Robyn Hood: I Love NY

Robyn Hood: I Love NY picks up after the Cabal has been defeated and Marian has moved on with her own life. Robyn is still in New York, trying to get Nottingham Investigations going again and work out what she’s going to do without Marian beside her every day. This is Lou Iovino’s 12-issue series, following the ongoing collected in Riot Girls, Monsters in the Dark, Attitude Adjustment and Uprising. Spoilers ahead for the whole thing, including the ending. Robyn has friends she can call, but that’s different from having Marian there all the time. She’s trying to find work and help people while dealing with her own problems. And when she gets angry or scared for someone, she can be very good at shutting them out. Gabby becomes important because she looks up to Robyn. Robyn doesn’t always know what to do with that. She’s struggling with how she sees herself, and here’s this girl who already thinks she’s a hero. The cases take her all over the city. There are drug dealers using drones, missing people, and creatures living underground. Even a job looking into a supposedly cheating husband ends up involving something supernatural. Then children start disappearing, and Wonderland’s clowns turn up in Manhattan. Robyn has plenty to fight, but there are also people who need somewhere safe to go and someone to help them after the immediate danger is over. Commissioner Julia Gengrich keeps reminding her of that. Julia is responsible for the city too, and she can’t just leave when a fight ends. The two of them have to find a way to work together, even when Robyn would rather deal with everything herself. Vasco de Silva, the Vapor Lord, is one of the bigger problems. He’s an ancient vampire who can become mist, so destroying the body in front of you doesn’t necessarily finish him. Robyn and Angelica Blackstone, Hellchild, learn that the hard way. They think they’ve stopped him, but he returns stronger after feeding on Angelica’s blood. Liesel Van Helsing gets involved, and they have to find a way to keep him from escaping again. Helpful Links: The full twelve-issue collection: https://zenescope.com/products/robyn-hood-i-love-ny-trade-paperback Vasco’s return with Liesel in issue seven: https://zenescope.com/products/robyn-hood-i-love-ny-7 Vasco needs his own discussion, but his fight also matters to the rest of this story. Robyn leaves blood on the ice during their confrontation, and somebody comes along afterward to collect it. There’s also a hunt through Brooklyn with Masumi and a case involving Death Force. Rick Murphy is on a rampage, but someone is controlling him. Missy asks Robyn to help break that hold, so she has to find out what’s happening rather than just fight him. Battery’s case puts her in a similar position. A doomsday cult is using his powers, and it becomes a crisis at the Statue of Liberty. Robyn gets him out and helps him release the energy that has built up. She nearly dies doing it. Battery ends up carrying her out to the police and asking them to help her. She’s there to stop a disaster, but she still recognizes that he needs help too. When Robyn wakes up in the hospital, Julia tells her the Harlem youth center has burned down. Gabby was tied to a chair and left inside. She survived, but she’s in intensive care with burns and smoke inhalation. That brings Alina Rose into the open. Robyn killed Alina’s father back in Myst, when he was serving in King John’s militia. Alina has carried that hatred since childhood, and now she’s going after people Robyn cares about. Alina has a reason to hate Robyn, but Gabby had nothing to do with her father’s death. She’s willing to hurt anyone who will make Robyn suffer. And she wants more than revenge. She wants Robyn’s place in the Child of Darkness prophecy. Fuchs is working with her. Robyn already hates him for killing her sister, and now she finds out what he did with the blood left on the ice after the vampire fight. They used it to take her dark essence. Alina has Robyn’s blood in her veins and believes their destinies have been joined. She wants to kill Robyn so that whatever remains of the prophecy will pass to her. Robyn has spent years dreading that prophecy. Now she has to stop someone who actually wants it, because she knows what Alina could do with that power. It puts her in the position of fighting to keep something she never wanted. Meanwhile, Gabby has been hurt and people are dying. Robyn decides that having anyone close to her puts them in danger. Julia suggests calling Liesel or Britney, but Robyn refuses. She thinks keeping them away will keep them safe. After barely escaping Alina, she finds her old apartment building burning. Mrs. Garcia is dead. The other residents got out, but Robyn still blames herself. She takes the surviving cat with her and goes back to her hideout. The hideout is an old drug operation’s base that she’s taken over. She’s badly injured, furious, and trying to shut everyone out again. But in the middle of all that, she’s still stopped to take care of the cat. Julia helps bandage her up and tries to get through to her. Taking everything on herself doesn’t keep everybody safe. It leaves her alone with it. Robyn still won’t let Julia join the fight, but she does ask for help clearing people out. Alina’s base is in the tunnels around Grand Central, and Robyn knows she’ll kill anyone in the way. Getting the area evacuated means she can face Alina without putting a station full of people between them. The fight moves through the station and onto a train. Alina is claiming the Child of Darkness power, and Robyn is trying to stop her from turning it on the city. Robyn manages to beat her, but that doesn’t settle the prophecy. A crowned, skeletal figure appears, calls Alina his Child of Darkness, and takes her away. He tells Robyn the prophecy has been altered. When she asks who he is, he asks what her new destiny will be. Then he disappears, leaving an Emperor tarot card. So Robyn is left with a different question about her future. The prophecy has changed, but she doesn’t know what that means for her yet. Alina is gone for now, and there’s still a lot Robyn hasn’t been told. The story then jumps forward a few months. Gabby brings Robyn back to the youth center, where Julia has brought people together to help rebuild. Liesel and Britney are there too. Robyn apologizes for keeping them out. She didn’t want any of them getting hurt. They tell her they’re her family and that they’ll be there for her, whether she wants the help or not. Gabby has been through something terrible herself, and she’s still ready to get back up and help. Robyn asks if she’s okay being there after what happened. Gabby’s answer is that getting back up is what New Yorkers do. It ends with them working on the building together. Robyn still has questions about her future, and they can’t undo what happened. But she doesn’t have to deal with everything by herself. The people she’s been looking after are there to look after her too.