Top 5

This month’s “Top 5″ list are my top 5 Robins.  It might be cheating a bit in that there have only been 5 different Robins in main continuity, but shut up.  This is the order that I rank them.  If you disagree, state your case.

5.	Stephanie Brown	Stephanie Brown started as Spoiler, and was mostly known as being the romantic interest of Tim Drake.  When Tim resigned as Robin, Stephanie volunteered to fill his role.  However, she quickly failed as Robin and was fired.  To redeem herself, she stole and implemented some of Batman’s plans, which started a cluster&@$%, and resulted in her “death.”  (War Drums, War Games)  But everything was revealed to be a-okay when Chuck Dixon returned to write Robin, and didn’t want to believe that anything had changed between now and when he left.  She’d later go on to Batgirl, until the New 52 relaunch sent her to limbo.
4.	Jason Todd	Jason Todd was so well liked that people voted for him to die.  At least, that’s how the story goes.  And really, the most memorable thing about him is that Joker killed him with a crowbar.  Well, brutally injured him with a crowbar, and killed him with an explosion.  Realistically, he probably wasn’t that bad of a Robin.  He just had the rotten luck of following Dick Grayson’s 40+ years of being Robin.  We’ll call him the George Lazenby of Robin’s.  He’d later go on to be brought back from the dead.  At first it was unknown how, and the Under the Red Hood storyline was actually pretty good.  Unfortunately, they revealed how he was brought back to life, and it involved Superboy Prime punching the time wall.  Yeah, some things should remain mysteries.
3.	Damien Wayne	Damien Wayne is the son of Talia Al Ghul and Bruce Wayne, and is the current Robin.  Damien was introduced early on in Grant Morrison’s run on Batman, and has been a thorn in the Bat Family’s side ever sense.  But, that’s the charm of Damien.  He’s not like any of the previous Robins.  He’s not haunted by his past.  He’s not trying to prove anything.  He may not even really want to be a hero.  He’s just an arrogant brat that believes he’s better than everyone else.   He’s there because he’s Bruce Wayne’s son, and therefore the heir to Bruce Wayne, which means, to him, being the heir to Batman.
2.	Dick Grayson	Ah, the original Robin.  He lasted quite some time as Robin, and I’ll admit that I haven’t read a lot of those older comics.  But from what I have read, it seemed like the best things done with Dick Grayson were near the end of his run as Robin.  This would be when he started to venture away from Batman, and was leader of the Teen Titans.  Otherwise, he was really just nothing more than Batman’s sidekick.  Of course, Dick Grayson did essentially establish the sidekick.  (Go ahead, show me the list of earlier sidekicks that you think I’m overlooking.)
1.	Tim Drake	I might be biased because this is the Robin I was introduced with, but I do believe that Tim Drake is the greatest of the Robins.  First, he used his detective skills to figure out who Batman and Nightwing were.  He then believed in Batman so much, that he volunteered to be Robin because it needed to be done.  He believed that Batman needed to have a Robin.  He had no reason to do this, other than it was the right thing to do.  He didn’t have a broken childhood.  Well, until his father was killed during Identity Crisis.  But, Bruce Wayne did end up adopting him, making him his son, instead of his ward.  Tim Drake would go on to become Red Robin after the events of Battle for the Cowl, and work solo.  On the publishing side of things, Tim Drake was the star of his solo title for 209 issues, if you combine Robin and Red Robin.  This run was stopped with the launch of the New 52.

A ‘bat’ of a problem

If my news is correct, I believe that once the currently running Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne mini wraps up, DC will be launching two lines of Batman books, one with Dick Grayson continuing on as Batman and one with Bruce Wayne reclaiming the cowl.  To me, whose only foray into the DCU involves other characters who occasionally interact with Batman, this presents a bit of a problem.  See below:

Don't feel bad if you guessed wrong.

Some recent comics (like a recent issue of Justice League: Generation Lost, for example) have been having Batman appear in cameo or supporting roles.  This has left several readers, myself included, wondering just who it is under the cowl.  In the JL:GL example, Batman has begun to realize that the JLI’s actions against the mysterious (to him, at least) Maxwell Lord is worth investigating.  This would be a big deal to me if it was Bruce Wayne figuring this out, since Bruce was a longtime member of the original JLI and had lots of interaction with Lord in his earliest of appearances.  Dick Grayson, on the other hand, has had zero interaction with the JLI or Lord, so this – as well as his interaction with Power Girl in the Batcave – comes off as rather odd.  Most of this is assumption on my part, though, as I’m really not familiar with Dick Grayson’s history in the DCU proper.

There’s not a real solution to this issue, since it’s not like the story really gives space to name drop in every guest appearance that Batman shows up in.  Before now, there was never really a need.  Rarely do heroes pass down their identity, and usually when it happens there’s a notable difference between the two heroes’ look.  In the case of the Flash, there was a discernable personality difference between Wally West and Barry Allen, and even without it, heroes usually refer to them as ‘Barry’ or ‘Wally’. 

Such is not the case with Batman.  There is no good way to tell the difference between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson in the Batman costume and the character is not one that allows the kind of interaction needed to make the difference obvious to the readers.  I have no idea how DC plans on keeping two Batmans running around, but however they do it, hopefully it addresses the situation.

Important?  Probably not.  But it does irk me, and blogging is the best place to air said irks.