Marv Wolfman: It was fairly simple, actually. I got a call that (DC) really would like Robin back in Batman, and they wanted Robin to be younger. Again, because Batman really needed a partner. The nice thing was that Teen Titans—which I was still on at the time—was way outselling Batman and I really wanted Dick Grayson and I really loved the character.
We had aged him, we had made him a real leader, we had done a whole bunch of things with him, and I didn’t want to give up Dick Grayson. And it suddenly struck me — I don’t even know what happened because it was unprecedented in comics — I said, “Why don’t I keep Dick Grayson and you create a new Robin and make that a big to-do in Batman … while we have Nightwing.”
We’d already been having long stories about Dick Grayson breaking up with Batman, not being part of the Batman thing, so it fit perfectly that he would want to change. Also, he hated those stupid green shorts. (Laughter) Just utterly… It’s so cold in Gotham in the winter and Batman’s totally dressed in armor.
So (they) thought that was a great idea and they went off and created, with Gerry Conway, I think it was, Jason Todd, and I got to play with Dick Grayson and finally make him his own person.
It was something we had been leading to, but we never expected we’d have permission to remove him from the Batman continuity whatsoever and this gave us a chance to actually fulfill the story that we had been working towards. George’s artwork was playing him at about 21. I was writing him about the same age. … And that’s pretty much how it happened.