The DCU Timeline Discussion Thread!

[Dataweaver]

If Jon was born 12 years before Infinite Frontier, then Damian would be 15 years old at Infinite Frontier.

That would make Tim 21 in the present, Jason 23, and Dick 28, I think.

That said, I still prefer the idea that Jon was born in a time -lost city and grew up for the first ten years of his life on the world of the New 52.

[Restingvoice]

Taylor said that Jon was going on 18 and since he's in college, my interpretation is he has an earlier birthday, but I'm not intending to think too much into it.

If we're doing a canon timeline, I'm going by the most recent and it's the past that change
So it's
Jon 17 Damian 14 post Infinite Frontier
Jon 16/11 Damian 13 in the post Infinite Frontier version of Super Sons backstory
Jon 10 Damian 12
and so on
Jon 8 Damian 10 Tim 17 Jason 19 Dick 24+ (since I'm not sure at what age Dick became Robin now)
back to today
Jon 17 Damian 14 Tim 21 Jason 23 Dick 28+
yeah

[Aahz]

In a later book though, they showed Jason's death certificate saying he died at 15,

No they don't, the Death Certificate in the Comics has no age.

The Death Certificate with age 15 is in The Batman Files and therefore imo not really canon.

[Restingvoice]

No they don't, the Death Certificate in the Comics has no age.

The Death Certificate with age 15 is in The Batman Files and therefore imo not really canon.

Oh it wasn't the comic?

Well, since he had his 18th birthday during War Games, he'd be 2 years older than Tim anyway, it still match.

I'll edit that

[Aahz]

In Tamaran, Dick told Joey that he lost his parents at 10 years old - This is the new Post Crisis origin of Dick Grayson

The age at which Dick lost his parents is kind of a mess, I think within Post crisis it varies from 6 to 15.
Personally I think 11 or 12 makes the most sense, based on the stories that are actually set in this timeframe.

Tim told Dick that he was there, 3 years old, when Dick lost his parents at 10

Not really, in A Lonley Palce of Dying it is only said that Tim is 13, but it is nor mentioned how old he was when Dick's parents died or how long ago that happend.

To get that you have look into year 3, and that is unfortunately all over the place. Since according to that Zucco was put in Jail 12 years ago but Dicks parents died only 10 years ago.
It also says that Dick left the Mansion only 2 years ago, which would if you keep Dick's time in collage in canon shorten Jason's time as Robin down to the point where basically dies after he had just put on the costume.

[dietrich]

Okay; going with the notion that Tim was 17 as of Flashpoint, that would mean that A Lonely Place of Dying was four years before Flashpoint. If Damian was ten as of Flashpoint, them he was born six years before A Lonely Place of Dying.

If Dick was 18 when Damian was born, then he'd be 24 as of A Lonely Place of Dying. And since A Lonely Place of Dying was ten years after the death of the Graysons (given Tim's ages of 13 and 3, respectively), that would mean that Dick would have to have been 14 when his parents died. That strikes me as too old.

If we say that Dick was 20 in A Lonely Place of Dying, then he'd be 14 when Damian is born and 10 when his parents died. That might be workable.

Jason became Robin when Dick became Nightwing: in the pre-Crisis continuity, Dick went from resigning as Robin at Titans Tower straight to the Batcave to give his costume to Jason, who was already at Batman's side; and immediately after that, the Judas Contract happened and Dick donned the Nightwing identity. If we say that all of that took place when Dick was 18, that would mean that Jason's career as Robin spanned approximately two years. Given the post-Crisis interpretation of his origin, I'd be willing to have him be in his teens already when Batman found him; maybe as old as fourteen. That would make him 16 when the Joker killed him.

So:

Damian becomes Robin just before Flashpoint.

Tim becomes Robin four years before Flashpoint.

Jason became Robin six years before Flashpoint.

Damian is born ten years before Flashpoint.

Dick becomes Robin fourteen years before Flashpoint.

Bruce becomes Batman sixteen years before Flashpoint.

Tim is born seventeen years before Flashpoint.

Jason is born twenty years before Flashpoint.

Dick is born twenty-four years before Flashpoint.

You've really been crunching those numbers.

Trying to figure out the batfam ages gives me a headache. I try as much as possible to ignore the ages/make it make sense.

The inconsistencies don't really bother me that much and they don't take away from my enjoyment/immersion.

The only Batfam age gaffe that sort of sticks out is the recent Damian aging 3 years while Tim seems to have gotten 3 years younger.

[dietrich]

The age at which Dick lost his parents is kind of a mess, I think within Post crisis it varies from 6 to 15.
Personally I think 11 or 12 makes the most sense, based on the stories that are actually set in this timeframe.


Not really, in A Lonley Palce of Dying it is only said that Tim is 13, but it is nor mentioned how old he was when Dick's parents died or how long ago that happend.

To get that you have look into year 3, and that is unfortunately all over the place. Since according to that Zucco was put in Jail 12 years ago but Dicks parents died only 10 years ago.
It also says that Dick left the Mansion only 2 years ago, which would if you keep Dick's time in collage in canon shorten Jason's time as Robin down to the point where basically dies after he had just put on the costume.

I prefer Dick losing his folks and becoming Robin before age 10. I know with the compressed timeline it doesn't fit but I think Bruce seeing Dick lose his folks at a similar age is an important part of the duo's history.

[Dataweaver]

Taylor said that Jon was going on 18 and since he's in college, my interpretation is he has an earlier birthday, but I'm not intending to think too much into it.

If we're doing a canon timeline, I'm going by the most recent and it's the past that change
So it's
Jon 17 Damian 14 post Infinite Frontier
Jon 16/11 Damian 13 in the post Infinite Frontier version of Super Sons backstory
Jon 10 Damian 12
and so on
Jon 8 Damian 10 Tim 17 Jason 19 Dick 24+ (since I'm not sure at what age Dick became Robin now)
back to today
Jon 17 Damian 14 Tim 21 Jason 23 Dick 28+
yeah

Unless you remove Tim's personal investment in the death of the Graysons, he needs to have been at Haley's Circus when they died; and he needs to be old enough to have a chance of processing it. That means that he would have to have been at least three at the time — which puts it no more than ten years before A Lonely Place of Dying. Every year that you age Tim up closes the gap between Dick's debut as Robin and Tim's debut as Robin; and since we're having trouble finding enough time for Dick in the timeline as is, I'm not particularly interested in Tim having been older. So I'd strongly recommend going with his age at the Graysons' fall being three years old.

And with Tim's age fixed in place, adjusting Dick's age back then doesn't buy or cost any time; all it does is short what Dick's age is later on.

[dietrich]

Jasons the have never really given Jasons current age in any post flashpoint comics from what I can tell.
During the new 52 he was due to the compressed 5 year time line about the same age as Dick, but in the current comics it looks like he became Robin at his original starting age again.

Pre Falshpoint/Post Crisis he had his 18th Birthday at the beginning of War Games, which indicates that he was still that age during Under the Red Hood (potentially even biologically younger depending on how Resurection and Lazaurs Pit effected his ageing), it was also stated that he was roughly the same age as Cassandra Cain.

I ask because logically once he died the aging process would halt yet when he came back he was drawn much older.

[Restingvoice]

I ask because logically once he died the aging process would halt yet when he came back he was drawn much older.

He came back almost immediately. Dug himself out before Tim became Robin. He wasn't fully conscious though and spent a year or more recovering before deciding to train for revenge.

[Bored at 3:00AM]

Or younger, for what that's worth. Although that mostly matters to kids: adults can easily have their physical ages adjusted by as much as a decade and few people will notice; but going from 10 to 14 or 13 to 17 is a huge deal. It's why I tend to concentrate on getting the kids' ages right.

We do have the option is saying that Flashpoint physically de-aged a bunch of people, and not just superheroes; and that the physical de-aging remained even after the lost years of experience were restored. This could allow, for example, Tim Drake to chronologically have over twenty years of experience but physically be barely a year or two older than Damian. This “Flashpoint Effect” could be more pronounced the older you are, so that people who were in their 50s before Flashpoint are now biologically in their fourties, whole someone who was 20 only gets regressed to 16.

I go one step further and say that each Temporal reset bumps years off everyone's ages.

In the 60s, everyone aged in real time, then from about 1970 till 1985, time slowed to a crawl, then Crisis reset everyone to a few years younger, and that kept happening regularly every few years with Zero Hour, Infinite Crisis, and Flashpoint. Everything since then had thrown people's aging into such chaos, I don't anyone can even tell how old they are anymore

[Aahz]

I prefer Dick losing his folks and becoming Robin before age 10. I know with the compressed timeline it doesn't fit but I think Bruce seeing Dick lose his folks at a similar age is an important part of the duo's history.

Like I said it is not really in line with any of the stories that are actually set in this era, imo not even with original Golden Age ones.
And I think just timeline wise it would be much easier to have Bruce be 12 when he loses his parents than to have Dick be 8, if you really would want them to be the same age when it happens.

And any way Tim's origin makes imo allready Dim being 10 a problem.

[Aahz]

He came back almost immediately. Dug himself out before Tim became Robin. He wasn't fully conscious though and spent a year or more recovering before deciding to train for revenge.

According to Batman Annual #25 6 month passed between Death and him digging himself out of the grave. So it would have happend after Tim started his training but before he became Robin.

But the time line of Jason Resurections Pre Flash point is also weired, according to that something between 3 and 3 and a half years would have passed between his death and the Lazarus pit, together with the training he got afterwards that would never fit in the timeline.
The even wirder part is that Lost days makes it look as if Tim would have only started as Robin while jason was already travelling the globe for training, while Tim should have likely allready been Robin way before Jason was thrown in the pit.

[Aahz]

I ask because logically once he died the aging process would halt yet when he came back he was drawn much older.

He is unfortunatly often written an drwan like he was about the same age as Dick, while he was should actually be much closer in age to Tim's generation.

[km_sus]

I'm a big fan of the twenty years timeline, personally.
I think the end goal should be not to create a "perfect" timeline, but a synergistic timeline.
Inconsistencies will occur, but in general most of the material will cohesively tie together.
Problematically, most timelines I see are either too compressed (New 52) or too realistic (Superman in his late 50's).
My current timeline (using the bat-family as an example) goes something like this:


Y1: Bruce (26) becomes Batman with the help of Alfred (48) and Gordon (41).

(Year One, Monster Men, Mad Monk, Man Who Laughs)

Y3: Dick (12) becomes Robin.

(Dark Victory, Robin: Year One)

Y10: Dick (19) becomes Nightwing. Jason (12) becomes Robin.

(New Teen Titans, Second Chances, Nightwing: Year One)

Y13: Helena (21) becomes the Huntress. Barbara (25) is shot by the Joker. Jason (15) dies in the line of duty. Tim (13) meets Bruce and becomes Robin.

(Killing Joke, A Death in the Family, A Lonely Place of Dying)

Y14: Azrael (21) and Spoiler (15) are introduced.

(Knightfall, Contagion, Legacy)

Y15: Cassandra (17) becomes Batgirl.

(Cataclysm, No Man's Land)

Y16: Jason (18) returns and becomes Red Hood.

(Murderer/Fugitive, War Games, Under the Hood, Infinite Crisis)

Y17: Kate (32) and Damian (10) are introduced.

(52, Batman and Son, Black Glove, Final Crisis)

Y18: Dick (27) becomes Batman.

(Battle for the Cowl, Batman Reborn, Batman Inc.)

Y19: Flashpoint occurs. Duke (16) and Harper (18) are introduced.

(Court of Owls, Death of the Family, Eternal, Endgame)

Y20: Rebirth occurs. Batman (45) almost marries Catwoman (37).

(Metal, The Wedding, City of Bane, Joker War, Death Metal)

Y21: Infinite Frontier; current year.

(Fear State, Shadow War, Dark Crisis)