There’s something distressing about the art on the feature. It barely looks like the previous Broderick and Smith issues; maybe Broderick didn’t give Smith much to work with. There’s certainly not a lot in the way of inventive composition (something Moore excels with on the backup).

Moench’s feature story gets better as it goes along. The Calendar Man is a lame enough villain, but Moench makes it worse with the guy talking to himself all the time. Especially at the open, when he’s explaining the previous issue to the reader.

Eventually the story shakes out to Jason and Bruce having a big fight about Jason being a dimwit and Bruce calling him on it. Probably shouldn’t have made him Robin if he was dumb. But whatever.

The Green Arrow backup, with Cavalieri very seriously doing a story about illegal immigrants, is good. With Moore and Patterson’s art, it’s real good.

C 

CREDITS

The First Day of Spring; writer, Doug Moench; penciller, Pat Broderick; inker, Bob Smith; colorist, Adrienne Roy; letterer, John Workman. Green Arrow, Sanctuary; writer, Joey Cavalieri; penciller, Jerome Moore; inker, Bruce D. Patterson; colorist, Jeanine Casey; letterer, Bob Lappan. Editor, Len Wein; publisher, DC Comics.