This was supposed to be the cover of issue #177, when Chuck Dixon was the one writing it.  Based on the image, one would assume that The Cluemaster would grace the pages, giving Stephanie Brown (The Spoiler) some extra drama, you know, having to watch her boyfriend fight her father.  Sounds good.

But DC decided to fire Chuck, and now the cover looks like this.

The story starts with Tim Drake going to school, he runs into Stephanie, but then sees another girl, giving her the cold shoulder. Stephanie is now bitter and hurt.

Tim Drake, dressed as the masked crime fighter “Robin” making his normal rounds around the city, runs into Jason Todd, who proceeds to have a gun fight with the Boy Wonder. They are fighting because they don’t agree with how to stop crime. Mysteriously, the Red Robin shows up and saves Tim Drakes life. (Who is this dashing masked man?) After the fight, there is a scene change, we are now following hurt girlfriend “Stephanie Brown.”

She seems to be hiring an assassin to kill Tim.

This might have been the worst issue to date.

Rather then Cluemaster, we get Jason Todd, who is the worst choice of characters to return to life in the DC universe.  And they are taking great lengths to get the Spoiler back out of continuity, but she’s the character that I think has made the Robin series worth reading since 1992.

It seems to me that DC didn’t just fire Chuck Dixon, but they’re under the impression they killed him, too and are attempting to piss on his grave.

The problem, of course, is that he isn’t even dead yet.

The Robot Doctors Diagnosis? I wouldn’t even feed this book to a starving, broken robo-orphan.  Zero of 156 stars.