The Identity Crisis of Tim Drake
If there’s one bit of trivia constantly on the edge of my brain, just waiting for an excuse to be let loose, it’s the history of Batman’s sidekick, Robin, and the various characters who have taken on that mantle over the last 80 years — get a couple drinks in me at a party and it’ll all come spilling out soon enough. There’s one particular “Robin” on my mind today, though, a character I’ve watched struggle to find a place within the comics over the past few years, but in order to properly explain his story I do need to give a bit of backstory on the Robins who came before him. I’m terribly sorry. (No, I’m not).
Robin came into existence less than a year after Batman, in 1940, in an attempt to make the already popular character a bit more accessible to his young readers, part of the early transformation of Batman from a dark figure who shot his enemies down with guns to the child-friendly, deputized agent of the law who would go on to inspire Adam West’s take. Robin was initially Dick Grayson, an 8-year-old circus performer whose parents were killed by criminals when the circus’ owner refused to pay mobsters protection money. Bruce Wayne took Dick in as his ward, and eventually helped him find justice for his parents as his costumed sidekick, Robin.
Dick Grayson is the version of Robin most of the public is familiar with. He was the version portrayed by Burt Ward in the 1960s television series, the version who never left Batman’s side in the Superfriends animated series, the version who has appeared in one way or form in almost every Batman adaptation to ever have existed. He’s also the longest tenured Robin, holding the role (in the comics) from 1940 until 1984. Dick was a static character, an eternal pun-loving child sidekick, until the early seventies, when DC Comics attempted to return Batman to his dark detective roots, and Robin started to be viewed by many as too silly and bright, an antithesis to everything they wanted to do with the character.
Dick Grayson was thus allowed to grow up and go to college, and became only a sporadic presence in the Batman comics. Instead, he took on a starring role in The New Teen Titans, leading a group of fellow sidekicks and young-adult heroes in what quickly became DC’s most popular book. Given a lot of leverage, TNTT creators Marv Wolfman and George Perez were allowed to take full control of Dick as a character and gave him a new identity as the hero Nightwing, a role he still holds to this day.
The Batman writers, though, weren’t fully ready to give up on the idea of Robin, and replaced Dick with a character named Jason Todd. Originally Jason was practically a clone of Dick, yet another circus performer orphaned by criminals, but after Crisis on Infinite Earths, when DC writers were allowed to re-do the history of their characters however they saw fit, they changed Jason into a streetwise orphan who was taken in by Batman after he tried to steal the tires off the Batmobile. This edgier take on Jason — who may have possibly allowed a criminal he fought to fall to his death — was controversial with editorial and fans, and eventually became the victim of an infamous sales stunt, where readers could call an 800 number to vote on whether Robin should live or die. The ultimate tally came up on the side of “die,” and Jason was killed by the Joker after only four years on the job.
This led to the true subject of this installment of this newsletter, a young man named Tim Drake. Tim’s origin is inextricably tied into the Robins who came before him. He was at the circus the night Dick Grayson’s parents were killed, an event that led to him figuring out Batman and Robin’s identities and following their careers closely over the years as their biggest fan. After Jason’s death, Tim saw Batman acting recklessly, and decided to step in. He believed that Batman needed a Robin for his own safety and mental health, to help keep him on the straight and narrow, and after failing to convince Dick Grayson to return to the role, he took it upon himself to become Robin, permanently inserting himself into Batman’s life.
In creating Tim Drake, DC was attempting to learn from the so-called “mistakes” they had made with Jason. Where the original take on Jason was practically a clone of Dick, with an identical costume and nearly identical origin, Tim was given a very specific origin (including two living parents, though that didn’t last) and a redesigned uniform (they originally tried some more specifically 80s-90s inspired designs before landing on a now-iconic uniform which Batman: The Animated Series quickly adopted as their own). Where the second take on Jason was seen as rebellious and unlikable, they worked hard to make Tim a likable presence who almost idolized Batman, but also recognized his flaws and, when he did disobey him, did so out of deep moral conviction. While Jason was meant to fill the same simple “child sidekick” role Dick originally did, Tim was given a more specific skill-set; less of a fighter and not at all the acrobat Dick (and originally Jason) was, Tim was defined by his intelligence, with the potential to be an even greater detective than Batman. Jason was also hastily created simply so Batman could continue to have a Robin, while Tim’s origin instead helped answer the question of why Batman needed Robin.
The attempts worked. Tim Drake was wildly popular, and he quickly became the first Robin to carry his own solo comic book, which lasted close to twenty years, enduring even when the titles of his contemporary teen heroes (such as Superboy and Impulse) were cancelled. Tim had extensive exposure, acting as a solo hero with his own adventures (and even a sort of sidekick of his own, Spoiler/Stephanie Brown), as Batman’s primary sidekick (as Nightwing operated in his own city and the original Batgirl, Barbara Gordon, had transitioned into the tech support role of Oracle), and as the leader of his own generation of young superheroes, Young Justice.
In retrospect, the first real blow to Tim’s character came in 2004 when the controversial mini-series Identity Crisis killed off Tim’s father and sent him into a more depressive tail-spin that was only exacerbated by the death of his best friend, Superboy/Conner Kent, a year later. Tim became a darker character, one who was often characterized and referred to by fans as a “mini-Batman.” The move also led him to moving in with Bruce Wayne and taking on the more traditional role as Bruce’s ward, losing a bit of what made Tim unique.
But though the fallout would take a while to fully be seen, the true death-knell for Tim Drake was rung in 2006 with the introduction of Damian Wayne, Batman’s illegitimate, murderous, ten-year-old son with supervillain Talia al Ghul. Over the next few years Batman and his allies attempted to take Damian under their wing and put him on a better path, but their efforts intensified after Batman “died” during 2009’s Final Crisis. Dick Grayson took over the mantle of Batman, and in an attempt to save Damian, gave him the mantle of Robin.
Of course, Tim was already Robin, so obviously this created friction*. Tim ended up becoming “Red Robin,” a name and costume originated in the alternate universe story Kingdom Come in the 90s as the mantle taken up by a middle-aged Dick Grayson. While becoming Nightwing was seen as a promotion and freedom for Dick, Tim was forced to become Red Robin in a move that felt a bit insulting to the character, and as a demotion, since as Robin Tim was always more of his own hero than a sidekick, making the role his own, and Robin had far more brand awareness. Plus, Red Robin is also the name of a burger joint, eliciting snickers.
*The in-universe implication seems to be that Dick intended to pass his now-vacant mantle of Nightwing along to Tim, but Tim discovered Damian taking over his Robin role before Dick could make the offer, got angry, and struck off on his own.
Tim’s Robin series was cancelled, but he was immediately given a new solo series, Red Robin, with its own unique mission statement: Tim was the only one of Batman’s allies who believed he was still alive, and he was traveling the world in search of his former mentor. Thus, though Tim’s role was different, it was still a prominent one, and when Bruce did return and began his Batman Incorporated initiative, Tim regained his position as Bruce’s primary sidekick, working internationally with him while Dick and Damian patrolled Gotham City.
Then came the New 52 initiative, which exacerbated these changes to Tim’s character and pushed him into obscurity. DC cancelled all their titles and rebooted their continuity, and of the four Robins (by this point Jason Todd had been revived as an anti-hero who killed criminals, Red Hood), Tim was by far the least prominent. Nightwing had his own solo title, Red Hood led a group of mercenaries known as the Outlaws, and Damian had a father/son team-up title, Batman and Robin, but after twenty years, Tim lost his solo title, his “highlight” book becoming Teen Titans, an ensemble book.
Dick, Jason, and Damian also still had extensive roles in the going-ons of Gotham City, but Tim was isolated with the Titans. When the Court of Owls attacked Gotham City, each of the other three Robins all got a spotlight issue in their own title fighting one of their Talons; the exception, again, was Tim, whose “spotlight” was relegated to an issue of Batman: The Dark Knight, a title that had nothing to do with Tim, and his appearance consisting of only a few panels. His backstory was rewritten, with Tim attempting and failing to discover Batman’s identity, his parents going into witness-protection because of his failure, and him apparently having never been an “official” Robin, taking up the name “Red Robin” from the start. It robbed Tim of so much of what made him special, as well as his connections to Batman and his allies. With most of this incarnation of the Teen Titans having also lost their connections to their various superhero mentors, it led to Tim having no place in Gotham or the rest of the DC Universe at large, confining him to Titans.
(Tim’s updated New 52 costume was also controversial. The Red Robin uniform lost its iconic hood and logo and became covered with 90s style straps and buckles. His cape was converted to a feather-esque glider and booster system that allowed him to fly, but was made fun of many as looking silly. There were a lot of bird jokes.)
After five years of mis/disuse, writer James Tynion IV attempted to rehabilitate Tim, his favorite Robin, in the pages of Detective Comics. The Rebirth initiative allowed Tynion to eventually return Tim to his original origin, and though he kept Tim’s “Red Robin” moniker, he helped revise Tim’s uniform into one practically identical to his original Robin uniform, only with two R’s on its logo (for Red Robin) instead of one. Putting him in charge of Batman’s “Gotham Knights” initiative gave Tim a prominent role in Gotham City once again, and Tynion focused extensively on the elements that had always made Tim unique; his detective skills, intelligence, ambition, and the possibility that he was destined to be something bigger and better than a superhero.
It was a strong take on Tim, but a lot had changed in Gotham since Tim’s last stint in the spotlight. While few heroes operated in Gotham during Tim’s heyday, now there was a full-blown Bat-Family of heroes and sidekicks patrolling the city, and it became a struggle to find a niche for Tim to fill, especially when different writers on different Batman-centric titles had their own priorities on which sidekicks, if any, they would feature in their stories. Tim was being written well and acclimating slowly back into the Gotham stories, but he wasn’t the major presence among them he had once been.
Then Brian Michael Bendis got his hands on Tim. Bendis is one of the biggest names in the comic book industry, a titan who could pretty much do anything he felt like and it would sell like hot cakes. Bendis had spent his entire career writing for Marvel Comics, so his defecture to DC was a major get for the company, and they promoted it out of the wazoo, even giving him his own imprint, Wonder Comics, within their printing line. One of the titles Bendis decided to launch, and personally write, under Wonder Comics’ banner was a relaunch of Young Justice, the teen superhero team Tim had run during his classic time as Robin.
I can’t complain about how Bendis wrote Tim in terms of dialogue or characterization, but he did a lot of damage to the character’s already fragile identity. Bendis has never referred to Tim as “Red Robin,” introducing him in the series as “a” Robin, wearing the uniform Tynion gave him but with only one “R” again. Bendis was treating Tim’s identity as a problem to be solved — we can’t have two Robins, so who will Tim be? — when in actuality it had already been solved by making Tim into Red Robin. And I’m not going to pretend that Red Robin was the most interesting or elegant solution, but it had been Tim’s moniker for nearly ten years by that point, so ignoring it and treating Tim’s identity as a problem to be solved just came across as confusing to many who had already accepted Red Robin and moved on (it also exemplified the greatest problem of this new Young Justice title — it was more interested in figuring out complex issues of continuity than it was telling actual stories).
Bendis’ “solution” was to give Tim yet another new name and identity, this one aped off an evil alternate-dimension version of the character. I can’t tell if his new superhero name, “Drake,” was genius or idiotic — it’s another bird, but it’s also his last name — but the costume was just plain ugly; it’s poop brown, with no sort of icon, logo, or symbol, and a lot of unnecessary details. Plus, it was the first costume Tim had ever worn with no cape, which just felt wrong. The new identity was met with a collective thud, and barely lasted a year, with Tim unceremoniously returning to his Robin uniform mid-issue in Young Justice’s most recent issue, with the only explanation given being a single line mentioning that every single one of his friends hated the new costume and that Batman and Spoiler held an intervention to get Tim to go back to his old look. It’s about all the ending “Drake” deserved, but other titles (even the Tynion-written Batman) have gone back to referring to Tim simply as “Robin,” leaving us with the problem Bendis created for no good reason (Tim and Damian both being Robin at the same time) still hanging over the line, and over the character.
Tim isn’t helped by that fact that, unlike a lot of these other characters, he’s never received much attention outside the comics. His origin is a smart and memorable one, but it’s one that relies on Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, making it complex to adapt in other mediums; if you change it, then the character’s really just Tim Drake in name only. That’s exactly what Batman: The Animated Series did, introducing in its final season a new Robin named Tim Drake, but whose personality and origin more closely resembled Jason Todd’s. Rocksteady’s Arkham series of video games introduced a hulking, shaved-head, slow-talking version of Tim in a relationship with Barbara Gordon/Oracle, not resembling his tiny, cerebral comic counterpart in the slightest. The DCAMU line of direct-to-DVD animated movies ignored Tim (and Jason) completely, introducing Dick Grayson as their first Robin and Damian Wayne as his only successor. The Young Justice animated series actually created a version of Tim whose personality closely matches the comics, but he’s a rather minor character within the series, and his origin takes place off-camera and is never mentioned (despite Jason’s death having actually happened in that universe).
All this leaves Tim Drake in a strange position. He was once one of DC’s most popular characters, with a strong presence throughout the universe and easily the most important role within the Batman books after Batman himself; now, even with recent attempts to give the character more love and attention, his role and even his very identity as a superhero is unclear and tentative. It’s a strange and frustrating situation, but comic books in general are rather cyclical beasts, with characters rising and falling in significance as time passes, trends change, and creators come and go. Here’s hoping Tim gets another chance in the sun.
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I didn’t start reading comic books regularly until 2005, so I’ll admit that I missed out on experiencing Tim’s prime years in person, and while I’ve gone back and read quite a bit of material featuring the character, his original solo series is still a blind spot for me aside from a handful of issues. So the Tim Drake series I’m going to recommend is the original Young Justice comic book by Peter David and Todd Nauck, which ran for 55 issues in the early 2000s. Tim isn’t the main character, but as team leader he gets quite a bit of spotlight, and not only does it show how he’s more composed and reliable than his young friends, but it also shows how he longs to be more like them as well, but is held back by the rules of Batman and the more serious world he runs with.
Perhaps my favorite Tim Drake moment of all time comes early in Young Justice when Tim — who was not allowed to reveal his secret identity to his friends at the time — is dared by his friends around the campfire to remove his mask. He agrees, but beneath his mask…is another mask, because he was prepared for just this eventuality (this same issue also ends with Superboy, a failed clone of Superman, lamenting the fact that he’ll never be able to grow up — thus is the beautiful duality of the original Young Justice).
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“Do You Know What I Love the Most?” is a newsletter from Spencer Irwin. 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!