set. This was sadly created by the pronoun group to appeal to the woke morons who are a far more marginalized percent of the population than DC cares to acknowledge. Where to start with everything wrong with the story? The fact that Tim Drake seems less like a detective and more like a brainless civilian. The fact that instead of world building we get mostly just Tim sittibg around professing hos love for a dude while eating? This book belongs on a clearance section for 25 cents.

This was honestly heartbreakingly terrible. When it was announced that Tim Drake was getting his own series, I was so ecstatic, esp after it was announced he was bi. However, after seeing the current YJ run and following it up with this first issue, I can see now that your writer has no concept of how to develop a story or relationships between people. The dialogue continues to be stilted and manufactured rather than carrying any real trace of a casual conversation. A lot of it is stiff and instead of being relevant or poignant borders almost offensive at times, and I can’t tell if this writer simply has no idea on how to construct dialogue between different sets of people or if she’s honestly trying to offend and not in the way that gets you to think about what is being said. Even if that were the case, deliberate offense, there are times and places and ways to go about this in storytelling, and I find it hilarious that she calls upon someone like Twain in her writing without seeming to understand that concept. If there are points to be made, and she clearly writes as someone with an agenda and not an authentic story, then she has no idea how to convey them without destroying the story and the characters themselves in the process. She also seems to have no idea how to construct a detective tale, instead relying on old authors to the point there is nothing new added to the use of their stories as employed in Tim Drake’s and offering the reader poorly stitched together endings that end up being incredibly unsatisfying. Tim is supposed to be on par with Bruce as a detective, and it seems his intellect is a hard reach for the writer to convey. You do not have to be smarter than your characters, but in writing ones like Tim you need to build a story around them that makes it seem as though you are - you control every little aspect to lead your characters and your readers to discovery, and this writer displays an appalling immaturity on that front. This wasn’t even a trail of breadcrumbs but a graffitied line from one point to another with a convoluted resolution. And Tim living in the Marina in the worst boat? With stated crooked cops running the area? With some sort of eye on destroying the place to gentrify it? That’s not something to choose to lay low. You go mid-tier and nestle in with the status quo, not the outliers as those are the first to get blamed or checked. And when going after a place to “revitalize” it as an area, it’s the poorest (or perceived poorest) aspects who will be targeted first. Again, I have to question the writer’s ability to set up a credible story with the character she’s been given. Small choices matter when defining your characters and she seems to not care - that or she lacks the ability to consider it in her stories. Details matter. All the more so in a detective story as this is being peddled. 



And this isn’t even talking about how upsetting her idea of representation is with Tim. I’m LGBTQ. I don’t want to see a fantastic character reduced to his sexuality. I want to see a fully-fleshed human in a wonderful story. I don’t want to feel like I’m being reduced to a trope or a token, and that is what has happened to Tim. Maybe the writer doesn’t intend this, but she seems to lack the ability to convey who Tim properly is given this new context. Nothing about his relationship reads genuine but rather carries only the idea of what someone thinks an LGBTQ relationship is. I almost burst into tears seeing this is what we ultimately ended up getting in Tim’s standalone, the last hope I held onto after reading her YJ series utterly shattered. We deserve better representation. You can care about rep all you want, but if your end product still reads as dishonest, then you’ve done nothing good for the people you are trying to ally with. We shouldn’t have to settle for this when there are so many wonderful creatives out there who understand how to make LGBTQ characters that resonate not just with the community but with a broader audience. Unfortunately, this writer is not one of them. She needs to drop her agendas and learn how to tell a genuine story that knows how to respect its characters and plots. more

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SomeRandomSmartA55 - Sep 30, 2022

Yes and to all of this!! I too almost burst into tears seeing how my boy is being butchered. I do think the creators’ have good intentions. But you know that saying about the road to hell.

LoveAndLoss - Sep 30, 2022

It was truly heartbreaking, and not just for me but for all of my friends who follow Tim Drake. No one is happy with how his story is being portrayed among us, and it's hurtful to see how everything is being handled, from the writing itself to her comments in interviews.

SomeRandomSmartA55 - Oct 3, 2022

I’ve spoken with so many bisexuals online and No One likes what is happening. How they handled things with Steph, picking Bernard of all people, and how it all took place. If it’s not being written for us, then who is it written for? This all feels like a straight woman’s really bad fanfiction. I don’t usually get all bent up about representation, but when it’s done this badly and to my favorite character! Ugh, DC needs to get their shit together

LoveAndLoss - Oct 4, 2022

Same! Even among my friends who identify as LGBTQ none of them have liked what they read in this comic. All of it felt forced and bland to them, and those of us who are Tim Drake fans feel even worse about what they read. None of us understand why she is acting like Bernard is the best Tim's ever had or throwing out all of his history basically with his Bat-family. And seriously why Bernard? The kid wasn't even that good to him in the old comic setting!

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A book that is written merely to exploit an entire fraction of society for monetary gain? How anyone could rate this higher than a 1 is either ignorant of the blatant disrespect or complicit in oppression through mockery. Pathetic.

A complete woke dumpster fire.Please just stop this woke agenda, it's not for true comic fans.

Why dc why would you let this hack writer destroy Tim drake and Bernard........ I remember the simpler days. When Bernard had the hots for Tim drakes new step mom, and had a massive crush on her. How that ended up as him wanting to blow Tim now, is hilariously bad writing.

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SomeRandomSmartA55 - Oct 10, 2022

Yeah Bernard sucks…and not in a fun way

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i usually only gives score and/or comments to comics i like, but in this case i feel i have to make an exception, it’s atrocious in every possible way you can imagine, the art is s**t, the writing is even worse.

Maybe the worst book I have seen on the last ten years not written by Bendis, and the art is aweful as well . Does DC really think this will sell. They must believe the Tim Drake fans are loyal beyond belief

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SomeRandomSmartA55 - Sep 27, 2022

My love for Tim Drake far outweighs my hatred of this writing, that doesn’t mean this won’t be difficult

BDG Comics - Sep 29, 2022

The biggest problem is queerness is being exploited for the sake of some quick, cheap marketing gimmick.. They are misrepresenting a decently large portion of the comic book community and the ones that they aren't exploiting were already against this kind of woke nonsense lol... #1 probably sells well because of the unknown and people love Tim Drake, but I guarantee #2 sales are going to be in the shitter

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Holy shit this is horrendous, I hate grading a book with a 1, but this book should have an even worse score, Meghan Fitzmartin has no idea on how to create a simple story, her voice for Tim is even worse, we are talking about the greatest detective in the Batfamily, he is a goddamn genius and Fitzmartin couldn't care less about it... I enjoy Rossmo's art on a few books, like his amazing Martian Manhunter run, but his style doesn't fit well with human characters, in this book was just a awful experience

I want to preface this by saying I am a long time Tim Drake fan, who happens to be bisexual. I harbor no ill will to any of the creative team on this book….but I have read porn parodies that are more engaging, have better understanding of Tim’s character, and a better understanding of being bisexual! This character is not Tim Drake, this is a straight woman’s yaoi fanfic version of Tim. The way the writing refers to any previous relationships he had as “settling” is insulting to fans, it’s somewhat misogynistic, and makes Tim come across as gay instead of bi which (which unintentionally contributes to bi-erasure). The art is also not helping, Rossmo is not my style but it is nowhere near as bad as Fitzmartin’s writing.

Look how they massacred my boy.

Just a shame! This book is not readable due to the awful “art” done by the worst “artist” in the business. It continues to amaze me that DC gives him work! It seems they want this book to fail.

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BDG Comics - Sep 29, 2022 (edited)

I don't even mind the art. It's goofy, for sure, and doesn't really fit something like this that should be edgy. The art is the least of this book's problems, IMO I'd rather see stuff from this artist than anything else from JRJR.....

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What happen to DC comics in the 90's there books rocked had to get all the Robin comics now they took a Awesome hero and made into a dumpster fire giving him a now I can't see why a boyfriend and making Tim Drake a joke where's the action 95% of this book was on a lame date no wonder DC and Marvel are dying Wake up DCCOMICS