At one point or another, everyone has heard of the famous comic book “Dynamic Duo,” otherwise known as Batman and Robin. Most people can only tell you the most basic, most painfully obvious secret in the Batman franchise; that Batman is Bruce Wayne, the playboy billionaire of Gotham City whose parents were shot by a mugger in front of him when he was a child. However, what most people regrettably don’t know about is the other half of the “Duo,” the ever lovable Robin.
Batman first made his comic book debut in Detective Comics #27, which was published in May 1939. Nearly a year later, the first Robin debuted in Detective Comics #38, published in April 1940. Notice how I said first. What most people don’t know about Robin is that in the canonical DC Continuity, there have been a total of FIVE Robins, each one bringing his/her own skills and attitudes to the table and donning the title with pride.
The very first Robin, Richard “Dick” Gayson-Wayne, was born into a family of Romani trapeze acrobats called the “Flying Graysons”, employed by Haly’s International Circus. The performers of the family included Dick’s father (John Grayson), his mother (Mary Grayson), his uncle (Rick Grayson), his older cousin (Johnny Grayson), and Dick himself. When Dick was eight years old, Haly’s Circus traveled to Gotham City. Once there, the Circus’ owner, Jack Haly, was approached by mob boss Tony Zucco in an effort to extort the circus for money. Upon being refused, Zucco sabotaged the trapeze wires.
On the night of the show, as the Flying Graysons were performing their most famous stunt (involving the lack of a safety net), the ropes snapped and eight-year-old Dick Grayson watched as his entire family fell 4 stories to their deaths. Seeing some of himself in the young boy, Bruce Wayne adopted poor, young Dick and brought him to live at Wayne Manor while Batman investigated the crime and hunted down Tony Zucco. Within several weeks, however, Dick discovered the Batcave behind the grandfather clock and demanded to be allowed to help bring down Zucco. When denied, the last Grayson rebelliously put together his own suit and arrived in the field just in time to save the Batman from certain death. Grateful for the rescue, Bruce finally agreed to train Dick and officially let him out into the field as Robin on his ninth birthday. Dick continued to be Robin throughout his childhood and until his late teens, when a series of disagreements, culminating with Dick’s abandonment of the Robin mantle, put an enormous dent in Dick’s relationship with his adoptive father. Dick, then 18, moved to Bludhaven and re-invented his heroic identity, re-naming himself Nightwing. Dick kept a firm grip on the Nightwing mantle until the “Battle for the Cowl” story-arc, which highlights the search for a new Batman following the death of Bruce Wayne. From there until the unveiling of the DC Universe’s “New 52”, Dick Grayson served as Batman, only to return to the role of Nightwing after the reboot.
Robin #2 was a young boy by the name of Jason Todd, whose history as Robin is a tragic one. Making his debut in Batman #357, Jason was an orphan living on the streets of Gotham City until he was discovered by Batman. What makes Jason’s discovery interesting is that Batman caught the young boy as he was trying (and succeeding) to steal the tires off of the Batmobile. Realizing that the child had nowhere to go, Bruce Wayne adopted the boy and within months, Jason was out on the field in his own, brand-spanking-new Robin costume. Jason is known as the most headstrong and stubborn of the Robins as well as the most violent. This didn’t go over well with the fanbase and in 1988, the writers released a telephone-based vote: Should Jason Todd die? When the poll ended, 10,614 people had voted and the results were 5,271 people against Jason’s death versus 5,343 people for his death. There is speculation that one man programmed his phone to call the “kill” number hundreds of times, but it did not matter. At the end of the “Death in the Family” story-arc (Batman issue #428), Jason was tied up, beaten half to death with a crowbar and left to die in a warehouse rigged with explosives by the Joker. However, Jason was later resurrected (Some stories say by a Lazarus Pit, others by Superboy Prime’s punch.) and reappeared in Gotham under the identity of the sometimes-villain/sometimes-anti-hero, the Red Hood.
Out of the entire line of Robins, the third is probably one of the most well known characters out there who have taken up the Robin title. Timothy “Tim” Drake-Wayne was a young child of 9 years with both his parents still alive when he figured out the identities of Batman and Robin. After Dick Grayson left for Bludhaven and Jason Todd was murdered by the Joker, Tim noticed that Batman had become a lot more violent and reckless. He subsequently approached Bruce Wayne and explained to him that “Batman needs a Robin.” After some time, Bruce was convinced and allowed Tim to be Robin. As Robin, Tim was not as acrobatic as Grayson and not as violent as Todd, but he was a spectacular detective and an experienced computer hacker. Later on, the Red Hood would murder Tim’s mother and leave his father in a coma. Later, another villain would kill Tim’s father, forcing Bruce to once again adopt his sidekick and forcing Tim to take a sabbatical from the feathered Robin title. After Bruce’s death and Dick’s rise to the Batman title, Tim begged Dick to allow him to continue to be Robin, but Dick refused, saying that he saw Tim as more of an equal than a sidekick. Enraged, Tim abandoned the his post as Robin and left Wayne Manor to become his own hero and leader of the Teen Titans, Red Robin.
Interestingly enough, the fourth Robin held the shortest claim to the sidekick’s title and was also the only female Robin in the canonical continuity. Stephanie Brown’s father was the villain Cluemaster and her first role as a hero was as Spoiler, a mysterious vigilante specifically targeting Cluemaster and continuously foiling his plots. Later on, Stephanie took up the mantle of Robin after Tim took his sabbatical following the death of his father. Stephanie was brash, impulsive, and didn’t take well to authority. These qualities made her the worst Robin in history, leading up to Batman firing her from her position and her subsequent death. However, she later returned, explaining that her death was merely a ruse conducted by Dr. Leslie Thompkins. Upon her return, she took up the mantle of Batgirl to fill the void left by the previous Batgirl, Cassandra Cain.
The fifth and last Robin was the late Damian Wayne, the illegitimate biological son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, the daughter of supervillain Ra’s al Ghul (pronounced “raysh”, not “rahz”). Damian appeared on Wayne Manor’s doorstep after leaving his mother to find his father, who he knew was Batman. Damian was raised as an assassin, however, and tried to kill Tim Drake in order to become Robin. The two have been enemies ever since. When Bruce Wayne died and Dick Grayson became Batman, Dick chose Damian to be Robin in order to try and curb the 10-year-old’s murderous instincts. Damian continued to be Robin alongside his father during the “New 52” when Wayne returned, resulting in Grayson’s return to his Nightwing persona. However, the latest issues of the “New 52” Batman Inc series reveal the death of Damian Wayne at the hands of his older clone, the Heretic (sent by Talia to kill Batman).
Hopefully, with this brief history I’ll have raised plenty of awareness for the more under-appreciated part of the world-famous “Dynamic Duo.”
R.I.P. Damian Wayne
