Tim's Past as Robin Retconned out of the new Teen Titans Trades

[espanolbot]

Panel as it appeared in the issue,



And then in the trade,



And again, here is the panel from the issue,



While in the trade the last three captions, mentioning previous incarnations of the Teen Titans, have been removed entirely.


Censorship is fun! ^^

http://www.bleedingcool.com/2012/09/16/retconning-robin-out-of-teen-titans-1/

Comments

[silverhammerman]

The point stands though, a person has more chance of making the connection "Tim Drake = Robin" than they do "Jason Todd = Robin" just because of name recognition from the show. It doesn't particularly matter that Tim on that show was basically just Jason with a happier ending, it matters that he was called Tim.
You do make a good point about Tim being the middle child though. Dick, Jason and Damian all have significance as story beats for Batman, Dick is the one who first drew him out of the darkness and then grew up and became his own man, and Jason is/was Batman's greatest failure as a hero/parent, he let his sidekick be killed and then his sidekick wound up a murderous antihero. Damian is defined as the one who's Batman's biological kid, which like I said, gets described as a stupid idea by non-fans since it removes the nuance of the relationship, but does have a grain of an idea. Tim, by comparison doesn't have as much obvious narrative weight, he's just a plucky kid who took up with Batman.
Now that I've actually gone through them like this I think you make a fairly good point. I still think that Tim's greater name recognition is a good enough reason to keep him on, but I do see your point. Plus getting rid of Damian would derail Morrison's whole Batman thing which would suck since he's been working on it for years.
I really just wish we didn't have to weigh the artistic merits of the characters like this in order to justify stupid retcons. The old continuity was really quite straightforward in most places and it didn't need to be changed to fit some arbitrary 5 year time limit.

[kenn_el]

I agree with you, though I also see the DC Comics' point that a simpler universe is easier to get into. Five Robins and four Batgirls (if you include the hyphen) must be quite daunting. I'd chuck Damian and Tim if I had to do a compression. I like the way the Damian character is portrayed, but I hate the biological kid thing. It makes Bruce seem stupid, and it removes the choice inherent in choosing a partner. But I'm sure, as you pointed out, that Damian was a dealbreaker in keeping Morrison.
Bottom line, of course, is that if DC had the courage of their convictions, they'd start from scratch, and we wouldn't be trying to figure out what exists and what doesn't. Which is why the only series I'm stuck on is Earth 2, which is rebooting done right.

[oddityangel]

I honestly don't think Tim has that great of name recognition beyond comic book/older fans, which is to say he's not recognizable to the public as a whole. Almost everyone who knows Batman knows he's Bruce Wayne, but I've rarely met a casual fan who can name a Robin (and if they can it's typically Dick). The person behind the Robin mask just isn't that important to most people.

And I do think the other four (five, if you count Carrie) occupy interesting niches that Tim does not.