Freedom Reborn

Continuing on with my run of polls, next up is the boy wonders themselves, the Robin's. The only one I know all that well is Dick Grayson, (for now -- I plan on going on a Batman binge soon, so maybe I'll be more familiar with the others by year's end,) but I know there are a number of others, so vote for whichever Robin is your favorite.

Tim, easily. Not only was he the Robin I grew up with, he was also the smartest... Not only was he able to deduce Batman's identity using a form of eidetic memory, pre-n52 Tim was repeatedly shown to have the potential to be a grater detective than Batman ever was. Dick comes a close second for his charm and acrobatic prowess, but Tim edges him out because he recognized the need for Batman to have a Robin.

Just to add, Grayson & Damian want to be Batman if anything ever happen to Bruce.  Tim wanted to be better than Batman.

Tim for me. One of my all time favourites. While he's incredibly smart he also felt very relatable, some one you knew.
I don't like the New 52 version as much. The changes to his origin and MO made him less relatable, too perfect.

Dick was a good Robin but I no longer think of him in that role. I'm also a big fan of Damian.

Voted for Tim. He was the Robin in the 90s and the one I grew up with, also liked how he had different skill set than Dick and Jason. Liked Grayson in the role as well, especially because of TAS, but like pod said, I no longer think of him as Robin. Damian is great ofc, but still went with Tim for the reasons already mentioned.

'Mato and I have talked about this at length.  As far as I'm concerned, there's only one Robin, Dick Grayson.  I don't really have anything against Tim, and 'Mato's passionate defense of the character showed me why folks love him, but the original is the one I grew up with and has always been one of my favorite characters.  What's more, for me, the musical Robins phenomena breaks the concept of Batman.  The silly extents writers have gone to in order to position new recruits in the same narrative space as the original bothers me, but the biggest problem is that, if Batman lost a young partner, I can't believe the character would ever adopt another.  So, for me, Jason Todd poisons the whole well (in multiple ways).  That's why there's only one Robin in the DCUG. :)

And my counter to that has always been the same as Tim's was... when Batman did lose Jason Todd, he tried to do everything by himself, to take on all the responsibility of taking care of his city alone... and it did not work. He started having trouble taking down even basic criminals, to the point where it looked like he was actually trying to kill himself. Despite how certain writers want to think, Batman is not perfect... he cannot do everything by himself, and he needs a Robin around to help balance him. In his own way too, he's doing what he can to make their lives better... to paraphrase a line from Young Justice, he takes them in so that they won't end up like him.

To give another comparison, Arkham Knight. One of the major plot points of the game is Batman trying to do everything by himself in order to protect the people he cares about, at one point even locking up Tim Drake to "protect" him. But over and over it blows up in his face, and in the end he has to let his allies help him.

I understand the argument, but I don't think Batman would in context.  I agree, Batman needs a Robin, which is why I always hated the way the whole Nightwing thing went down.  I like the Earth 2 version of things a lot better. :) 

Still, like I said, 'Mato has a lot of love for the character, and I can respect that.  It's not like he's defending Jason Todd.  ;)

Quote from: BentonGrey on August 17, 2015, 01:09:00 AM
It's not like he's defending Jason Todd.  ;)

Now I want to see someone try. ;)

Defend Batman's choice to take Jason on or defend Jason as a character? Because the former is easy... Batman saw a kid who didn't get a lot of breaks in his life, and did his best to help give him a better life. As for the latter... that depends. As an anti-hero, I'm not really fond... I cannot see Bruce tolerating Jason killing people.

For me, he's always worked better as a villain... an example of what happens when someone in the family turns from justice to vengeance. It creates this great conflict where Bruce's principles force him to take Jason down, but he also feels responsibility for Jason... plus, there's also a fear that Jason will reveal everything he knows if they take him to the cops.

The latter, Jason as Robin.

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, no. There's a reason they killed him off in the comics.

Edit: to elaborate a little more, the reason Robin is necessary is that there needs to be a light to Batman's darkness... that's why Grayson and Drake worked so well in the role, because both were much lighter characters than Bruce. But Jason Todd, he was supposed to be everything Dick wasn't... Dark, edgy, punkish, etc. But having a character that was darker than Batman (at one point killing criminal, even before the mess with the Joker) doesn't work against a character that's already supposed to be dark.

To contrast this, we had Damian Wayne show up as Robin after Dick Grayson took the role. Damian was another "dark" Robin, but that worked because we also had a "light" Batman to contrast him with. It's also why I'm not really fond of the Bruce/Damian dynamic, despite liking Damian as Robin.

1) Carrie's surname is Kelley.

2) There were two Robins named Jason Todd.  One was a strawberry-blond kid who later dyed his hair dark.  He was from a family of acrobats and was taken in by Bruce Wayne after Killer Croc murdered his parents.  He ceased to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.   The post-Crisis Jason Todd was the dark-haired kid who stole tyres off the Batmobile, and was made very unpleasant by Jim Starlin (a few writers later) prior to instituting the "should he live or die" phone stunt.

Quote from: Kenn on August 17, 2015, 05:15:42 PM
1) Carrie's surname is Kelley.

2) There were two Robins named Jason Todd.  One was a strawberry-blond kid who later dyed his hair dark.  He was from a family of acrobats and was taken in by Bruce Wayne after Killer Croc murdered his parents.  He ceased to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.   The post-Crisis Jason Todd was the dark-haired kid who stole tyres off the Batmobile, and was made very unpleasant by Jim Starlin (a few writers later) prior to instituting the "should he live or die" phone stunt.

Actually, they retconned Jason's natural hair color back to being strawberry blonde, but Bruce had him dye it so criminals would think Robin was Dick Grayson.

Quote from: Tomato on August 18, 2015, 02:23:03 AM

Quote from: Kenn on August 17, 2015, 05:15:42 PM
1) Carrie's surname is Kelley.

2) There were two Robins named Jason Todd.  One was a strawberry-blond kid who later dyed his hair dark.  He was from a family of acrobats and was taken in by Bruce Wayne after Killer Croc murdered his parents.  He ceased to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.   The post-Crisis Jason Todd was the dark-haired kid who stole tyres off the Batmobile, and was made very unpleasant by Jim Starlin (a few writers later) prior to instituting the "should he live or die" phone stunt.

Actually, they retconned Jason's natural hair color back to being strawberry blonde, but Bruce had him dye it so criminals would think Robin was Dick Grayson.

When was this retcon done?

Quote from: Kenn on August 18, 2015, 03:42:01 AM

Quote from: Tomato on August 18, 2015, 02:23:03 AM

Quote from: Kenn on August 17, 2015, 05:15:42 PM
1) Carrie's surname is Kelley.

2) There were two Robins named Jason Todd.  One was a strawberry-blond kid who later dyed his hair dark.  He was from a family of acrobats and was taken in by Bruce Wayne after Killer Croc murdered his parents.  He ceased to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.   The post-Crisis Jason Todd was the dark-haired kid who stole tyres off the Batmobile, and was made very unpleasant by Jim Starlin (a few writers later) prior to instituting the "should he live or die" phone stunt.

Actually, they retconned Jason's natural hair color back to being strawberry blonde, but Bruce had him dye it so criminals would think Robin was Dick Grayson.

When was this retcon done?

Morrison's Batman and Robin when Jason appeared as Red Hood. Maybe 5 years ago?

Quote from: Podmark on August 18, 2015, 04:23:47 AM

Quote from: Kenn on August 18, 2015, 03:42:01 AM

Quote from: Tomato on August 18, 2015, 02:23:03 AM

Quote from: Kenn on August 17, 2015, 05:15:42 PM
1) Carrie's surname is Kelley.

2) There were two Robins named Jason Todd.  One was a strawberry-blond kid who later dyed his hair dark.  He was from a family of acrobats and was taken in by Bruce Wayne after Killer Croc murdered his parents.  He ceased to exist after the Crisis on Infinite Earths.   The post-Crisis Jason Todd was the dark-haired kid who stole tyres off the Batmobile, and was made very unpleasant by Jim Starlin (a few writers later) prior to instituting the "should he live or die" phone stunt.

Actually, they retconned Jason's natural hair color back to being strawberry blonde, but Bruce had him dye it so criminals would think Robin was Dick Grayson.

When was this retcon done?

Morrison's Batman and Robin when Jason appeared as Red Hood. Maybe 5 years ago?

Didn't Morrision try to un-retcon every single little bit of Batman history in his run? (Even if doing so would create a continuity cluster-frick the likes of which wouldn't have been seen until that moment?)

(http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/robin555_574.png)
So check this out.There were 5 Robins,all of them sidekicks to the same guy,one of them was sidekick to another(Damian to Dick Grayson),and all of them(except Damian for now) graduated to DIFFERENT legacy characters.Very meta.  :)