There are heroes who have a really dark past, but Batman’s is, to say the least, picturesque: long before he was known as the night lord in gotham and instill fear in the hearts of criminals, Bruce Wayne was dedicated to kicking ass with a tiny mask, a colorful yellow cape and with his legs completely in the air. And what’s worse: not content with dressing his assistants in that way, he still keeps his own outfit… in case the occasion requires it?
In case there was any doubt, the nom de guerre Bruce used with those looks was Robin. And the most particular thing of all is that it is not a variant of any of those modern universes, an alternative timeline or anything published through the Elseworlds, but rather the official continuity of DC Comics before the clean slate of Crisis on Infinite Earths or the New 52. More specifically, to number 226 of Detective Comics from the year 1955. So, What is a Robin to Batman?
In the DC offices, the emergence of Dick Grayson in the Batman comics and his superhero role as Robin’s assistant is due to very well calculated factors: on a narrative level, the Dark Knight could use “a John Watson” to illustrate his thoughts in the same way as Arthur Conan Doyle years ago. did it with Sherlock Holmes. In addition, the publisher managed to connect with young readers through it, feeling identified with Batman’s adventure companion… And Grayson was only 12 years old.
Recklessness on Batman’s part? Needless to say, the comics of those times were read without being so strict with reality itself and the image of the Caped Crusader was very different from what we would see after the stories of Alan Moore or Frank Miller. But, as we mentioned at the beginning, Bruce Wayne knew very well the possibilities of a Robin, because he was the first of all.
The time Batman was Robin… before Robin
Without going into too many details, in the comic “When Batman was Robin“We see how a box with a Robin suit appears in Wayne Manor. The surprised Dick Grayson does not understand the message very well and Bruce Wayne, Batman’s secret identity, tells him the origin of that suit and how he learned with it, more or less at his age, the world-class detective skills of an exceptional investigator named Harvey Harris.
As you might expect, an investigator being accompanied by a child is a horrible idea, so to accompany Harris young Bruce Wayne made his own masked suit. But now comes the most curious thing of all: the name Robin was given to him by Harvey Harris because he was as clever as a robin (robin in English), and he began training him not long after.
Like father Like Son
An isolated, filler adventure? Not at all: we would later see several references to this story in comics published much later. And yes, even as a child, Bruce knew perfectly well that that suit was very discreet.
As the years went by, the Batfamily expanded and Robin’s mantle passed through several hands. In the current DC continuity, after Grayson will come Jason Todd, then Tim Drake and although Bruce Wayne has been a father figure for practically all of them, with the entry into the scene of Damian Wayne, his biological son, the dynamic between Batman and Robin will change, the colors will stay the same and, unlike Bruce, he will choose to wear pants when patrolling Gotham.
No one doubts the Dark Knight’s intelligence, but it is clear that the world did not lose a great couturier the day he decided to become a superhero.
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