Polite Dissent

A recent PSA comic this week: last month’s Robin #156. As the cover suggests, this issue is about suicide. No scene resembling the cover actually takes place inside the book, and frankly, the story is better for it. This is not a “heroic-rescue-the-jumper-from-midair” story. Instead, it is a well scripted story consisting of two lonely people talking and working things out.

After the end of the hostage storyline last issue, Tim Drake returns to high school and then, as Robin, visits wannabe teen-hero Dodge in the hospital. On his way home from the hospital, he spots a lone man standing at the edge of the roof of a tall building. Robin swings down to sit down next to him and talk. And that’s it. The rest of the comic is pretty much the two of them talking. It’s not hard to see that the young man is clinically depressed. Robin, for all his skills and accomplishments, has his own failings and is able to be a good listener. Robin makes some good points, particularly when he talks about how everyone’s problems are the worst, because they’re their problems. But mostly he just let’s the other guy talk. When he comes down off the edge at the end, it’s a believable scene.

Full credit to writer Adam Beechen and penciler Freddie Williams for producing a well done PSA comic, and managing to fit it in continuity.

The only problem I have with this issue has nothing to do with the script or art, but with the packaging. First, those stupid HeroScape 3-D glasses were inserted in the comic. It’s a poorly thought out ad for many reasons, but mainly because of the glasses and the fact that it makes HeroScape look dark and cluttered — everything the game is not. Then, in the center of the comic is an 8 page television Teen Titans comic/ad for Spark Top. This was particularly jarring this comic because you go from the middle of a serious conversation with a somber Robin to the overly cheerful and too-brightly colored Teen Titans Robin. Not a good place for the ad.