Originally Posted by
Lee
I'm sure that's true for some people, but for the most part the TV shows and merchandise skew towards a more traditional Robin. Damian Wayne does exist outside of the comic books, but he hasn't become the default depiction of Robin. Most of the casual audience would be surprised to hear that Robin is Batman's son, who carries a sword and scowls. People were surprised when a white actor was cast in the Green Lantern movie.
DC puts themselves in this position, and continue to do so, whenever they create two disparate versions of the same character, and try to keep them both active at the same time.
So DC Comics has two Robins right now - a more traditional version in Tim, and a less traditional version in Damian. It's just weird to me that they're sticking with the latter, rather than creating a more consistent multimedia brand identity for the character. Damian is a strong enough character concept to survive without the Robin identity. Tim Drake kind of isn't, because he was never designed to be anything else. The two most obvious post-Robin avenues have already been taken. Batman's former sidekick who "graduated" and went his own way as a hero - that's Nightwing. Batman's former sidekick who went down a dark path, broke Batman's code and became a gun-wielding murderous vigilante - that's Red Hood.
So what's to be done with Tim Drake at this point? All these (half recycled) names being suggested - Red Robin, Redwing, Redbird, Flamebird - just scream "Brand X Robin". But beyond the name, what are Tim's character hooks going to be? His unique selling point? What's the high concept of the character?
Maybe he'll just be kept to the Young Justice book, where he serves a purpose just fine. But within the Batman Universe, and the larger DC Universe, I'm really not sure how he can be kept relevant without implementing some drastic changes - but that runs the risk of the changes being so drastic that they alienate the character's current fanbase.