DC Comics’s Round Robin tournament wrapped back in May, with the sidekick-centric Robins and the Harley Quinn-starring Suicide Squad Seven squared off in the finals. Now the winner of the contest has been revealed, as DC has announced that the six-issue Robins series will debut this fall as part of what the publisher is calling “The Month of Robin.” The series is written by former Grayson and Nightwing scribe Tim Seeley, with art by Baldemar Rivas and Romulo Fajardo Jr. and letters by Steve Wands. The series will bow first on the DC Universe Infinite service in October, with a print release following in November.
Here’s how DC describes Robins:
ROBINS #1, written by Tim Seeley (GRAYSON, SUICIDE SQUAD: KING SHARK), with art by Baldemar Rivas (UNEARTH), peels back the domino mask on the realities and costs of being a Robin. Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne come together in the world’s most specific support group to finally talk about whether being a Robin was a good idea… but they can’t even do that without being ambushed. As an unknown assailant claims to have been the first Robin, the flock of Robins must figure out who she is, and what it means to be a Robin.
Along with the Robins news, DC also teased another Robin-centric title for November, Robin & Batman, a three-issue miniseries from writer Jeff Lemire and artist Dustin Nguyen. The series will reportedly be a ‘Dick Grayson: Year One’ story.
The announcement of two new Robin-centric titles comes on the heels of yesterday’s developments for Tim Drake within the pages of Batman: Urban Legends #6. The conclusion of the three-part story by Meghan Fitzmartin and Belén Ortega saw the current Robin begin to explore a romantic relationship with a male friend and former classmate, Bernard, a move many have interpreted as Tim coming out as bisexual. The story is said to continue in Urban Legends #10.
From the beginning of the Round Robin tournament, Seeley and Rivas’s Robins was a clear frontrunner, boosted by the Dark Knight’s enormous fandom (as well as by a less friendly element, who voted for the series primarily in order to defeat its first-round opponent, JLQ, a concept that had a strong base of voters). The release of the series as a DCU Infinite-first series makes sense given the role the streaming service played in the tournament both as a way of releasing information about the titles and for users to vote for their favorite concepts.
Robins #1 (of 6) will arrive on DC Universe Infinite on October 26th, and in stores with a main cover by Rivas and a variant by Babs Tarr on November 16th.
