How Robin Screwed Up the Batman: The Animated Series Timeline

For close 40 years, Batman was never seen without Robin. Be it on the 1966 Batman TV series, the Superfriends cartoon, the black and white theatrical serials from the 40s, or the comic books themselves, Batman's erstwhile partner was never far from his side¹. They were a package deal.

This became a problem for fans and creators who wanted Batman to be taken “seriously.” While Robin — be he the original, Dick Grayson, who we’ll be primarily discussing today, or any of his successors — has always been a rather popular character among many comic book fans, the brightly colored, pun-spewing kid sidekick of those early years has largely been viewed as a joke in pop culture, a living reminder of Batman’s campy past.

An opinion that’s not entirely without merit

It’s no surprise that when DC Comics sought to revamp Batman’s image in the mid-70s, the first thing they did was send Robin off to college, freeing Batman up to have solo adventures as an avenging Dark Knight. Likewise, when Tim Burton’s 1989 Batman film re-introduced the character to the world it did so without a Robin at his side.

When Batman: The Animated Series launched in 1992, its creators were likewise looking to tell more mature and grounded stories with their Batman, and thought having Robin constantly popping up would undermine their efforts. However, recognizing both the value of Robin as a reflection of Batman and as a character in his own right, they didn’t want to write him off entirely either. So, the staff of B:TAS created a Robin who was already, technically, an adult, attending nearby Gotham University, concocting a convenient excuse for his absence that also kept him close enough to join in the adventures as a still-junior partner when needed.

This approach worked well for the series in a vacuum, but ultimately ended up playing havoc on the series’ timeline, and it’s all thanks to one episode — but we’ll get to that in a bit.

First, we need to understand that Batman: The Animated Series never actually shows Batman’s origin story². Its first episode, “On Leather Wings,” features a Batman who has already been active in Gotham for some time. How long, though, is left vague. He’s known by the citizens and the police, but not yet fully trusted. Moreover, upcoming episodes would quickly make it clear that only two of Batman’s famous villains — The Joker and the Penguin — were already active before the beginning of the series³; while the rest of his rogues would be given full-on origin stories in their first appearances, those two villains were introduced as well-known threats to Gotham, villains Batman had tangled with before.

Based off that information alone, one would probably guess that B:TAS opens within the first few years of Batman’s career, as he transitions from largely fighting organized crime to fighting colorful freaks. One thing throws a wrench in that theory, though: Robin. Specifically, Robin already being in college when the series begins implies a much longer history for these characters.

But perhaps there’s another explanation? Maybe Dick Grayson became Robin as an older teenager in this version of the story? After all, Batman Forever went that route, albeit not especially successfully⁴. Well, no: this theory is thoroughly debunked by “Robin’s Reckoning,” a two-part episode that details the death of Dick Grayson’s parents, how he became Robin, and Robin’s encounter with his parents’ killer in the present day — and, oh, yeah, which also completely obliterates the B:TAS timeline.

Please don’t take this as a diss on “Robin’s Reckoning,” a story I actually really, really like. These episodes are rightfully remembered as some of B:TAS’s best, a wistful, emotional tale that also features one of the series’ most memorable moments (which we’ll talk about in a bit). It won an Emmy! It earned the right to screw up the series’ timeline; but let’s talk about how it did so.

First of all, it shows that Dick Grayson’s parents were killed when he was just a young child — 9 years old, according to the end credits. It also explicitly states that this event happened 9 years prior to the present day. Batman was already known and active in Gotham when Dick’s parents died, so if we (conservatively) guess that he’d been active for around a year, we suddenly have a Batman who had been fighting crime in Gotham for ten years at the beginning of B:TAS.

That’s wild, right? Remember what I said earlier: only the Joker and Penguin were active before the series began, with the rest of his iconic villains introduced as the show progressed. What was Batman doing all that time? Did he really spend a full ten years just fighting the mob? Moreover, what was Robin doing all that time? In the comics Robin’s introduction usually serves as a transition from down-to-earth crime stories to more fantastic superhero stories for Batman; in almost all incarnations of their story, Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson’s time working together as Batman and Robin is portrayed with them doing battle against all Batman’s most iconic foes in their prime. B:TAS’s Batman’s story not really beginning until ten years into his career is incredibly strange, but Dick Grayson’s time as Robin largely being over at the same time that Batman’s story is beginning is, honestly, rather sad.

There is one more potential out here, the theory that the episodes of B:TAS don’t air in chronological order. After all, Riddler’s commercial from “Riddler’s Reform” can be seen on TV during the episode “Make ‘Em Laugh,” implying that the two episodes are taking place simultaneously; likewise, the events of “Joker’s Favor” takes place over two years’ time. Perhaps some of the villain origin story episodes are meant to be taking place much earlier in Batman’s career, despite the episode order? Again, “Robin’s Reckoning” debunks this. In the flashback to Robin’s youth, Batman is seen wearing a different, older, more stripped down version of his costume that we never see him wear again in any other episode. No other episodes are taking place that early in his career.

As frustrating as this timeline is, it’s also incredibly funny to me, if solely for the implications it creates for the other series that take place in the same universe as B:TAS⁵. Superman: The Animated Series takes place at the same time as the final season of B:TAS that was produced for Kid’s WB instead of Fox; if we assume the Fox run of episodes took place over several years, throw in the several year time-skip between the Fox and Kid’s WB episodes, and add on the 10 pre-B:TAS years, Batman is pushing 40 by the time he meets Superman for the first time! By the end of the DCAU’s final entry, Justice League: Unlimited, he’s pushing 50! That’s such a strange fact, especially since Batman is neither drawn nor written like a man in his 50s at that point.

The one time Clooney would have been appropriate casting…

Strange as it is, I don’t think this timeline was an intentional choice. I see it playing out this way: the writers had already made the choice to keep Robin a sporadic, slightly more adult presence in the series. But the writers also knew that Robin’s origin story doesn’t work if he’s not a child; Bruce Wayne needs to see in Dick Grayson a reflection of himself, another child who lost his parents too young. These two versions of Dick Grayson co-existing in B:TAS created a strange, unaccounted period of time in Batman’s history, but that was likely an afterthought. By the time the staff likely noticed, the finished episode would have been too good to scrap or overhaul. I am pretty confident that the writers eventually noticed this little twist in the timeline, though, if only because they went so far out of their way to never acknowledge it again after “Robin’s Reckoning.” They never flashback to that early period in Batman’s career again. They never flashback to Robin’s childhood again — in fact, they never even reveal what Dick Grayson’s Robin looked like as a child, or what his original costume was. I think they know that these ten unaccounted-for years in Batman’s history are best left ignored, lest they raise far too many questions.

I’ve brought this subject up before — in this newsletter, even! — but it never stops being strange and interesting to me. Beyond the facts I’ve laid out today, what gets me even more is that I’ve never seen another fan acknowledge this fact. I’m not even making an argument or theorizing — the show is explicit about how long Batman has been active — but I think I just needed to collect my thoughts about this one more time, in public, so that hopefully somebody can tell me I’m not crazy and that it is weird Batman was around that long without really doing much of anything. Got any theories about what he was doing all that time? Hit me up in the comments.

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CHECK OUT

As I mentioned earlier in this piece, “Robin’s Reckoning” contains one of Batman: The Animated Series’ most iconic moments: the death of Dick Grayson’s parents.

One of the most interesting things about this scene is the restraint; we never see John and Mary Grayson fall, or their bodies, simply a rope swinging back onto screen in silhouette. This choice actually came courtesy of the network censors, who wouldn’t allow a more graphic version of the scene to make the air. The writers are actually grateful for this note, as they think the finished version is much more poignant and powerful for its restraint. I agree.

This is actually a common theme with Batman: The Animated Series; though it was heavily meddled with by network executives and censors, surprisingly, this meddling often made the show better. I wrote a piece for this newsletter a few years back about this phenomenon, and you should check it out!

The Ups and Downs of "Executive Meddling"

This piece was, sadly, inspired by the death of iconic B:TAS voice actor Kevin Conroy, who I eulogized in my previous entry.

R.I.P Kevin Conroy

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ABOUT

“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin about his relationship with the stories he loves. Spencer is an enthusiast and writer from Newark, Delaware, who likes punk rock, comic books, working out, breakfast, and most of all, stories. His previous work appeared on Retcon Punch, One Week One Band, and Crisis on Infinite Chords, and he can be found on Twitter at @ThatSpenceGuy. If you like this newsletter, please subscribe and share with your friends!

1. Funnily enough, this didn’t apply to Robin himself, who starred in occasional solo adventures throughout the late 60s and early 70s even when Batman himself was not allowed to do the same.

2. Or, at least, the show never devotes a full episode to it. The death of Bruce Wayne’s parents is shown in flashback multiple times; several episodes allude to or feature flashbacks to Bruce’s time training across the world; Batman: Mask of the Phantasm has an entire flashback storyline that shows why and how Bruce Wayne came up with the persona of the Batman and why he followed through on taking up the mantle. Notably, the only step the series skips over are Batman’s first, earliest adventures in Gotham.

3. The Joker is first introduced in the series’ second episode “Christmas With The Joker,” and is already a well-known threat in Gotham at the time. The Penguin is first introduced in “I’ve Got Batman In My Basement,” which is unfortunately a dud of an episode, but which does establish that Penguin is already so notorious in Gotham that even random children know who he is.

4. But, also, totally worth it for formative-young-Spencer-crush Chris O’Donnell as Robin.

5. The connected universe of Batman: The Animated Series, Superman: The Animated Series, Batman: Beyond, Justice League, and Justice League: Unlimited is known as the DC Animated Universe, or the DCAU.