Robin #130
War Games: Act Two Part 5
Writer: Bill Willingham
Pencils: Jon Procter
Inks: Robert Campanella & Rodney Ramos
Publisher: DC Comics
Price: $2.25

This review contains spoilers.

In a room rendered near black by the Gotham power outage, Spoiler struggles with a walking nightmare. A death?s head in a business suit struggling to pull her knapsack from her grasp. ?So now Batman?s sending little girls after me? ME?! Black Mask?? the now revealed ?secret? villain says. Black Mask tries to get Spoiler to tell him what her plan is, but she refuses. ?Maybe there?s something in your cute little bag that will shed some light on our darkness,? he says.

Black Mask wrests the bag from Spoiler?s grasp and begins to pull her P.D.A., ?Just right for storing important documents,? from it. Stephanie isn?t about to let him discover her secrets that easily. She holds up a detonator and presses the red button. The bag explodes in black masks face leaving him disoriented. Spoiler takes advantage of the moment and hurtles toward Black Mask. A flying kick from spoiler sends Black Mask to the floor where she holds him in place with a boot to his skeletal cranium.

She pulls him up and smashes his head through a window. ?Oh how it must suck to be you,? Spoiler says ? figuring she?s taught Black Mask his lesson. But Black Mask has a lesson for Spoiler as well - the lesson that strength is the ability to accept pain. He grabs one of the shards of glass from the window frame and stabs it deep into Spoiler?s shoulder.

Free from Spoiler?s grasp, Black Mask picks up a curtain rod from the floor and strikes her across the head. He then kicks her in the stomach as she lies slumped on the floor. But Spoiler isn?t finished, yet. She leg sweeps him off his feet, but he recovers quickly and grasps her by the throat. She breaks free, but not for long. ?Let?s try that again, okay,? Black Mask says as he throttles her into unconsciousness. Not knowing if she can hear him or not, he tells her ?If you?re still alive, I plan to keep you that way ? for a few hours longer.? There?s still information that he needs from her. And if the torture scenes from previous War Games issues are any indication, the interrogation process isn?t going to be too pleasant for Spoiler.

Elsewhere in Gotham, the larger war continues to rage on. Robin has captured a large group of gang members. He tells them that they?ve broken a variety of laws and are probably facing years in jail, but he?ll let them go provided that he doesn?t see any of them on the streets again. ?Meanwhile, I?ll be dropping your guns and I.D.?s off at the local precinct.? That gang members tell him they thought he was a girl now. ?She was temporary? he says, but they?re lucky it wasn?t her or they?d have the added humiliation of having been beaten u

Robin gets on the Redbird and rides away. He radios to Oracle to find where he?s needed next. She tells him that there?s nothing right at the moment, but to take the break while he can. He asks her to patch him in to his house. He has something that he has to tell his father ? before he sees it on the news. Robin is back on the job. Once the connection is made, he tells his dad that he needs to talk to him in private. ?Can we meet on the roof in ten minutes??

As Spoiler comes to, she finds herself chained to a wall. ?Time to wake up, little girl,? Black Mask says. ?You slept all the way through the move to my safe house.? As If being chained to a wall weren?t bad enough, the myriad torture implements strewn about show that Black Mask means business. Spoiler tells him that he?s going to be in trouble if he doesn?t let her go, but he?s not fazed. He tells her it?s the trouble headed her way that she should be concerned about.

On the roof of Tim?s home, Jack drake walks outside, ?Tim? Are you out her son?? ?I?m here, dad,? Tim says. But when he sees how Tim is dressed, as Robin, his tone changes. ?Bruce Wayne just had to drag you back into this, he says. But Tim explains to him that isn?t the way it is. Robin is needed ? there are only things that he can do ? and he can?t just sit idly by when he knows he can be of help. He tells his father that it breaks his heart that he had to go back on his word to him, but it has nothing to do with Bruce Wayne. ?I didn?t learn my sense of duty and responsibility from Batman,? he says, ?I got that from you long ago.?

Oracle calls to Tim and says he?s needed. Jack tells Tim that he?s convinced that Robin is necessary, but if Robin?s got to go, he?s going along too. Tim tells him it?s too dangerous and that he?s not trained to handle the situation, but he can be of help. He hands Jack a piece of paper and says ?meet me here in an hour, Dana, too.?

When Jack and Dana arrive at the address Tim had given them, they find themselves at the Thompkins Clinic. Tim greets them and introduces them to Leslie. Jack tells her that he has no medical training, but he?ll help however he can and Dana is a physical therapist, so her skills can be utilized. Leslie tells them the first thing they can do is donate blood. Then, they need more supplies.

Back at Black Mask?s safe house, Spoiler hangs on the very edge of consciousness. Her face is bloodied and she?s looking the worse for wear. Black Mask has been working on her for some time. By the time she tells him to stop, she says she?s willing to tell him whatever he wants to know. He tells her that he was beginning to think she didn?t know anything. ?Let?s start with the big one? he says. ?Who is Batman?s man inside the gangs?? Spoiler defiantly tells him that his plan is already obsolete. Black Mask has already killed the man he?s looking for, Orpheus.

With this issue, War Games really shifts into high gear. All the pieces are now in play and it?s time for the Game to begin in earnest. I have to say I was somewhat surprised by the reveal of Black Mask as the villain, but in hindsight, it makes sense. It was the ?death? of Black Mask in Catwoman a year or so back that created the power vacuum that allowed the Gallante mob to take over. And in previous War Games issues we?ve seen that the mystery villain has a propensity for torture ? which Black Mask had previously demonstrated on Catwoman?s unfortunate sister and brother in law. It will be interesting to see what happens when Catwoman finds out Black Mask is still very much alive.

My initial thought as to the identity of the mystery villain was that it was Blockbuster ? that perhaps his wound at the hands of Tarantula actually hadn?t been fatal and he?d followed Nightwing and Tarantula to Gotham to extract his revenge, but instead stumbled upon an opportunity he couldn?t pass up. Guess I was wrong, but in my defense it did at least turn out to be a villain who was also presumed dead.

I really liked the artwork by Procter, Campanella and Ramos in this issue. Black Mask is more menacing than I?ve ever seen him look before and the extended fight scenes between he and spoiler are dynamic and occasionally downright brutal. This presentation of such a vicious and diabolical Black Mask definitely contributes to the feeling that this is a villain capable of the atrocity we now know him to be responsible for. Comicon Pulse currently has an interesting feature with Robin #130 penciller Jon Proctor HERE

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