We Are Robin #6

This is my favorite Robin.

I was away from reading comic books for a few days because my cousin flew into town to go see Alice Cooper with me. He was opening for Mötley Crüe so it wasn't the best Cooper show I've been to. The show could have been called Alice Cooper Plays All The Songs You're Completely Fucking Sick Of Because The Radio Won't Play 99% Of His Music. Alice also seems to think that catching cheap trinkets thrown at them is the reason fans pay hundreds of dollars to sit in the first few rows. He threw half of the shit on stage into the audience including his canes, his riding crops, Cooper money, and fake jewelry. He may have also thrown a bunch of hard candy and heart pills as well.

Here's his set-list (as far as I can remember):

No More Mr. Nice Guy
Under My Wheels
I'm Eighteen
Billion Dollar Babies
Poison
Dirty Diamonds
Feed My Frankenstein
Go To Hell
The Ballad of Dwight Fry
Killer (the processional and buzzing only)
I Love the Dead (the refrain, sung by the guitarist)
School's Out

Even though I'm not a huge fan of "Feed My Frankenstein," it was about that point in the concert when I really began to enjoy it because he began to do less throwing shit into the audience and more theatrics. It was probably as good a show as I could have expected for Alice opening up in front of a bunch of fans who were mostly there to see Mötley Crüe one final time. And boy do I hope it was one final time because one thing I didn't think to compliment Alice on during his show was how he knows how to keep in concert singing shape. Because holy fuck was Mötley Crüe awful thanks, for the most part, to Vince Neil.

Mötley Crüe began with "Girls, Girls, Girls" and Vince Neil made it through the majority of that song. But after he was done, I said to my cousin, "He's going to have to pull up a chair for the next one." He did not and it was a huge mistake on his part because, for the rest of the show, he never again caught his breath. He maybe sang 40% of the lyrics on any song, mumbled and made odd noises through 25%, and then simply held out the microphone for the audience to sing the rest while he dreamed about pizza. I imagine his thoughts were on pizza because he looked exactly like a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle had made a wish to the Blue Fairy to become a real boy.

At one point, Vince introduced Nikki Sixx as the toughest person he knows. Sixx immediately came out and began, "I want to tell you a story that might bring a tear to your eye!" You know, I always expect tear-jerkers from the most bad-ass people! I wish I could have given Nicki some notes on his story though. He told a story about how his grandfather slaved away to give him everything he needed by driving his truck thirty-five miles to the gas station and then thirty-five miles home every night. First note? I would made that at least eighty miles. Thirty-five doesn't feel like a huge sacrifice. So, every night when his grandfather got home, he'd put his truck keys, some change, and a knife on the table. Nicki said, "One day, I knew I was going to have it." So he said the next night, he took it and got in trouble. Then the night after that. And the night after that. And every night for a week, he'd take it and get in trouble. Finally, his grandfather came home, put his keys on the table, followed by some change, and then a knife of Nikki's own. It was only then that I realized Nicki had been talking about the knife and not the truck. So then Nicki pulls out a huge fucking knife and says, "I've never been without a knife since that day!" The moral of his story to his forty and fifty year old fans in the audience? Keep doing the same thing over and over again until you get what you want! So what Nikki learned was to keep stealing other people's shit until they just get so goddamned fucking tired of you that they buy you your own shit. I hope he really inspired all of the old farts in the audience to keep pursuing their dreams!

Tommy Lee's drum kit rode some rails across the concert venue while it spun around. It took about eight minutes to make it to the end of the tracks at which point Tommy said, "This has been my lifelong dream to make this happen for you!" To which I responded to my cousin, "Are we going to have to wait for it to go back to the stage now?" Yes. Yes we did. The entire time Tommy Lee did a half-assed drum solo while spinning around. I just kept hoping, when the kit turned upside down, his dick would flop out of his pants and knock him unconscious. After getting back to the stage, Mick Mars did a guitar solo which proves that skeletons can play guitar just as well as people who still have flesh on their fingers. By the end of the show, I couldn't help thinking, "I wonder where Mick Mars stores his phylactery?"

Anyway, I should probably get back to the Robins before they're murdered by a bunch of Owls.

The Talon has made himself known because the Court of Owls sees potential in the Robins. But first they have to give up the Bat-code which explicitly states "Do not kill.*" Don't mind the asterisk! That only leads down a rabbit hole of footnotes and caveats and extenuating circumstances and special exceptions to the rule and court cases which set precedents in situations where "killing" was ruled an "accident." It's easier to just remember to constantly remind people that you don't kill so when a criminal winds up dead from your beating, you can play back all the tapes of you saying that you don't kill which should totally convince the authorities that the doctor you sent the criminal to was to blame.

One of the Robins (not Duke or Riko but the one whose name hasn't been used yet this issue so I can't remember it. The sister of the punk-ass motherfucker!) does not get knocked out by the Talon and she decides that maybe what the Talon is saying about killing is logical and reasonable. She picks up her dead brother's gun and turns it on the Talon. Thankfully Duke tells her to drop the gun. I mean, I don't care if she shoots the Talon or not. I'm just glad Duke used her name so that now I remember she's Izzy!

Before Izzy can shoot the Talon which would do nothing, a Gotham News helicopter flies down and hovers about twenty feet over the ground while filming the Robins battling the Talon. I wonder if the newscopter is crashing?! Why is it flying so low?! I think maybe it was just so it could fit in the panel without having to turn this scene into a David Finchian Double Splash Page. So maybe I shouldn't complain too much.

So is that the basic premise of the Robin War? To kill or not to kill? The Court of Owls on one side and Pervo Captain Pennyworth on the other? I'm not sure whose side I'm on yet.

Before Izzy ruins her Robin credentials by pulling the trigger, the police arrive to throw bullets all over the scene.

"Viewer Discretion is Advised." In other words, either stare reality in the face or deny the world and go back to your commercials-disguised-as-women-having-conversations.

Dre and Dax arrive just as Izzy fires her brother's uzi at the Talon. I'd say her shooting at the Talon at this point definitely fits into the asterisked miasma of conditions following the "Do not kill" rule because she just saw a bunch of cops shoot the Talon in the face for twenty seconds before the Talon began slaughtering them. So now she's simply being a hero and trying to distract the Talon so that he'll stop killing cops and maybe come after the Robins.

To protect the police, the Robins swarm the Owl. It's like a Nova special! Except in this case, the Owl is immortal and super strong. Or is that how owls are in all cases anyway? Those birds are fucking creepy.

The Talon defeats the Robins and is about to begin killing them (probably slowly and one at a time to give the other Robins a chance to join the Court of Owls) when Alfred Pennyworth arrives in an armored car fitted with anti-tank guns. Or anti-Talon guns? I don't actually know anything about military weapons aside from the ones used in Call of Duty games. And then most of those aren't real because all of the games seem to be set in the future now.

The Robins escape in the car with Alfred while the cops are left to figure out how to survive on their own. That seems fair. They don't really want the help of vigilantes anyway, right?

Alfred leaves the Robins with a single piece of advice to wear masks. Then he heads home with his mind full of new wank material. Fucking pervert.

We Are Robin #6 Rating: No change. One two three four let's start a Robin war! Five six seven eight Alfred's gonna masturbate! Nine ten eleven twelve! I guess I need to add dwarfs to my rhyme so I can use the word delve! I know stupid rhyming chants don't actually constitute a review of a comic book but it's not like I have a boss to answer to! Nobody can keep me on track! I'm a wild stallion! Except one that can't be broken unlike all of those other wild stallions that love to be broken and tamed because they never could find their own purpose in life. Besides, I'm going to read Robin War #1 next so this feels more like an intermission than an ending. So instead of discussing what I liked and disliked about this issue, I should be spending this time going to the restroom!