Robin comics: Encyclopedia II - Robin comics - Robins

Robin comics - Robins

The following fictional characters don the Robin costume at various times in the regular Batman continuity:

Robin comics - Richard Dick Grayson

In Detective Comics #38 (1940), Batman creators Bill Finger and Bob Kane, along with inker Jerry Robinson, introduced the first Robin, Richard John "Dick" Grayson, an aerialist and the character still best known as Robin. The sidekick debuted a year after Batman.

The name "Robin the Boy Wonder" and the medieval look of the original costume were inspired by the legendary hero Robin Hood.

Richard Grayson was an eight-year-old half-Romany (gypsy) circus acrobat, the youngest of a family act called The Flying Graysons. A gangster named Anthony "Boss" Zucco had been extorting money from the circus and killed Grayson's parents, John and Mary, by sabotaging their trapeze equipment as a warning against defiance. The Batman investigated the crime and – as his alter ego millionaire Bruce Wayne – had Dick put under his custody as a legal ward (later adopting him as his son), and rigorously trained the boy, teaching him physical, fighting and detective skills. Together they investigated Zucco and collected the evidence needed to bring him to justice. In the 1995 movie Batman Forever with Val Kilmer as the campy Caped Crusader, Grayson's parents were murdered by Two-Face/Harvey Dent during a hostage situation at the annual Gotham Circus. The movie featured Chris O'Donnell at age 24 portraying the role of The Boy Wonder, who reprised the role again at the age of age 26 in the 1997 film Batman and Robin with George Clooney as the Batman.

From his debut appearance in 1940 through 1969, Robin was known as the Boy Wonder. However, as he grew up, graduated from high school and enrolled in Hudson University, Robin continued his career as the Teen Wonder, from the 1970s into the early 1980s, when he left the Batcave and his former identity to become Nightwing.

Robin comics - Jason Todd

DC was initially hesitant to turn Grayson into Nightwing and to replace him with a new Robin. To minimize the change, they made the new Robin, Jason Peter Todd, who first appeared in Batman #357 (1983), almost indistinguishable from a young Grayson. Jason Todd was also the son of circus acrobats killed by a criminal (this time the Batman adversary Killer Croc), adopted by Bruce Wayne. In this incarnation, he was red-haired and unfailingly cheerful, and wore his circus costume to fight crime until Dick Grayson presented him with a Robin suit of his own. At that point, he dyed his hair black.

After the mini-series Crisis on Infinite Earths, much of DC Comics continuity was rebooted. Dick Grayson's origin, years with Batman and growth into Nightwing remained essentially unchanged, but Todd's character was completely revised. He was now a black-haired street orphan who first encountered Batman when he attempted to steal tires from the Batmobile. Batman saw that he was placed in a school for troubled youths. Weeks later, after Dick Grayson became Nightwing and Todd proved his crimefighting worth by helping Batman catch a gang of thieves, Batman offered Todd the position as Robin.

Readers never truly bonded with Todd and, in 1988, DC made the controversial decision to poll readers using a 1-900 number as to whether or not Todd should be killed. The event received more attention in the mainstream media than any other comic book event before it. Some outside the comic book community thought that DC was considering killing the original Robin. Readers voted "yes" by a small margin (5,343 to 5,271) and Todd was subsequently murdered by The Joker in the Death in the Family storyline, in which the psychopath beat the youngster severely with a crowbar, and left him in a warehouse rigged with a bomb.

Jason Todd has recently been brought back, having been revealed to be the new Red Hood, the original persona of The Joker. Batman is still unaware of how his 'resurrection' occurred but it has recently been discovered that Jason Todd's original coffin was empty and had never been occupied, implying that the second incarnation of The Boy Wonder may not have actually died in the first place.

Robin comics - Timothy Tim Drake

DC Comics was left uncertain about readers' decision to kill Todd, wondering if they felt Batman should be a lone vigilante, disliked Todd specifically, or just wanted to see if DC would actually kill the character. In addition, the 1989 Batman film did not feature Robin, giving DC a reason to keep him out of the comic book series for marketing purposes. Regardless, Batman editor Denny O'Neil introduced a new Robin.

The third Robin, Timothy Jeff Drake, first appeared in a flashback in Batman #436 (1989). Drake was a young boy who had followed the adventures of Batman and Robin ever since witnessing the murder of the Flying Graysons. This served to connect Drake to Grayson, establishing a link that DC hoped would help readers accept this new Robin. Drake surmised their secret identities with his amateur but instinctive detective skills and followed their careers closely.

Tim was introduced as a happy medium between the first two Robins in that, from the readers' point of view, he is neither overly well behaved like Dick Grayson nor overly impudent like Jason Todd.

Robin comics - Stephanie Brown

Stephanie Brown, Tim's girlfriend and the costumed adventurer previously known as The Spoiler, volunteered for the role of Robin upon Tim's resignation. Brown had always been reckless and impulsive and, after only three months, Batman fired her for not obeying his orders to the letter.

In a misguided attempt to prove her worthiness, Brown sneaked into the Batcave and discovered a plan developed by Batman to unite the Gotham underworld under the control of Orpheus, an agent of Batman, and therefore under the control of Batman himself. The plan failed because Spoiler was unaware that the man who was set to meet with the crime lords, Matches Malone, was really just one of Batman's disguises. When "Matches Malone" did not show the meeting quickly broke out into a fight, leaving many dead. This quickly erupted into a brutal gang war on the streets of Gotham. The plan was to be used only in a dire emergency, in which Batman's only option would be to seize control of the underworld himself and weaken it from the inside. Brown attempted to implement the plan, but without Batman/Malone's involvement, it backfired, causing a brutal gang war.

While trying to help end the war, Brown was captured and tortured by the criminal Black Mask. She managed to escape but died of her injuries a short time later, due to the willful negligence of Dr. Leslie Thompkins.

Robin comics - Non-canon Robins

A Batman story from the 1950s featured the young Bruce Wayne assuming the identity of Robin, complete with the original costume, in order to learn the basics of detective work from a famous detective named Harvey Harris. This story was later revised in the 1980s to edit out any reference to Bruce Wayne having ever called himself "Robin" or worn any costume before he finally donned his Batman costume as an adult. John Byrne later worked this aspect into his noncanonical story Superman & Batman: Generations.

The famous 1986 mini-series The Dark Knight Returns introduced Carrie Kelly as the first female Robin in the Batman franchise's history. In that series, which takes place in an alternate future, Kelly was a Batman fanatic who instantly took it upon herself to become Robin after Batman returned from retirement. In this series, Todd's death led to Batman's retirement, but Batman still accepted Kelly.

By the time of the 2001 sequel The Dark Knight Strikes Again, Kelly had taken the identity Catgirl, but continued to accompany Batman and his allies.

Both of these stories take place in a future that has not come to pass in current DC continuity, and so neither is considered canonical.

In an interesting note, in Teen Titans v3 #18, when the Titans were transported 10 years into the future, we are shown a graveyard full of deceased Batman allies and villains. One tombstone reads "Carrie Kelly".

Also in the Batman: Gotham Knights episode, "Legends of the Dark Knight", a girl that closely resembles Carrie Kelly is one of the kids telling Batman stories. The story she tells is from The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel.

In the Alex Ross-illustrated Kingdom Come graphic novel, Batman, Superman and Wonder Woman meet for lunch in a superhero-inspired restaurant. They are served by a waitress dressed as Robin and who may have been modelled on Carrie Kelly.

Alfred is a familiar character in the Batman books as Bruce Wayne's elderly butler. But in an Elseworlds book called Batman: Dark Allegiances, set in the World War II era, a young Alfred is Robin to that era's Batman.

In the Elseworlds science fiction series, Robin: Legend of The Dead Earth, the Earth has been destroyed and what remains of humanity is trying to reach other worlds in generation ships. On one of these, a group called the Proctors have seized control and everyone else are slaves who are executed on their 30th birthdays to conserve the ship's resources.

Tris Plover, a 29 year old slave, rebels against the Proctors. She meets another rebel, called the Batman, who gives her the Robin identity. At the cost of their lives, they succeed in defeating the Proctors and Robin sets the ship on a course for the planet New Gotham.

In the digitally rendered Elseworlds tale Digital Justice, in which Commissioner Gordon's grandson James Gordon takes on the mantle of the Batman, and a character named Robert Chang, who is somewhat reminiscent of the post-Crisis Jason Todd, takes on the mantle of Robin.

On Earth-Two, home of the Golden Age version of DC's superheroes, the grown-up Dick Grayson continued to be Robin as an adult, even after the Golden Age Batman´s death. He became a member of the Justice Society of America. He died during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, in which the DC multiverse was reduced to one universe, and this Dick Grayson as well as the Earth-Two Batman were deemed never to have existed.

An alternate continuity of Dick Grayson, the original Robin, featured in the All Star Batman and Robin title which debuted in July 2005. His origin differs in various ways to the official DC Comics Universe. (see All Star Richard "Dick" Grayson)

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Robins", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki