This is the final collection of Red Robin stories prior to the DC New 52 reboot. While the reboot didn't affect the Batman family of titles as drastically as it did others, it ended this storyline, so sadly, this is my last collection I can review.
To be honest, the story here started to lose focus, so maybe that ending wasn't such a bad thing. Rather than showing us one arc as the other collections have done, this volume instead collects several small one and two-issue arcs. The biggest of these is the one in which Tim Drake tries to take down the Unternet, a virtual reality network which uses brainwave manipulation to make super villains more evil. I had the most trouble with this story--it's was difficult at times to tell what was going on in real life versus what was going on in the virtual environment. The story also kind of stalled out on the character development front. Tim's relationships with Tam, Lynx, and the rest of Wayne clan just sort of stagnate here, though there's apparently some kind of resolution from a Teen Titans storyline I know nothing about. The ending here is also strange. In the final issue collected here, Red Robin faces off against Captain Boomerang, the criminal who killed his father. He arranges an elaborate scenario in which Captain Boomerang must *always* choose to do the more evil thing, and that series of choices ends with him near death. At the last minute Tim relents and saves him, but Bruce is still quick to chastise him for putting Boomerang in that situation to begin with. Tim's left pondering which route to take: stick to Batman's moral code, or veer more towards the grey areas he's been flirting with for the whole series. He doesn't make a decision, which is just frustrating. Not a bad book, but certainly not on par with the first volume.
I think I'll go back and read The Grail again so I can remember how awesome this series once was.
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