Red Robin Reviewed

Back when DC Comics was launching its Red Robin magazine, the company arranged for scripter Christopher Yost to speak to Comic Book Resources.

The result was a curious interview since Yost not only couldn’t talk about his own storytelling surprises, but he also couldn’t even confirm that he was writing about Tim Drake. The oversold Battle for the Cowl was still going on, and DC didn’t want to confirm that Dick Grayson would soon be Batman and Tim would be Red Robin—as if anyone had any doubt.

Yost did drop one name in that interview, however—the name of Jason Bourne. He compared his protagonist to that amnesiac former agent:

This character is a very motivated person. And they’re looking for something. And that quest is going to take them all over the world. I guess if we had a model, it would be the something like “The Bourne Identity.” It’s got that kind of action and that kind of international feel to it.

That allusion seems casual in a studied way, but it became clear that the Bourne movies were the model for these Red Robin issues when the first series penciler, Ramon Bachs, also spoke to CBR after the first issues had come out:

“Everything in this book reminds me (and I hope the reader) of spy movies. As Chris said, everything is going to have a similar flavor to the one of the ‘Bourne’ movies.”

And why shouldn’t DC try to create its own Jason Bourne? Those movies are a successful thinking-man’s action franchise, managing to provide traditional espionage thrills in an ultra-connected age.

Yost’s Red Robin adventures, now collected in volumes subtitled The Grail and Collision, offer several variations on the Bourne movies formula. Young man alone on a quest across Eurasia? Check. Furious hand-to-hand battles on exotic rooftops? Check. Young woman caught up in this mess and in need of rescuing? Check. Seemingly infinite supply of killers for hire? Check. Character on cell phone revealed to be speaking from a nearby building instead of far away? Check. Mystery that the hero solves by returning the home he fled? Well, more about that next week.

To make Tim a loner, Yost had to show him breaking ties with all the people he loves in Gotham and the Titans. Of course, Yost also needed to get the story rolling with lots of action and mystery. He therefore broke up those interpersonal confrontations and goodbyes over several issues, which all jump back and forth in time from “Before” to “Now.”

The second volume continues in the same manner for a while, except that most of its “Before” bits show the creation of the Council of Spiders, a group of murderers intent on taking down the League of Assassins. (There are also the Seven Men of Death. As I said, seemingly infinite supply of killers.)

While that “Before/Now” structure provides some confusing moments, especially for readers also trying to fit these episodes with the concurrent Batman happenings, I think it ends up being part of the books’ appeal. The structure becomes a puzzle for us to piece together, like the overall arc. Tim Drake is a cerebral character, and Yost shows us his immediate tactical thoughts but not his long-term strategic thinking. Is he really working with the villainous Ra’s al Ghul? Will he find Bruce Wayne? (More about that next week.)

By the end of the book, Tim has executed the all-important Turn Toward Home (an idea I plan to develop in my workshop on plotting for next spring’s SCBWI New England conference). He’s back in Gotham. He’s started to mend relationships, especially with Stephanie Brown (ex-Spoiler, ex-Robin, now Batgirl) and Dick Grayson (ex-Robin, ex-Nightwing, now Batman). He’s out of the “bad place” where DC’s editorial plans left him in 2004. There are some fine moments in Yost’s final issues, satisfying both within this adventure and within Tim Drake’s overall history.

NEXT WEEK: But there’s also a big hole in this story arc.

Quills Awards Produce New Bafflement

The Quill Awards ceremony has always exuded the desperate desire of a party designed in the hope that the cool kids might come, if only for ten minutes. The cool kids are the bringers of "Hollywood glitz," as the awards' website says. Cleaning up at the end of the evening, trying not to think about whether they've compromised their standards, publishing pros can tell themselves that books really are cool after all!

Even so, there was something baffling about this week's report from Publishers Weekly:

Winning the Quill Variety Blockbuster Book to Film Award is Universal’s Jason Bourne trilogy. The action blockbusters, all based on Robert Ludlum’s series, were selected for the honor by a committee of Variety staffers.

This is a new award. (Come to our party!) It's selected by Hollywood people for other Hollywood people. (Come to our party!) It seems to reward making hit movies, which is usually reward enough in itself, but the real aim is to show that hit movies can be made from actual, yes, books. (Come to our party!) Even though the hit movies have little in common with those books besides their titles and a premise.

The Bourne movies are known for being very good action-spy thrillers, and for deviating tremendously from their source material. The first movie started that trend, and each sequel has moved further away from Ludlum's storylines. (Carlos the Jackal is just not hot news anymore; no one would come to a party just to see him.)

Indeed, here are the sort of critical blurbs that the second movie in the series, The Bourne Supremacy, really gets in the "Blockbuster Book to Film" category:

• "Tony Gilroy's screenplay [is] adapted liberally from the potent novel by Robert Ludlum!" --Cincinnati Enquirer
• "...has a completely distinct (and contradictory) plot to the novel!" --Wikipedia

Of course, the character of Jason Bourne does make books look cool--by using one as a weapon in hand-to-hand combat! He also fights with magazines and pens. (See More Than Fine's Top Five Jason-Bourne-Improvised Weapons list.)

I suspect the real target of this award is the actor who plays Bourne, Matt Damon. He actually reads books. He recommends them to the public. He options them. And he's a good-looking Hollywood celebrity.

Come to our party!