We Are Robin #4

"Dear Diary. Where the fridge did all of these Garsh-Danged Robins come from?!"

I thought the Gotham skyline was crowded with Bat-family members before. Now the entire thing is awash in Robins! Fat Robins! Gray Robins! Sexually non-threatening Robins! Cool Ro...no wait. Those don't exist yet. Anyway, there are a shitboat of Robins!

I'm thinking about upgrading from a Tracphone Burner to an iPhone 6s so that I have something to talk about every commentary. Jesus Christ people with iPhones. There are other things in the world to Tweet about other then how much your phone is the best thing in the world (while occasionally throwing in seriously minor quibbles to show that you're not just a FanGender) and how Androids are Satan's erect phallus (that's supposed to be a bad thing for those of you thinking, "Oooh! Why don't I have one of those?!").

I've really been slacking on reading comic books this week. That's because I've been busy doing nothing and sometimes doing more nothing than that. I watched an existentialist horror movie last night called Don't Blink. It's all about how we're all going to die and be forgotten and there's nothing we can do to stop it so we should probably pray to God or write messages on the inside of the cabinets below the sink to prove to somebody that we were here or build magnificent statues in the sand proclaiming our great deeds or drink or play strip poker or also not drink if that's what we want to not do as well. Unless the point was that all of those things are just a waste of time? Maybe the point was that they're all equal because none of them matter when all is said and done (especially the eternity part of all). I spent most of the movie thinking, "Man. I forgot all about Brian Austin Green!" Occasionally I thought to myself, "That's the brother with angry face from Titus, right?" And then I'd think, "Oh yeah! That's the non-attractive attractive woman from Wilfred! I knew I recognized that weird butt, disappearing chin, and smidgen too large forehead!"

This issue is called "Role Model" because Batgirl is practically a model of shipping Rabbits and Voles.

I like when the title of the issue is given at the beginning of the issue so that I can think about how it relates to the theme of the story. I hate when it's given at the end like the title is some kind of surprise punctuation that's supposed to give me some kind of boner. Usually it's an angry boner.

Troy Walker, one of the few Robins whose name I could remember because I would just think about my first football crush Troy Aikman and I'd remember his name. I meant my sister's first football crush. Don't quote the "my first crush" part without also including the correction that it was my sister's first crush because that would be poor and misleading journalism. And you can't claim the integrity and dignity of your position as a journalist if you're goal is to make money and get eyeballs with misleading quotes rather than reporting, as closely as possible, the truth of a situation. In other words, if you want to be a journalist, don't be like any of them you see on television at all. Or any you read on the internet. Or any you read in a newspaper. They're all whores.

You can believe everything I say about the comics I read though because I'm not a whore. Now if anybody was willing to give me a lot of money to say nice things about their comic books (*ahem*ScottLobdell*ahem*), I will get new business cards which read "Eee! Tess Ate Chai Tea. Comic Book Reviewer Slash Whore!" on them. Try to remember that the "slash" means the punctuation mark and not that I'm into whoring it up with my penis touching other penises. Unless the money is good. Okay fine. Read the "Slash Whore" part any way you want!

The current news in Gotham proves the point that news agencies are terrible. If you have the nerve to point to comic book fiction as proof of the real world so you can say, "See? Argument valid!" Which I totally can do and will do all the time. What am I supposed to do? Actually read an issue of Time magazine to find proof of incompetence? I can just do a Google Image Search for covers of Time to prove that without having to even read any of their articles. Their covers are as clickbaity as Buzzfeed or Slade or Comic Book Resources.

Actual News: "A thing happened so we asked a bunch of random people their opinions on the thing and are now reporting all of the opinions as equal and valid! Enjoy being angry at some of them!"

Riko is one of the Robin's and she gets a little alone time this issue. First she's sitting in class talking to pretend Batgirl. Unless she's sitting in a vintage desk warehouse speaking with Batgirl because that is the weirdest fucking classroom I've ever seen. It's so strange that I can't articulate how strange it is. There's too much space and yet not enough space? The desks themselves are way too big and one kid in stripes is lying dead on his desk. Riko seems to think she's in Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band but I completely approve of her shoes and wish I had a pair just like them.

Men's size 10 or 10 1/2. Message me for mailing address.

Riko is currently reading Lord of the Flies which probably means something if I'd only bothered to read it. But I'm a Writer! Reading is for lazy people who want to think they're better than people who watch television but they're all the same thing! Writing is an active activity! Reading is passive and dumb! Unless you're reading comic books, I mean. Comic books are different for reasons too complex to explain to mere Readers like you.

Riko heads out to patrol because she agrees that reading is dumb and boring. Um, probably. She sees a fire and runs across the rooftops to yell at it. It's not like she has a belt full of Bat Paraphernalia for stopping fires. When she gets there, she finds a group of kids have set the fire in the hopes of luring a superhero so they can catch it on Periscope. See, they're like Readers and Riko is like a Writer. The Arson Kids want to impress other people but they don't want to take the time to do something impressive themselves. So instead they decide to live vicariously through Riko who's actually doing something exciting. Then the Arson Kids can impress everybody they know without having done anything except post a video of some other impressive person on their personal site. They're so boring!

Don't you dare try to turn my words back around on me and my comic book review site, you jerks! Because this site isn't about comic books at all! If you think that, you're thinking like a Reader! No wait! You're thinking like a Television Watcher!

Hey! Speaking of Television Watchers, who watched Heroes Reborn? My friend Xan and I watched it while texting each other and we have now decided that shows no longer Jump the Shark when they've run out of ideas. From now on, they Unsheathe the Katana. Holy shit I can't believe they're doing MMORPG commentary on the new Heroes! Also it's racist that the Japanese characters are the ones losing themselves in video games. I just hope the Boss Monster in Evernow is an octopus.

I feel like I can't complain about the part of this comic book I really want to complain about because I'll just wind up hurting my own feelings. Oh fuck it. Let's do this!

Now I can't even avoid Periscope when I don't even own a phone?! Fucking Lee Bermejo! Who actively uses the second tier function of Periscope? I get that people want to Periscope the things they're doing because God forbid anybody miss out on anything you're doing at any moment during the day. But who watches what you're doing while commenting on it?! Do they have no respect for their own lives? Do they have no dignity?! Who comments on other people's shit and then expects people to actively read the comments they're making (OW! OW! MY FEELINGS!)?! Because now that's a third tier use of Periscope! People who read the comments of the people watching the other person live their life! I can't help that I'm partly to blame for having enjoyed Beavis and Butthead and Mystery Science Theater 3000 and At the Movies so much.

My real problem with Commenting Culture is not that we, as a society, are entertained by people commenting on stuff but that most people who comment on things are complete morons that don't add anything insightful, humorous, or interesting to the experience. So now in We Are Robin, instead of reading Narration Boxes from the main character (which I already mostly dislike), I have to read a barrage of stupid fucking comments from a bunch of fictional idiots?!

Oh god. That last sentence of that last paragraph hurt my own feelings so badly that I almost began to cry!

I guess the loser sitting at home living vicariously through Periscopers at least get a little excitement in their lives this night because Riko isn't the only person in a costume to show up.

Personally, I don't like fighting girls. But wrestling with? Oh yeah!

After Batgirl puts the Arson Kids in their place, she and Riko have a little chat about choosing to be a superhero. I like how Batgirl isn't just a version of Batgirl making a guest appearance in this comic book. This is Batgirl straight out of the pages from her comic book where she recently chastised Frankie for trying to be too much of a superhero herself. Here she's realizing that she really didn't have the authority to make that decision for Frankie and she'll probably bring that revelation back to the pages of her own comic book. That's probably a reason to thank the editor of the Bat Books, Mark Doyle, right? Wrong! I never thank editors for anything! Jerkos! I bet they'd read those last few sentences and instead of feeling insulted, they'd just be all, "Jerks. It's jerks. Leave off the 'o' because it's just confusing." Jerkos! Jerkos! Jerkos!

See?! Batgirl's advice is to be the Writer and not the Reader!

We Are Robin #4 Rating: No change. This issue was about the Robins getting Batgirl's stamp of approval even though they still don't have Batman's. And instead of getting another insidious Alfred Going Crazy Epilogue, the book has a minor Who's Who of the Robins clan. That might help those people who aren't reading fifty comic books each month and can actually remember names. One other thing! Before you read this issue, you'd better read Lord of the Flies because it's mentioned and several images of Riko are paralleled with the book. It's probably the only way to really understand this issue although I don't know what it had to do with anything because from what I remember, Lord of the Flies was about all of the Universal Monsters being stranded on an island where they created a form of democratic government where only the person holding Frankenstein's head was allowed to speak. Although it was kind of bullshit since nobody could understand Wolfman, Creature from the Black Lagoon, or Mummy even when they had Frank's head. I think the book was constantly on the Banned Book List because of all the gay stuff that takes place a few weeks into being stranded on the island.