Tim Drake: Robin, Red Robin, Appreciation 2023

[NOCTPHOENIX]

Yeah...but it seems in more of the sense of like a supporting/partnership role and as Robin....which is part of the problem. Like I wasn't a fan of him trying to make Robin be tied to Tim's backstory.....like that is Dick

[Aahz]

Maybe i'm too harsh on him cause the mess that was TT Academy, but i don't think he is the type of writer that would help Tim get out of the slump.

I think at this point they really need a top level writer to Tim get on track.

If you put Sheridan on a Tim Drake book, I don't think it will last much longer than the last series.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

I think at this point they really need a top level writer to Tim get on track.

If you put Sheridan on a Tim Drake book, I don't think it will last much longer than the last series.

How bad was TT Academy? And where are Sheridan's fallings?

[Aahz]

How bad was TT Academy? And where are Sheridan's fallings?

The Plot was pretty messy.

The who is Red X story line was dragged out way to long, and it was never really explained where Dick's turn as Red X or the other 2 holders of this mantle fit into continuity.

It where just way to many new characters, with no clear main protagonist(s), and to many plots.

Annd on top of everything that was going on they also tied it in to the War for Earth 3 event (not sure if one can blame Sheridan for that).


And Stitch (one of the new characters) was just incredibly annoying.

[Lal]

How bad was TT Academy? And where are Sheridan's fallings?

It was pretty bad. The plot, the characterization, everything was just bad.
Sheridan said in previous interviews that he loves Nightwing and was exited to write him, and yet Nightwing was written as incompetent most of the time, and other characters referred to him as old or an aging sidekick.

I don't think he's someone who could give Tim his new niche.

[scary harpy]

I think at this point they really need a top level writer to Tim get on track.

If you put Sheridan on a Tim Drake book, I don't think it will last much longer than the last series.

What track does Tim need to be on?

What does Tim need to do be successful again? I don't know.

As far as I can see, no writer knows what to do with him anymore.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

Just bring back Fabnic/Christopher Yost.

[Pohzee]

For what its worth, I thought that Sheridan's ideas for Titans Academy and Red X were more interesting than what Taylor is doing with the title right now, but the OCs weren't memorable and the story was a little too messy.

[Astralabius]

What track does Tim need to be on?

What does Tim need to do be successful again? I don't know.

As far as I can see, no writer knows what to do with him anymore.

My question exactly. Lots of writers, including DC's top writers, have tried several times to "get Tim back on track" but nothing seems good enough for Tim's fanbase.
I wonder if 90s nostalgia is holding everyone back. The writers, the fans and in the end the character.

[Morgoth]

I wonder if 90s nostalgia is holding everyone back. The writers, the fans and in the end the character.

I don't know about fans, I've seen lots of people, who want him to move on from Robin and become something else, but writers are definitely influenced by nostalgia, since lots of people in current creative team grew up in 90s, so he's ''their Robin'', etc.

[Fergus]

I don't know about fans, I've seen lots of people, who want him to move on from Robin and become something else, but writers are definitely influenced by nostalgia, since lots of people in current creative team grew up in 90s, so he's ''their Robin'', etc.

Some fans want him to get a new identity but the majority of the Tim blogs and Tim fans on Twitter want him to stay Robin. There seems to be this mindset that

-Tim made the role his own even more so than Dick. The guy who created, defined the role and established the checklist of everything Robin.

-Robin belongs to Tim which is just bizarre [I've encountered a few right here on CbR]. There are people today who still believe/still say that Damian stole Robin lol.

90's nostalgia is strong. I get it. The industry was stronger, the Batfamily was smaller so there was less competition.

There was more panel space to go around so Tim always had plenty of focus and room to shine.
He was writing by the same creator for a very long time resulting in consistency in characterisation. Tim fans were eating very well in the 90's so I get why they keeping yearning to return to a time when he was prominent, had a clear role and had zero rivals.

Tim was at his peak during the 90's and he was Robin in the 90's so logically to make the character popular and prominent again just send him back to the 90's or put him in a Robin suit, deage him, call him Robin and give him a Robin solo.

Solved.

[Fergus]

I don't know about fans, I've seen lots of people, who want him to move on from Robin and become something else, but writers are definitely influenced by nostalgia, since lots of people in current creative team grew up in 90s, so he's ''their Robin'', etc.

lol. IKR it's sad and frustrating that his fanboys are the ones responsible for this stagnation. They regressed a character that started out as the Independent partner to a sidekick over and over Bendis, Tynion, Megan and Chip all have called him the perfect Robin or works best as Robin.
In Chip's case the writer said he believes Tim works best as Batman's sidekick.

I wonder if these fanboy writers ever consider what is best for the character rather than going with what do/did I personally enjoy about this character when making decisions?

[Frontier]

I think he and Bruce still work well together but there's only so much mileage you can get out of that now.

[skyvolt2000]

lol. IKR it's sad and frustrating that his fanboys are the ones responsible for this stagnation. They regressed a character that started out as the Independent partner to a sidekick over and over Bendis, Tynion, Megan and Chip all have called him the perfect Robin or works best as Robin.
In Chip's case the writer said he believes Tim works best as Batman's sidekick.

I wonder if these fanboy writers ever consider what is best for the character rather than going with what do/did I personally enjoy about this character when making decisions?

Is it really them or is it editorial that can move on???

And if that is the case how many others are also being screwed over?

[godisawesome]

I don't know about fans, I've seen lots of people, who want him to move on from Robin and become something else, but writers are definitely influenced by nostalgia, since lots of people in current creative team grew up in 90s, so he's ''their Robin'', etc.

I think it’s actually fun to view what different struggles different creators have had with Tim since Flashpoint, especially since several have started okay and then suddenly divebombed:

- Scott Lobdell started out as thoroughly mediocre with most of the cast, but not bad, with his New 52 Teen Titans run… and then eventually succumbed to his worst 90’s writing habits with *everyone* (except Bunker), possibly because of editorial encouraging that for him overall because he was a handy yes-man to them. You can even sort of tell that his initial impression he was just relaunching the characters was likely healthier than the reboot was; he’s a poster boy for “editorial wants everything fixed, especially if it’s not broken” for the period. (Will Pfeifer was still trying to write New 52 Teen Titans, and his main ideas involved New 52 Superboy… who Lobdell got brought in to kill off because of editorial’s fickle nature again. So he doesn’t really count in terms of trying things with Tim.)

- Tynion is an avowed and clear Tim fan, but also seen as a good example of how that doesn’t guarantee success. I think he’s the one who was most trying to “recapture” what he felt made the characters work… by trying to conceptually combine *all* of Tim’s previous “epochs” as a character: it’s like he was trying to meld Dixon’s Tim with Johns’s Tim with Nicieza’s Tim. And I kind of think that Tynion’s own decent but still somewhat limited skills were further hurt by some of the contradictory natures of the Tim’s he was trying to blend - Dixon’s Tim is “the good kid” who doesn’t have HUGE flaws and is wise beyond his years, Johns’s Tim is a bit emotionally stunted as expressed in his very worrying flaws, while Niceiza’s has matured but gained some subtle flaws. This sort of led to a somewhat bland Tim mixing the various weaknesses of his previous epochs rather than their strengths; he wasn’t wise beyond his years but he wasn’t interestingly flawed either, being an impractical super scientist overall.

(Personally, I think Nicieza’s Tim *does* flow from Dixon’s more than Johns’s; Johns tends to lean more into Flanderization, while Nicieza’s Tim felt like Dixon’s Tim after going through some shit and getting both good and bad habits and maturation out of it.)

- Bendis was maybe both overworked and also just sort of coming from a flawed direction; “Drake” and a poop-colored outfit are just deeply questionable creative decisions, but starting from a “he’s back to Robin, and we’re sort of ignoring Red Robin” idea might have played a part in it.

- Fitzmartin, to her credit, seems to be a fan of Dixon’s Tim, but her style is more fanfiction-like, which became a bad combination when her strategic objective sort of needed more solid writing strengths, especially since (for instance) Dixon’s most famous love interest in Stephanie grew out of organic character work that surprised even him, while Fitzmartin’s big goal was mostly to elevate some obscure ‘ship into reality in a fairly graceless manner. Still, I do think the rest of her arc feels very much like someone aping Dixon, the same way a lot of the writers between Dixon and Nicieza did.

Personally, I think the main problem with how people have approached him is not quite getting his personality/“voice” right at the same time they get good adventure/villain concepts either; really, it feels a bit like those Adam Beechen or Bill Willingham runs, but with chaos about what “counts” for the character or not, or (for a comparison) how writers sort of struggled to figure out what personality to give to Jason pre-New 52.