Robin, aka Boy Wonder, is celebrating his birthday this week: he debuted in Detective Comics # 38 on March 6, 1940, and he and Batman have become almost inseparable in the war on crime. But while Bruce Wayne has almost always worn the Batman hood, there are many different characters behind Robin’s mask. Here is an overview of some of the men and women who were called Robin.
1940
Dick grayson
First and foremost, Dick Grayson. Like Batman, Dick lost his family to the crime. His parents, circus acrobats, were killed in a crowd protection racket. Batman (Bruce Wayne) trained Dick to help bring the culprit to justice. The two orphans had a positive influence on each other.
Over the next 40 years, Dick went from boy wonder to young adult. In his youth, he helped found the Teen Titans, a group of heroes who were the Justice League cronies. During his time with the Titans, he realized that he had surpassed his status as a junior partner. He became Nightwing in 1984 – and is still Nightwing today – although he spent time in other tights.
Dick’s moonlight concerts in other outfits include Batman replacement and spy work. His years of espionage were based on his status the sexiest heroes of DC Comics. While he was wearing a device that obscured his beautiful face, two admirers – Batgirl, a longtime lover, and Midnighter, a gay superhero – were able to recognize him from behind.
Bruce Wayne once wore a Robin costume in his youth. He used Robin’s identity to hide his own when he sought to learn from a famous detective named Harvey Harris. Several years later, Bruce learns that he did not deceive the detective, when a package and a letter arrive from Harris’ estate. “I realized that if you knew I had learned your identity, you would always feel insecure, so I never told you,” said the letter. “I was right, because you have become the greatest detective of all.”
The concept of Earth-Two allowed the parallel versions of the DC heroes to have been active from their first appearances in the 1930s and 1940s – and for them to age accordingly. In 1971, the contemporary Robin (then in college) met his older Earth-Two counterpart, who began his career in 1940, and who met the Justice League in 1967. The older Robin wore a Batman-Robin hybrid suit which was a bit of a horror, and the two acolytes linked to feel underestimated by the most seasoned heroes. At the end of this story, the youngest Robin was loaned a new elegant suit by the elder. (Unfortunately, this was not a permanent change.) But the eldest Dick died wearing the best suit in 1985 during a story intended to eliminate the parallel worlds.
Dick thought he had found a natural successor like Robin in Jason Todd, which was introduced in 1982. Like Dick, Jason was an acrobat who lost his parents to the crime and helped Batman bring the villain responsible for their death. Jason first wore the suit in 1983, although he dyed his hair black in an attempt to pretend to be the original Robin.
In 1987, the story of Batman, Robin and Jason was reset: after many years of fighting crime, Bruce and Dick (who at that time was almost an adult) argued over the dangers of their craft and dissolved their partnership. A few weeks later, Batman met Jason, reimagined as a young runaway, while he was trying to steal the tires from the Batmobile. Either way, the Dark Knight has decided that Jason should be the next Robin. Saint Hypocrite, Batman!
This version of Jason was stubborn and abrasive and hated by the fans. In 1988, DC Comics organized a telephone survey to decide the fate of Jason. The New York Times covered these events in an article with the title, “Holy Bomb Blast! The real Robin is fighting! In the poll, 5,343 people voted in favor of Jason’s death in a Joker-led explosion – 5,271 voted to keep him. Because these are comics and no one – except Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben – died forever, Jason returned in 2005. He is now the anti-hero known as name of Red Hood, a name originally used by the Joker.
A love interest of Bruce Wayne wore Robin’s costume in 1941 to help the heroes in a deal, but Carrie Kelley caused a stir as a Robin woman in 1986. She was featured in The Dark Knight Returns, which imagines a dark future in which an older Bruce Wayne comes out of retirement to protect Gotham City. This story also inspired the idea of Jason’s death in 1988. A Robin costume is hung in a Batcave memorial. Bruce looks at the screen and thinks, “For Jason. Never. Never again.”
There was a better reception for Tim Drake, who became Robin in 1989. A young Tim was at the circus the night that Dick Grayson’s parents died. Several months later, Tim saw Robin on television perform the same quadruple somersault that Dick played in the circus with his parents. Tim realized that Dick was Robin and started obsessively following the exploits of the Dynamic Duo. After Jason’s death, Tim deduced that Batman was too reckless alone. He tried to convince Dick to return, but his critical help in a matter made him the perfect successor. Tim now passes near the alter ego Drake.
The next Robin was Stephanie Brown. She was the daughter of a villain known as the Cluemaster and helped thwart his crimes as a Spoiler (his first code name). Stephanie temporarily replaced Tim in 2004 after Tim’s father discovered his extracurricular activities and barred him from being Robin. Her tenure was short-lived, however, after disobeying Batman’s orders: In an attempt to prove her worth, she started a gang war in Gotham City with disastrous results, including seemingly fatal injuries. (Don’t worry, it got better.)
The Son of the Demon, an original graphic novel published in 1987, was supposed to be an independent story that had no effect on the continuity of Batman. He concluded with Batman unaware that Talia al Ghul, the daughter of one of her enemies, is pregnant with her child. But in 2006, this child, Damian Wayne, then preteen, made his debut and demanded the role of Robin as his birthright. Batman had gloved hands: Damian was trained to be an assassin and did not care about the hero’s non-lethal methods. Dick Grayson helped exhaust some of its edges when he served as Batman to Robin of Damian, during a temporary absence from Bruce Wayne.
Finally, there is Duke Thomas, who was introduced in 2013 and, two years later, became one of the teens of Gotham City’s We Are Robin movement. Members of the group wore the colors of Robin’s traditional costume and tried to help protect the city. Duke surpassed the others and then helped Batman against a new villain – Mister Bloom. Batman offered to provide Duke with additional training, which he accepted, but not yet another Robin. In 2018, he decided instead to call himself the Signal, perhaps starting a legacy that will last for decades.