Tim Drake: Robin, Red Robin, Drake Appreciation 2021

[Artemisfanboy]

Yeah, Jack was killed and his wife was mentally ill (due to the trauma), so Tim set up a fake uncle (he was an actor) to act as a guardian, while he and Cassandra Cain paired up to fight crime in Bludhaven - Dick being absent at the time. The fake uncle was killed in the nuke, leading to Bruce adopting him, which happened in the One Year Later timeskip. Present continuity can easily just skip that fake uncle business.

That still really doesn't account for where Dana is or what her status would be. IIRC correctly she died in Bludhaven as she was being treated in a clinic there. She was Tim's step mom. Would Bruce be able to adopt Tim if she was still alive? If she's dead then how did she die in this continuity, since Bludhaven is still standing?

Jack's death also raises other questions since it's connected to the surrounding events in Identity Crisis.

[Dataweaver]

If Dana is alive, then there is a very good chance that when she learned about Tim's adoption by Bruce she decided not to contest it. One thing about the way that the timeline currently works is that it is fractured: at the time that Bruce adopted Tim, bludhaven had been destroyed and Dana was likely dead; sometime after that, a timeline shift occurred and bludhaven was put back in continuity. People now remember these timeshifts happening, and they're aware that a different points in their lives they remember things differently and acted accordingly.

[Badou]

Tim feels so irrelevant these days I guess making him the "gay Robin" will be used to give him some kind of niche in the Batman franchise? I'm usually always against such dramatic changes to long standing characters like this, I didn't like the Iceman change or when they tried to turn Wally West into a black person, so I'm not really a fan of making Tim gay now, but I dunno. His character is so lost and directionless that I don't think it can be fixed. Making him gay isn't going to change that, since building a character around their sexuality in comics always fails and comics already do a poor job at romance/relationships anyway, but I guess they can mine some stories from it. It feels kind of whatever but I guess Tim has a certain group of his fans that would like it.

[Dataweaver]

I suspect that every character has a group of fans who would like it.

[Digifiend]

That still really doesn't account for where Dana is or what her status would be. IIRC correctly she died in Bludhaven as she was being treated in a clinic there. She was Tim's step mom. Would Bruce be able to adopt Tim if she was still alive? If she's dead then how did she die in this continuity, since Bludhaven is still standing?

Jack's death also raises other questions since it's connected to the surrounding events in Identity Crisis.

How so? Identity Crisis still happened in the current continuity, right? Are there any contradictions caused by merging in New 52 stuff?

[josai21]

Let me be more clear: as I see it, OYL wasn't it coming of age story. At best, it was a Tim deals with grief story. And that had already been done before (and better) when Tim lost his mother and nearly lost his father. It had been established that Tim was different from Bruce and Dick in that his main motivation wasn't trauma, and he was arguably among the most sane of the bat family as a result. Jon Lewis addressed this in his first issue on the title: Tim grieve for his mother, and still misses her, but doesn't obsess over her death. The editorial team didn't get that, and decided that as long as Tim wasn't driven by angst, he wasn't serious enough. Thus, identity crisis and war games. And one year later was a feeble attempt to clean up that mess, feeble because the new writer also didn't realize the cause of the mess.

Tim did eventually get more actual character growth; but that didn't come until Dixon's return to the title. As for the Red Robin run, I have mixed feelings on it. The first half was good, everything up through Tim's confrontation with the League of Assassins and Ra's al-Ghul acknowledging Tim as “Detective”. But the other half, starting with The List, doubled down with the aspect of Tim introduced way back in 2003 that I most despise: Tim the schemer. There seems to be an assumption among many writers that anyone who is clever must be devious. Whether it was Johns having Tim argue that the Teen Titans should lie to get what they want or Willingham having Tim hire a fake uncle to deceive Bruce, we were starting to get a Tim who didn't think twice about deceiving people to achieve his goals, regardless of who those people were. And the final half of the Red Robin title was starting down that road again.

I'd agree on OYL later being more of a grief story but that's kinda the point. It was supposed to be grief and pushing Tim to a darker place. And he kept descending into that until near the end of Red Robin. Red Robin was about how Tim is similiar to Bruce but ultimately different. It looked like he was going to grow beyond that grief...matured and marked by it, but beyond it.

And idk, I really like Tim's character as the schemer...as the chess master. Tim as the natural successor to Bruce in that area just worked for me from a story-telling perspective. It was leagues better than the "tech-guru" we've gotten since. Tim's intelligence was never about being donatello, but about being the manipulator who could manipulate and manage crime lords.

[Badou]

I suspect that every character has a group of fans who would like it.

That is true, but Tim has that obsessive group of Tim/Kon shippers or something, right? I've kind of given up on Tim as a character when he started to feel redundant after such bad treatment, and also I have just no interest in comic romances anymore, so I'm the wrong person to really judge it I guess too.

[Artemisfanboy]

How so? Identity Crisis still happened in the current continuity, right? Are there any contradictions caused by merging in New 52 stuff?

Off the top of my head, Sue and Ralph Dibny were alive during the New 52 and also appeared during Rebirth. Now I suppose they could have been resurrected or you could construct an alternate version of Identity Crisis where she survived Jean's attack.

[Aahz]

For Identity Crisis to make sense you also need the Satellite Era back in continuity, I'm not sure if that works without contradictions.

[Dataweaver]

I'd agree on OYL later being more of a grief story but that's kinda the point. It was supposed to be grief and pushing Tim to a darker place. And he kept descending into that until near the end of Red Robin. Red Robin was about how Tim is similiar to Bruce but ultimately different. It looked like he was going to grow beyond that grief...matured and marked by it, but beyond it.

And idk, I really like Tim's character as the schemer...as the chess master. Tim as the natural successor to Bruce in that area just worked for me from a story-telling perspective. It was leagues better than the "tech-guru" we've gotten since. Tim's intelligence was never about being donatello, but about being the manipulator who could manipulate and manage crime lords.

I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree. For me, the fact that he was subjected to such non-stop trauma wasn't a character growth thing, it was the writers misunderstanding what made the character interesting.

On the other part, I don't mind Tim being leader, even a manager. But not a manipulator. For example, I could see him reviving the Robins (from “We Are… Robin”) with a new identity; I seem to recall him playing around with the idea of Neon Knights just before the Red Robin title launched). But I don't like the idea of him doing the List, where he has contingency plans for how to take down just about everyone, hero or villain; he saw how that fits Batman, and would have learned from that. The lying and deceit is not a good fit for him.

[Dataweaver]

For Identity Crisis to make sense you also need the Satellite Era back in continuity, I'm not sure if that works without contradictions.

I don't think that it works without contradiction. But the way things are now, that's not an issue: contradictions are fine.

Actually though, that opens up another possibility for Tim. It's not one that I expect them to actually make use of, and I'm not sure that I'd want them to either; but it is a possibility: since It All Happened, so did the New 52 origin for Tim. Even though that directly contradicts the original origin for Tim that was reinstated in the middle of Rebirth. Both Origins happened; and that means that Tim has a set of parents who are in a witness protection program, but otherwise alive and well. He also has a set of parents who are dead, one due to nerve Toxin and the other due to a boomerang. But he also has the Witness Protection parents.

[Aahz]

Tim feels so irrelevant these days I guess making him the "gay Robin" will be used to give him some kind of niche in the Batman franchise?

I doubt that that will work (if that is what they are going for).
It doesn't change that the character needs a direction, and a well written book.

[josai21]

I think you and I are going to have to agree to disagree. For me, the fact that he was subjected to such non-stop trauma wasn't a character growth thing, it was the writers misunderstanding what made the character interesting.

On the other part, I don't mind Tim being leader, even a manager. But not a manipulator. For example, I could see him reviving the Robins (from “We Are… Robin”) with a new identity; I seem to recall him playing around with the idea of Neon Knights just before the Red Robin title launched). But I don't like the idea of him doing the List, where he has contingency plans for how to take down just about everyone, hero or villain; he saw how that fits Batman, and would have learned from that. The lying and deceit is not a good fit for him.

Yeah agree to disagree. Robin pre all that was a child.

[Dataweaver]

If growing up means becoming deceitful, then yeah.

[josai21]

If growing up means becoming deceitful, then yeah.

I wholeheartedly agree it's a character flaw in the same way Bruce's distrust is a character flaw.

Seeing Tim deal with that and grow beyond that was extremely interesting.

He was a foil to Bruce in many ways.