Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #5 (Late February 1993)

You know what? I think they figured out this stupid cover technology five issues in!

Maybe I spoke too soon. When I tried to view the other side, it was just as shoddy as before. I think the reason the cover looked so good on the first scan is that I never actually moved it after purchasing it thirty-two years ago. The first four were shit so why would I even bother with the fifth and sixth issues? It's not like Robin's clothes fell off when you pulled on the tab.

The alternate cover with Robin failing to crash through the skylight. Such an amateur.

I'm still reading John Steinbeck's Cup of Gold but I decided to take a short break to read one of Chuck Dixon's great Algeresque works of literature. It's going to take me a long while to get through Cup of Gold because I've already begun to do that thing that I began doing ever since I read Gravity's Rainbow where I basically read a book twice as I'm reading it. So I'm now most of the way through the first chapter of Cup of Gold for the second time. Not because I didn't understand it the first time! It's because Steinbeck's writing is so layered and complex and beautiful that I felt I wasn't giving it its due by reading it just once. Take the description of how Henry Morgan's mother tends the fire in their small house as an example of how Steinbeck's always writing about the thing he's writing about plus at least one other thing (although often as many as four other things). When he discusses how Mother Morgan stirs the fire so much while tending it that the flames go out leaving just the embers which she then must beat to try to get them lit again, Steinbeck's explaining the way she's dealt with her husband over the years. And like the way winter comes into the Welsh valley as weather, emotion, history, and time all in the same instance. But the best part is when Elizabeth stands in the doorway of her house backlit as she looks out into the dark and Henry basically sees the outline of her naked body through her thin nightgown. I don't mean the best part in how Steinbeck layers it with different meanings; I mean it's the best part in how many layers filled my pants.

This story begins in Amsterdam with a covert meeting between criminals!

Joke or not, I'm not even sure that's a proper answer to the question.

So that one joker is there to get some kind of counterfeit blanks from the guy with no sense of humor and then kill him. Oh, the guy who doesn't laugh doesn't know he's there to get murdered, of course. I'm sure some criminals would be all, "Oh, you want me to deliver this thing worth a ton of money to an absolute monster and then let him kill me? Sure. Why the fuck not?" But this guy was all, "You're not funny. OH MY GOD I'M DEAD! THIS SUCKS!" And the other guy was all, "Next time you'll laugh at my joke, you Dutch buffoon!"

Amsterdam is in Dutchonia, right?

Meanwhile, Tim whines and moans while Alfred dusts the Batcave and wishes Tim would go whine and moan somewhere else. Then Tim mentions he's been crimefighting with Huntress and Alfred is all, "Batman is going to kill you. So please tell me you're at least getting tossed off by her."

What the fuck is this judgmental look Alfred's throwing at Tim?

You might think it's sexist that I had Alfred suggest The Huntress would jerk off Tim just because she's a woman. But I can assure you, and I have thousands of pages of comic book reviews that will back me up, that I would have had Alfred suggest the same thing if Tim were going out at night with Azrael.

Tim's response to Batman possibly getting pissed off that Tim's running around with The Huntress is that it'll be the least of Batman's worries when Tim's school counselor sends the cops to arrest Bruce Wayne for pedophilia. At least Tim will be in boarding school in Metropolis when that shit hits the Batfan. He'll be much safer in Superman's city.

Tim grabs his gear to go meet up with The Huntress. She's currently busy teasing some teenage boys.

Is concern for some babe's well-being sexist?

At first I thought this gang was two old people and two young guys. Then I realized the young guys are trying to rob the old people. It's astute observations like that, where I check and double check my perceptions and assumptions, that make me the crack comic book reviewer nobody thinks I am.

Oh! Remember how earlier in this review I mentioned I was reading Steinbeck's Cup of Gold? Well because library holds on books are so fucking random and never actually take as long as you think they're going to take, I'm apparently reading David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest right now too! I'm only through the first chapter of that where the narrator, an amazing tennis player, Hulks out during his college interview because he ate some mold when he was like five. I don't know if that first twenty pages indicates the themes I should be looking for throughout the book but if so this might be a few of them: 1. Don't eat mold off basement walls. 2. Communication with other living beings is hard. 3. Being a super smart person in a body you can barely control or speak through will cause other people to think you're a monster. Although that third one I already learned from Steven C. Stewart and Crispin Glover's It Is Fine! Everything Is Fine.

During the beatdown (it's hardly a fight. Huntress tears the two teens five new buttholes in a non-sexy way), the reader might notice that The Huntress wears an armband with Superman's logo on it. I guess the old guy kicked it recently. And yet Tim's father still wants to send him to Metropolis?! It's so fucking dangerous there now!

Isn't The Huntress cold sitting in the snow in her little short-shorts?

When not swinging around the city on a rope attached to angel dong's (or whatever. I don't know how these fucking Batpeople swing around the Goddamned city), The Huntress drives a Lamborghini. It's a pretty shit looking Lambo but I think that's because Bob Smith, being paid an artist's wage from DC, had never actually seen one. He probably based his drawing off the same fucking Lamborghini Hot Wheel we all grew up crashing around dirt berms and into the side of that red double-decker bus. Helena and Tim, in full costume, drive around the city in her car looking for another printer that the Russians might be harassing into printing counterfeit cash for them.

While Tim and Helena scout print shops, the murderous joker (not that one!) returns from The Netherlands.

Ha ha ha! Made a killing!

This guy probably had a great line for if the customs official had said, "Do you have anything to declare?" but then the guy ruined it with the "Nothing to declare?" line. He probably would have been all, "I have a ten inch penis!" or something, um, funnier! I'm not the funny guy. He's the guy with all the good lines. Made a killing! With the fog! What a cut-up!

Oh man! I wished he'd killed the Dutch guy with a knife then my "cut-up" line would have been a good joke. But he shot him instead and there's no way you can make shooting a guy funny.

Robin and The Huntress discover the counterfeiting operation at the last place they investigate. Also staking out the Russian counterfeiting ring? The Ghost Dragons! Remember, they need to kill KGBeast so that King Snake can be the most dangerous dumbass in the DC Universe. But they also want to kill Robin and The Huntress for beating the shit out of them several issues ago. So they're pretty excited when they realize they're all in the same building at the same time.

Robin watches from the rafters as the Commie Tsar murders the two men responsible for the counterfeiting process (because they've already printed one billion scudoons). I guess if you're a criminal, bullets are a lot cheaper than cash. Being that they were criminals, Robin doesn't seem to give a shit that they were just murdered. He continues to keep an eye out to see the final few steps in the counterfeiting process. But that's when KGBeast appears dragging The Huntress behind him. He's all, "You are being cold in the shortest shorts, yes?" But even with The Huntress in danger, Tim still hesitates and waits for a better opportunity to do vigilante justice.

A mundane round of farts could drown out Def Leppard. "Standing by the trap door! Aware of me and you! The actor and the clown! They're waiting for their cue!"

Dammit! Now I actually want to hear that song! That backfired!

Tim drops down and begins knocking out thugs with his feet as soon as the machine's start back up. Then he fiddles with the printing press's controls to fuck up the counterfeiting operation before heading downstairs to find where they took The Huntress. Now, remember, Tim found this place by searching for local printers. The Russians, presumably, also had to find this place at the last minute since they killed Ariana's father who was supposed to print the money for them. So it's odd that when Tim goes downstairs in this print shop, he discovers the Russians' heroin operation as well. Why the fuck did they drag their heroin operation to the print shop? They really could have left it back at their Little Odessa headquarters, couldn't they?

Currently The Huntress is being killed by KGBeast and Ariana is not in immediate danger. So, um, yeah, save Ariana, I guess.

Tim throws the whole mission away by busting into the heroin packing plant and causing a bunch of chaos. He saves Ariana (as well as the other women forced into the drug business) but can't lead them out of the building before the ruckus he caused brings reinforcements.

Ha ha ha! Oh, that guy! He kills me!

Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #5 Rating: B. I don't know if that bit about leading her to the grave was a joke but the guy is so funny I can't help laughing at nearly everything he says. I guess it's just the way he delivers his lines. One more issue remains and there's a lot to resolve yet. Tim's home life. Tim's school troubles. Tim disobeying Batman's rules. The Huntress captured by KGBeast. The Ghost Dragons vendetta against, I don't know, everything? Tim's sex life (real and imagined). And I guess the Russian drug and counterfeiting ring. I feel like some of these issues are going to get short shrift in the conclusion.