“Yesterday’s” Comic> Robin II #1

We’ve replaced the Joker’s computer monitor with a giant hologram sticker. Let’s see if he notices.

Robin II #1

DC Comics (1991)

With Batman out of town, Robin is on his own when the Joker breaks out of Arkham. While he was incarcerated, the Joker read a lot about computers and (after taking his gang back from Mr. Freeze) kidnaps one prolific writer on the subject, Osgood Pellinger. As Robin investigates, he’s unable to stop Joker from kidnapping Pellinger, and the Joker isn’t happy to see a Robin who isn’t dead. Can Tim Drake handle Batman’s worst enemy?

What they got right: Considering Joker killed the previous Robin, the new one would have to face him eventually. This could end up being a good rite of passage for Tim as Robin. And as computers were just making their way into so much of our lives, having a story where the Joker tries to turn that to his advantage makes a whole lot of sense. We even got a bit of Tim at school and we see he’s happy not being one of the cool kids, at least if “cool” is represented by a big jerk.

What they got wrong: Was this the first time Joker and Freeze met post-Crisis? Joker dismisses him as a knock-off of Captain Cold (one of Flash’s villains) and Freeze (who is kind of a goof here) falls for Joker’s tricks way to easily.

Other notes: I don’t have the rest of the issue of this miniseries, but I do have an audio drama cassette box set called Batman: Legends Of Robin, which adapts numerous Robin stories in audio form, including this one. (It’s a bit expensive even used and only published in cassette form from what I can tell, but I think it’s worth it.) So I do know how the story ends, although the audio drama drops the scene with Tim at school so I don’t know what other changes were made. However, from what I know this is a good story.

Recommendation: I hope to get the other (I think) two issues as this is a good story and I would love to see how it ends in its native format. Give it a look if you come across it.