Kami Garcia and Gabriel Picolo’s Teen Titans: Robin continues their retelling of the Titans’ origins following their previous books, Raven, Beast Boy, and Beast Boy Loves Raven, picking up after the group escaped from a H.I.V.E. lab. They travel to Raven’s family, where her adoptive mother begins training the empowered teens and helping Damian Wayne integrate into the group. Meanwhile, Dick Grayson travels to reunite with Damian. In this version of the Titans, Talia brough Damian to meet Bruce shortly after Bruce had adopted Dick. As a result, the two are roughly the same age. Dick is still his easygoing self, but now Damian feels even more competitive towards his step-brother.

H.I.V.E. and Slade Wilson continue to search for the teens, though this story offers a moment of respite after the previous volume’s action. It uses training montages to further explore the characters’ inner lives and set up the found-family narrative that Garcia and Picolo have been developing in the previous volumes. Just as George Pérez and Mark Wolfman used the Titans to touch on adolescent themes, Garica and Picolo touch on the self-consciousness and struggles of teens, using superpowers as an allegory for these issues.

Like the previous volumes, Garcia demonstrates a remarkable understanding of these characters in her writing. She sets them in the modern day, but their essence comes through in a way that reveals just why they continue to resonate with readers. Meanwhile Picolo continues his admirable rendering of these characters. Picolo has some fun with the inclusion of a phenomenal reference to Akira in a scene of Dick Grayson walking to his car (p. 43). Colorist David Calderon elevates the art, broadening the palette of each character and adding harmony to the art with the introduction of new tones. Finally, the story points the way to meeting Starfire. The result is a phenomenal continuation of this retelling of the Teen Titans’ origins! ( )

The dialogue is still stilted at times and the pacing is too fast, but the artwork is wonderful. Shoutout to Picolo! The Max and Damian connection happened too quickly on Max’s part for me.

But what did I enjoy? Damian’s strained relationship with Dick Grayson. I think it’s a fun dynamic to explore. Damian is Bruce’s biological son, but Dick is the one he actually raised and loved. And Dick just wants to be a good older brother to Damian who is absolutely repulsed by him. Give me that family drama!

Y’all we got Starfire coming next! ( )

Representation: Black character
Trigger warnings: N/A?
Score: Seven points out of ten.
This review can also be found on The StoryGraph.

So I saw one of the two libraries I go to get this knowing that this is the fourth instalment in the series, and I enjoyed instalments one and three but two I didn't enjoy as much so I went in with what is best described as "cautious optimism." I feared this would be a disappointment. It surprisingly wasn't, and it was another outstanding book which leaves me waiting for the following one called Starfire. It starts with the main characters Dick and Damian (wait that name sounds familiar, and they're brothers) and after the events of the last book where the other characters escaped from HIVE, Raven, Garfield, Maxine and Damian are together again. Now they must train for any incoming and imminent threats and that takes most of the book, but somehow it manages to fit in a romance between two characters which I couldn't connect to, this was also the slowest paced book by far but that didn't decrease my enjoyment of it. Also, is it me or the shirts these people wear are tacky, since they say quotes like "Not Interested" or "Not in the Mood?" I think it's only me. The ending was anticlimactic but it's also a cliffhanger where someone shreds some car tyres suspending me in disbelief. What? ( )

This book is a connector. It’s called Robin and we meet Robin, but it isn’t really about Robin. It’s about the Teen Titans finally coming together and starting to figure out their powers and what is going, on who is HIVE and what do they want. This book is very much filler. It reads like filler. It looks like filler and get you exactly nowhere just like filler. I do like with the story arc is going and hope it continues but also hope that the wait isn’t as long for the next book. ( )