Last year, I wrote about the first issue of Juni Ba, Chris O’Halloran, and Aditya Bidikar’s The Boy Wonder. This was a first issue that brought us back into the perspective of Damian Wayne and his first bit of time as Robin. While things didn’t go well for him, they were going even less well for the child accidentally kidnapped by an unintentional bank robber. In a sudden change of timeliness, the collected edition of The Boy Wonder has just released, so it’s time to pick up where we had last left the lad.

Damian is having some trouble. Still processing his guilt over killing a man, he turns to other former Robins to help him confront the demon abducting the citizens of Gotham City. Turning to Jason Todd, we see some of the more violent tendencies that come with being the first replacement Robin. With Tim Drake, we see the prodigy that’s just as much a detective as Bruce and how wearing several masks can help solve cases quicker than simply punching through them. But then there’s only so much they can do when Damian falls through a Lazarus Pit and comes back to his mother and grandfather. After all of his time away, Damian has come to realize how much the teachings of the League of Assassins don’t apply to the world he wants to see. And with al Ghul’s reliance on the Lazarus Pits to maintain his body, his mind has begun to slip further into the monstrous.

While the themes are touched on throughout the five-issue run, it’s that final issue that really nails the idea of what Ba, O’Halloran, and Bidikar are looking to do with this series. While an individual can make small, local changes, it’s only with cooperation and collaboration that real, effective change can be made. The fairy tale framing device of the series was a kind of test for Joe, the would-be bank robber, to see if he’s the kind of person who would work well within the Robin collective started by Damian and the other former Robins. Over the course of the series, while he wants to show that he can work on his own and live up to the expectations set on him by his grandfather, it’s only through others that he is truly able to succeed in finding the demon plaguing the city and save those nearly sacrificed by Ra’s al Ghul. When facing something old and powerful, standing together is the best option that we have.

The Boy Wonder is a comic that takes the familiar pieces of Bat-lore and crafts something that feels like both a starting point for new readers and a definitive mold for others to work with. It doesn’t maintain a status quo as much as it offers its own version. If comics are an ongoing conversation among creators, this feels like the crescendo before everyone goes home for the night. 

Get excited. Get collaborating.

Drew Barth (Episode 331, 485, 510, & 651) resides in Winter Park, FL. He received his MFA from the University of Central Florida.