How long into Batman's career should Robin join him?
The [I]long[/I] thread about the ''preferred duration'' of Dick's career as Robin got me thinking...how long should Bruce be Batman before Dick joins him as Robin?
Now, in a real-world publishing sense, Robin first appeared 11 months after Batman did, so there's a historical precedent for it being about a year.
But Post-COIE, there was a continuous reinvention and expansion of Batman's early years with stories like [I]Year One[/I], the entire [I]Legends of the Dark Knight[/I] series, [I]The Long Halloween[/I], [I]Dark Victory[/I], [I]Dark Moon Rising[/I] etc. Most notably, Batman's first encounters with [I]most[/I], if not all, big-name villains now retroactively occurred [I]before[/I] he met Dick. So it became conventional wisdom that Robin came along two or three years into Batman's career (two is the more popular figure due to [I]Year Three[/I] covering Robin's origin).
The New 52 brought it down to one year again due to their compressed timeline, though I assume that doesn't apply anymore.
And adaptations of course play by their own rules. If real-world release dates are any indication, Dick becomes Robin in [I]Batman Forever[/I] about six years into Batman's career. [I]The Batman[/I] (the 2004 cartoon) started with a solo Batman three years into his career, so I'm guessing by the time Robin shows up in Season 4 its four or five years (I haven't watched the later seasons of this show so I'm not sure). Darwyn Cooke's [I]New Frontier[/I], incidentially, has Dick becoming Robin in the late 1950's in a timeline where, notionally, Batman has been around since 1939!
Personally, I lean towards it being [I]at least[/I] two years. Real-world history aside, I think it makes more sense for Bruce to be confident bringing a kid into his world if he's already pretty established and has things somewhat under control. A relative rookie vigilante turning a 12 year old into a vigilante is more messed up than the Robin concept already is! And I guess honestly, about three to five years makes the most sense.
At the same time of course, adaptations and Elseworlds notwithstanding, it can't be [I]too[/I] long a gap because we need to compress the timeline to [I]some[/I] extent. Then again, if you're wedded to the idea of Bruce and Dick having a father-son relationship, then maybe a longer gap [I]is[/I] a better bet!
What are your thoughts on this pretty nitpicky question? ;)