Should Batman's Rogues Begin Before or After Robin Debuts?

[Timothy Hunter]

I don't know if this was a concept introduced Post-Zero Hour or not, but after rereading the Long Halloween, it occurred to me that DC by the 90s had rectonned a great deal of Batman's rogues gallery such as the Mad Hatter, the Riddler, Poison Ivy, Calendar Man, and even Man Bat to have made their debut before Dick Grayson became Robin.

If you even have a passing familiarity of Batman's publishing history, like me, your going think this is rather odd. While Robin first appeared in 1940, the Mad Hatter first appeared in 1948, Two Face in 1942, Man Bat in 1970, Penguin in 1941, Poison Ivy in 1966, Riddler in 1948, Scarcrow in 1941. The only member of Batman's main rogues gallery you could say existed before Robin is Hugo Strange.

In my mind, the continuity of Post Crisis Batman should in large carry over from Earths One and Two with a few minor exceptions such as Jason Todd's revised origin. Am I the only one who is bugged by this?

[Frontier]

I guess it depends on the story. I can't think of any reason specifically for why the Rogues Gallery should be tied to the Dynamic Duo era even if it was true during the Golden Age.

[Restingvoice]

After. There's no need to rush-dumping the rogues, sometimes all at once, when Batman's first year is already busy dealing with the mobs.

At least, if Robin is Year Three, start doling them out a bit at Year Two with Mad Monk, Hugo Strange, Joker, Catwoman, and Two-Face, then on Year Three with Freeze, Hatter, Killer Moth, Scarecrow, Penguin, and four-five more the next year and so on

Spread them out, give them time to settle then escalate

[SiegePerilous02]

I'd say after. Maybe have some like Joker and Catwoman start showing up before Robin, but most of them shouldn't.

[Aahz]

To me Long Halloween never really worked as in continuity.

[Badou]

I like most appearing after. I understand that certain aspects of when characters first appeared will never come back, like Robin coming before Alfred will never be touched on again, but basically every one of Batman's rogues appearing before Dick became Robin just never sat right with me. Most should come after because first encountering these crazy costumed villains was something that they experienced together and to me it is sad that isn't the case anymore.

Of course Grayson/Robin is my favorite DC character so I am biased, but it just kind of sucks that with every reboot or big change in continuity it feels like Dick loses more of his history and influence. It gets frustrating. He either loses his history outright or pieces of it are given to the different Robins or other characters, but he never gets anything back in return. So it is this chipping away at his character that you can't really do anything about.

[PurpleGlovez]

Like Alfred being Bruce's butler from childhood, it's just one of those things I've learned to accept. It seems DC wants Batman to have a more personal and cerebral relationship with his major villains and if Robin was there for their first encounters it might detract from that somehow (not saying I agree with that necessarily).

Interestingly, several early post-Crisis stories, such as Neil Gaiman's Poison Ivy origin and Penguin's Who's Who profile, had some of the rogues gallery post-Robin... it does seem to be the Zero Hour Year One annuals that started to change things. Though there was a 2005 Scarecrow Year One with Robin and he was also in Through the Looking Glass (a Mad Hatter first encounter originally slated for Batman Confidential).

To me Long Halloween never really worked as in continuity.

It's always tempting to create a timeline that ignores Long Halloween and Dark Victory except DC clearly considers them canon. They were codified wholesale in Tony Daniel's Batman, referenced as early as Hush, and the 2008 Two-Face Year One revolves around them completely. There's tons of LotDK stories that take place on holidays and span implausible lengths of time, so TLH and DV ironically make those possible and impossible by having the Holiday and Hangman murders take up Batman's sole focus for years on end.