By Mark Rodriguez
World's Finest is usually about the adventures of Superman and Batman working together on several adventures. This time though, rather then the Man of Steel and the Dark Knight, we follow a team up between Supergirl and Robin. Let's check this one out.
The story opens with Supergirl being horrified by something. Even though she has seen many things, it still doesn't make her numb to them.
Over in Gotham, Killer Croc has Robin chained upside down, telling him he's not Batman. It seems Robin fell into a trap meant for the Dark Knight and Killer Croc asks how he found him. Robin says it's not hard to find a giant walking, talking crocodile. He also picked the locks two minutes ago. Robin breaks free and says Croc fell into his trap, tossing Batarangs at him. This just makes Killer Croc see red.
Supergirl suddenly lands between them and knocks Killer Croc out with a punch. Robin says he didn't need her help and asks why she's there. Supergirl is looking for Batman, and Robin informs her that he's busy with the Justice League. Kara asks for Tim and Robin says he's doesn't care what he's up to. Supergirl is about to leave when Robin asks if this is about the giant grave found at Suicide Slums. She asks how he knew about that and Robin reminds her that he's the son of Batman.
Supergirl says she needs a detective, someone who can see things she can't. Robin says it's funny coming from the girl with the X-Ray eyes. She needs help with capturing this killer, but without Dick or Tim around, she'll fly off. Robin says anything they can do he can do better. Supergirl says he can help but he'll have to find his own way to Metropolis. She flies off.
At the Metropolis City Morgue, Robin tells Supergirl to use her X-Ray and Telescopic Vision to examine the body and tell him what she sees. Supergirl says he can't use her like a tool from his utility belt, and he says that his father did that to Superman all the time. Supergirl does so but doesn't see anything out of the ordinary.
Robin checks some files and says that the coroner concluded that the deceased have succumbed to heart attacks and were buried post mortem. He cross-references the victims with the Bat-Database and discovers that all of them were students at the Metropolis University and part of an internship for a program at Lexcorp.
Supergirl and Robin interrogate one of the people over at Lexcorp about these victims. The man says they're as shocked as they are since these kids represented the future of the company. Supergirl says he's telling the truth, she's seen so many Lexcorp underlings lie that when they actually tell the truth it sticks out like a sore thumb. Robin hacked into the Lexcorp HR system and found out that the remaining surviving students are all attending a Halloween party that night.
At the party, Supergirl is dressed as a bunny while Robin is dressed like a classic gangster. Supergirl asks if he couldn't find a better costume for her and he says they were fresh out of streetwalker costumes. Somehow Robin survives this.
Supergirl grabs a guy wearing a pumpkin and takes off with him asking him what he knows. Robin says she can use torture tactics to make him break. Supergirl says something is wrong, she can't tell if he's telling the truth or not. The man's heart never misses a beat, it's as if nothing scares him.
Supergirl sets the man back down and he says he only fears one thing and it isn't her. Robin tries to warn Supergirl and the man gasses her in the face. Supergirl has been affected by the Scarecrow's fear toxin and now sees Robin as one of her enemies, Reactron.
Robin shields himself as she flies past him, lost to her rage, missing him by inches. Supergirl tries to blast him with her heat vision and Robin gets out of the way. Supergirl then sees zombies, undead versions of her parents and Superwoman, crawling out of the ground, saying she let them die just like the people in Suicide Slums. Supergirl continues to freak out as she now sees a vision of Superman calling her a failure and saying that Superwoman would have been better continuing his legacy. She isn't weak like her.
Robin tries to tell Supergirl to regain her composure and fight the effects of the fear toxin. She sees the Black Lanterns gathering behind 'Superman', 'Reactron' and 'Superwoman' and says this can't be real since they were all defeated. She flies in and grabs Robin and is ready to punch him in the face. Supergirl finally snaps out of it saying this isn't real.
Supergirl calms down and tells Robin she thought he was Reactron and saw visions of her parents and Superwoman. Robin says the fear toxin had that affect and she says it normally doesn't. Scarecrow says he used a stronger mix in case he ran into any Metropolis heroes and tries to stab her with a wooden stake. Robin knocks him out as they both tell him to shut up.
Robin explains the Scarecrow must have used his toxin on the kids and they died of heart attacks, literally scared to death. He then buried them in Suicide Slums. When asked why, he explained it was because Lex took his Yellow Lantern Ring (during the events of Blackest Night). With the ring he felt free from Batman and able to cause great horrors. Since Lex took it from him, he tried to take something from him, his intern students.
Scarecrow is dragged off to Arkham as he's rambling off about the Yellow Lantern Ring, which would come off as nonsense to the orderlies. Supergirl will give Robin a lift home and he thanks her by name. Supergirl says he actually knows her name, since he was calling her 'alien' the whole time. He says not to get used to it.
My thoughts-
A decent read, I remember being very new to Damian Wayne Robin at this time. At the time I was new to Dick Grayson as Batman and Damien as Robin, so I was grabbing everything that had him in it. The story follows the events of The Blackest Night which I missed out on. It obviously affected Supergirl strongly as the aftermath of these events were what hit her when she got a taste of Scarecrow's Fear Toxin. I do notice during the overall Supergirl series a recurring theme is that she's always concerned that she won't be good enough to take the mantle whenever Superman leaves this world.
Robin was a douche for this whole issue, sometimes funny because that's how he is, and sometimes not. That streetwalker line came out of left field, Supergirl never came off as the type to be promiscuous or anything so I don't know where that came from. Now I'm not saying that being promiscuous is something to insult mind you, but insults are usually based on something true that can be used against the person, like calling someone that isn't the smartest a dumbass for example. I'm surprised it went over Kara's head, or maybe she chose to ignore it because he's still a kid and doesn't know any better.
Since this story came out before 'Good-Looking Corpse', I'm assuming Robin mellowed out just a bit between now and then. He was still an annoying little snot, but his talking down to Supergirl just felt a lot nastier here. I guess we can say she earned his respect after this one since he actually acted somewhat nicer to her at the end of this issue.
Scarecrow's plan was as unhinged as he is. You darn well know Lex Luthor wouldn't give a damn about random kids dying, his students or otherwise. If anything, he'd probably use sympathy for their deaths to gain favor with the crowds. Then again, Scarecrow was the same person that thought using a wooden stake on Supergirl, of all people, would actually hurt her.
Either way, a decent read, though I'd imagine you'd get a better context if you read The Blackest Knight first, which I didn't. It was also the December 2010 issue, so it came out a few months late for a Halloween centered story.
I do wonder if Scarecrow was at the college party to spike the punch. I really hope Supergirl and Robin threw all the food and drinks out.
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