Week of Wonder - Third Times's the charm? Enter Tim Drake

[icon_uk]

When the time came, as it inevitably did (and faster than you'd think. The vote to kill Jason was in September 1988, the stories I'm using here started in August 1989) for a new Robin, they sowed the seeds early.



Batman: Year Three, written by Marv Wolfman with art by Pat Broderick did some minor reimagining of the Dick's backstory as Robin, rather than just being a mob boss who was killed, Tony Zucco was a mobster who kept a LOT of intel on his friends and enemies alike, the proverbial black book, which ensured his safety even in jail, because if anything happened to him, it's publication would take a lot of powerful people down. He's up for parole again, and just as he has every time he's come up again, Bruce Wayne comes to speak against it being granted, relating the impact that Zucco had had on Dick Grayson

Cue the wibbly-wobbly flashback effect, fade to sepia-tone.




And that was indeed the first canonical appearance of Tim Drake into the Batverse... though we didn't know at the time how pivotal a moment it would be, (We can ignore the rest of Year Three as it's all about Bruce and Dick and though a good story isn't relevant)

Shortly thereafter, in "A Lonely Place of Dying", again written by Marv Wolfman, this time with art by Jim Aparo in the Batman issues and George Perez in the Titans issues (We're looking exclusively at the Batman issues as the Titans one's aren't THAT important for the purposes of this post)

Tim took his time in showing up, being introduced as a mysterious figure chasing after Batman to take photos of him in action, though his stalkerish tendencies are intended to be benevolent rather than creepy.



If Tim is mildly stalkerish with Bruce he REALLY goes for it with Dick, checking at Starfire's apartment to see if he's there, then Dick's own apartment, which he sort of breaks into, and where he finds evidence of where Dick might be, and follows him to the Haly Circus, where he and Dick meet when they are trying to solve a crime. It's rather cute, but again, not quite what we're here for)

Perez did the covers for all the issues and they are some of his best work IMHO.



So after meeting Dick, and explaining that he's worried about Batman's behaviour (and Dick working out from some of Tim's photos that Two-Face is the one behind the current attacks on Batman), Tim finds himself being taken to wayne Manor where he meets the another pivotal character...



Now this scene is interesting in that it immediately establishes Tim is very a different sort of kid from the perception of Jason, he's from a wealthy family for one thing, and has an appreciation of the fine arts (Erte perhaps not being that most obvious artist for a thirteen year old to favour)

Alfred is not one to be take such things likely and threatens that Tim either explain himself, or he'll call his parents, assuming he has any (LAfred not being used to kids with parents probably feels he needs to check)



So we get a nother flashback to that moment in Batman: Year Three, but it goes on a little longer than we saw the first time.



Awww! :) (That is an unfortunate haircut that three/four year old Tim has, but such are the perils of childhood)

Tim is, as so many are and would later be, transfixed by Dick Grayson, especially when performing his signature move, the quadruple somersault, and utterly horrified when he sees John and Mary Grayson fall to their deaths, and just as much as when he saw the creepy, menacing figure of Batman descend from the roof of the tent and move towards Dick.



Tim also seems to be one of the few people in Gotham to suffer PTSD as...





It may be a tad corny, but I unreservedly love this idea. A lot of later stories say that Tim worked out who Batman was, when he didn't, at least not directly. He worked out who ROBIN was, and the rest followed logically from that.





Dick takes Tim to the Batcave, which he is suitably impressed by, and again states that Batman needs Dick to be Robin again.



I wonder what THAT could be leading to?

I omit the Titans issue again, which is more about Dick meeting up with Bruce and tracking Two-Face (Whilst avoiding mentioning Tim) and ends with them being blown up in a building that Two-Face had booby trapped

This cover labels this as Part 3 of 5, it should be 5 of 5.



Tim has been left behind in the Batcave and he and Alfred are trying to work out what to do next since they lost touch with Dick, and there for Bruce.





So off they set, in the other, other OTHER car.



That might be labouring your theme just a LITTLE bit there Harvey, at least you didn't point out that your Grandfather was your ancester two generations ago, but I suspect it was a close run thing.

So Tim rushes in.







So we also confirm that Tim has some martial arts training, which will be handy

Finding a narrow coal chute into the remains of the house, Tim scampers in, in true Robin fashion...



And now we see that Tim is plucky, strong and does NOT give up,



A "Thank you" would have been nice, but Bruce isn't at his best.



"..any more than there is for a Batman?" asks Alfred pointedly.

I do like that Tim has genuinely never thought of becoming Robin himself, he just wanted to help, and thought the best way would be get Dick back to being Robin to balance Batman out.

Tim then confronts Bruce with a hard truth. Since Jason died he's beena cting differently, and people are worried about him. He NEEDS a Robin. (Also Dick shushing Alfred to see what case Tim makes is nice)





They discover that Tim managed to plant a tracker on Two-Face whilst they were fighting, and though Bruce assumes he'll use it as a bargaining chip to becoming Robin, Tim denies it, though he would like to come along, and learn from Bruce. Which he does, as Two-Face gets his lights punched out.

So we move to the final assessment of Tim's performance from the three most important people; Bruce, Dick and Alfred,





And thus Tim Drake was on the path to become the Robin, one who would take one step further than Jason had, and attain his own, redesigned costume, designed by Neal Adams, but introduced on the page by way of the late, great Norm Breyfogle.



It remains, hands down, my favourite classic costume redesign, it retains the silhouette of the classic version with the collared cape, the red tunic and short sleeves AND removes the most frequently complained about bits, like the bare legs and the cape being yellow on the outside.

The slightly later addition of the bo staff (and the short lived addition of the sling, a la Dick in his earliest stories) completed his ensemble for the next several years. And if I'm honest, I don't think any of his subsequent outfits have had anything like the style that this one did.

DC even published a schematic of the new costumes gadgets



Most of which they quickly ignored (Like Tim is dunked in the water a few times, but we never saw his lifebelt inflate, but such are the perils of life-saving gadgets when your life being peril is a vital part of the ongoing narrative.

Comments

[scorntx]

Never the biggest fan of Tim (but it's hard when there are such luminaries in the Robins as Dick, Jason, Stephanie, Damien and Horse), but that is a good introduction.
And first Tim costume is best Tim costume.
(Though there might be some bias because it's Dick's costume in the animated series, so it's kind of burnt in as the Proper Robin Costume.)

Jason died in '88, Tim shows up in '89.
That's an interesting turnaround.
(Was there just an outbreak of "oh, crap" at DC after Death in the Family, or was there already serious disagreement over Starlin's decision? Or at least the decision to kill Robin, rather than killing Jason.)

But how inattentive were the Drakes that they honestly don't notice their son is having a recurring nightmare?
Because wow...

-"If you go in knowing Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are Batman and Robin, you can find the clues to prove it"-
... err... not sure that's how clues work. But he's aged thirteen, so, pass?

Like how Dick apparently has been keeping that massive collar tucked under his shirt the whole time.
That's some old school costume logic at work right there.

-I suspect it was a close run thing-
One could say Harvey had... second thoughts.

-"I may have created a Frankenstein"-
Hm. You'd think someone as smart as Bruce would recall Frankenstein's problems only began when the doc rejected the being he'd created.
(And that Frankenstein wasn't the creature's name, but hey ho.)
Feels weird in the age of the Infalliable Bat-God that he'd make... an error.
Though with having to stop Killer Moth robbing banks every weekend, he's probably never got time to sit down and do some serious reading.


... hold on, did this story manage to go the whole way without blaming Jason for dying?

[shakalooloo]

"I may have created a Frankenstein"

Given that Victor was the first to create such a creature, naming similar products after him is perfectly normal. In the same way that calling a ballpoint pen a Biro is common practice, so the same applies to calling a created monster a Frankenstein.

[lego_joker]

There's a lot of scattered interviews from various creators at the time, explaining what the situation was like at DC in the wake of "A Death in the Family". I don't have the patience to collect them right now, but the gist is that the movie/toy people were very eager to get a viable Robin back by Batman's side in time for the '89 movie. In fact, early drafts of the movie script were heavily centered on Robin's origin, and Tim's costume design is the result of a company contest directly connected to the '89 franchise.

To answer your other question - "A Lonely Place of Dying" didn't, because Wolfman and Perez got class. However, a lot of the Grant/Breyfogle stuff that followed sadly did, one instance (I think it was the very issue where Tim officially dons the costume) even bringing in Jason's (imaginary?) ghost to go "Yeah, I dun goofed with the Joker, but you can do better than me, Timmy!"

[icon_uk]

Since Tim also hallucinated the very not dead Dick Robin as well as the Jason Robin, I think we have to put that down to emotional stress from his mother's funeral which had been the same day I think

[icon_uk]

Was there just an outbreak of "oh, crap" at DC after Death in the Family, or was there already serious disagreement over Starlin's decision? Or at least the decision to kill Robin, rather than killing Jason.)

Aside from the marketing requirements outlined by m'learned friend lego_joker, I genuinely think there was a realisation that they couldn't have gone without a Robin for any length of time.

I suspect that, even if Jason had survived, he'd have undergone some changes during his recuperation, a reassessment of his approach to being Robin, and might have ended up being quite close to what Tim seems to have been originally intended to be, a more cerebral Robin who is less likely to take risks and might provide more background and tech support on some missions. Roles that were reassigned to Oracle as she rose to prominence.

Grant and later writers wanted something closer to a classic Robin so, for example, Tim quickly picked up skills like using the batline and grapnel, and specialist ninja training etc.

"If you go in knowing Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson are Batman and Robin, you can find the clues to prove it"-
... err... not sure that's how clues work. But he's aged thirteen, so, pass?

I think clues do work like that. All his evidenceis circumstantial but, based on the quadruple somersault as his idée fixe, the pieces surrounding the assumption that Bruce and Dick are Batman and Robin/Nightwing all fit. And as you say, he's thirteen when he meets Bruce and Dick, he's had four years to think it through, so started when he was nine.


I've always thought that the DiscoWing collar just folds down against Dick's back the same way it folds up.

[scorntx]

I suppose it would ruin the dramatic scene if right after all that, Dick's collar just pops up with a little "foomph".
(gonna go ahead and imagine it happened anyway.)

[shakalooloo]

Was it common practice in the eighties to take a child to their first circus performance - potentially quite a messy experience - in a full suit? The Drakes are weeird.

[icon_uk]

Getting dressed up for an outing to make it special seems fairly common.

[junipepper]

I’ve never seen a little boy in a suit outside of weddings and funerals. Which, come to think of it, is the only time most grown men I know wear suits (lawyers excepted). Bar Mitzva boys, I guess, but they’re 13, not 4.

Back in the 80’s you saw a lot of men in suits, but it still would have been very strange for anyone to wear one to the circus. I think the formal clothing is to demonstrate that the Drakes are wealthy.

[icon_uk]

That actually reminded me of something.

I was a London comicon in 1989, and remember Alan Grant and Norm Breyfogle talking about what their take on Tim was and amongst other things, said something along the lines of "He's more likely to wear a suit casually." which was more or less the case, though Dixon ignored that too.

[mazway_75]

I just love the reactions of Alfred and Dick to how the greatest criminal masterminds have failed to figure out who Batman is and an eight-year-old kid figured it out in ten seconds.

[icon_uk]

Based on the movement lines in that scene Dick seems to be practically doing a bobblehead impersonation! :D

[alicemacher]

I don't know whether Wolfman, prior to writing A Lonely Place of Dying, had ever read that Golden Age story I recently posted, in which Bruce, having lost guardianship of Dick, finds he's too grim and ineffective now as a solo Batman -- until Robin shows up to help him again. Nevertheless, it's interesting how that one story made much the same point fifty years before Wolfman's arc.

What Robin -- whichever Robin -- does is keep Batman grounded and human, whether by trading goofy puns with him while punching crooks, or just being there to remind him it's not just Gotham or justice in the abstract he's fighting for.

[icon_uk]

It's safe to assume that Marv Wolfman knows his Bat-lore inside out, so your suggestion is probably right on the money!

[rfmcdonald]

Thank you for introducing us to this.

[icon_uk]

Introducing people to a Robin is always a pleasure! :)

[lbd_nytetrayn]

Ah, I remember reading this back in the day... good times. Love the art, too. Just feels so iconic.

[dragontail]

This is around the time I stopped eating black and white Australian reprints of DC Comics (most of which were the "Bruce in the city penthouse, Dick at college but also visiting") era, and was able to get my hands on the real (and contemporaneously published) thing. What a time! So many good memories here. I'll always adore Tim.

[blueprintstyles]

Tim will always be my Robin

[aeopile]

Me too

[junipepper]

Discowing suit always makes me smile.