Ages of Characters

[Tzigone]

Oh ok
Did they ever say the fab five's ages? I always assumed they're 14, but that's because I'm looking at it from Robin Year One pov where Dick had to be 12-13 when he started as Robin so Teen Titans year one would be one year later at the soonest

Ah, I liked the first couple issues of Robin Year One, but not the later ones. Didn't like Batgirl Year One or Nightwing Year One at all. Of course, I'm an outlier, since I don't like Batman Year One, and it was, and remains, wildly popular.

I don't recall specific ages being given until New Teen Titans when it was specified Donna and Dick were 19. I mean, from publishing order - lot of ages were attributed to them later. I can't swear my memory is accurate, though, and I certainly haven't read every pre-COIE appearance of any of them (though I do think I've read all of Wally's up until Iris' death), especially not Dick, who had so many. We'd see Dick driving or car or see that he or Wally was in high school. One issue in 1969 even said Dick was junior in highschool, and the, of course, was high school graduation (1969 for Dick, 1978 for Wally). But for actual age given, I just don't remember it. Though if anyone else does, that'd be fantastic, and I'd love to hear it.

[Dred]

Yes, he is tiny. But he goes to Blue Valley High School (is almost late for school and runs there) in the second story he's in.

I wasn't arguing Kara's first appearance wasn't silver age with "that's not silver age", though I can completely understand why you thought so. I was unclear. I mean that Silver Age continuity didn't have Dick a middle-schooler when Kara appeared - he was a high schooler of a similar age to Kara. I was thinking how bronze age Teen Titans had Dick and Donna knowing each other from the age of 13 (middle-schoolish) and tend to make the TT younger than they were depicted as then, so meaning "that's bronze/later ages continuity, not silver age."

Wally's time as Kid Flash is the most incongruous. Whenever he's teaming up with Barry, he's clearly a kid. Whenever he's solo, he's clearly a teenager. Born to Run, which focuses on him, has him as a 10 year old kid. But whenever it's told from Barry's perspective nowadays, he's a teenager again. So it flipped conveyance there, too.

[bat39]

So I've posted variations of this on and off for years, and I figured this would be a good thread to revisit it. A while back I came up with a sort of timeline for the Pre-Crisis Batman (well, the Silver/Bronze Age Batman to be specific, though it does have Golden Age stuff grandfathered in too). Its mostly based on time references in Pre-Crisis Batman comics.

I'm counting backwards from COIE.


33 years ago: Bruce Wayne was born.

25 years ago: Thomas and Martha Wayne are killed.

21 years ago: Dick Grayson is born.

10 years ago: Bruce Wayne begins his career as Batman.

9 years ago: Dick Grayson becomes Robin.

7 years ago: Batman co-founds the Justice League.

6 years ago: Dick co-founds the original Teen Titans.

4 years ago: Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl. Dick goes to college.

2 years ago: Dick forms the New Teen Titans.

1 year ago: Dick becomes Nightwing. Jason Todd becomes the new Robin.

>1 year ago: Batman fights Wrath.

Notes:

1. I consider Batman Special # 1, where Batman encounters Wrath, to occur the same year as COIE, maybe a few months earlier. The Wayne murders are said to occur 25 years earlier in that story. This places Dick going to college and the start of the Penthouse era as being 4 years earlier, since in 'There's No Hope in Crime Alley', the Wayne murders are said to have happened 21 years earlier. The latter was at a time when Batman was considered to be perpetually 29, and given that Bruce is typically also depicted as being 8 when his parents were murdered, its a fair assumption to make that he was around 33 by the time COIE occurred. Also, as per the first retelling of Batman's origin from 'Tec # 33, the Wayne murders occurred 15 years ago. This was right at the start of Batman's career. Ergo, Bruce became Batman around 10 years before COIE, which I think is reasonable enough.

2. Dick's age is a bit trickier, and based a lot more on assumption/convenience. But the earliest he could have gone to college was at 17, and that was about 4 years before COIE (as established above), so he's 21 by the time of COIE. A lot of the rest of Dick's timeline is based on pure supposition. I assume he became Robin the year after Bruce became Batman (mirroring real-world publication dates) i.e. 9 years ago when he was 12. I assume the Titans started when he was 14 (those first two years of his time as Robin gives enough time for the World's Finest adventures with Superman to first happen, and for the Justice League to first form). And I assume he was still a teenager when the New Teen Titans formed, so I pegged that as 19, with him becoming Nightwing at 20.

3. I think this timeline gives a good framework for the larger DCU as well. We can assume most of the early Justice League members started out anywhere between 7-10 years ago. Kara Zor-El had graduated college by the time of COIE and was a young adult. Let's assume she was around 22 when she died, and she came to earth at 15 i.e. about 7 years ago, around the time the Justice League formed. Which...kinda lines up well with real-world publishing history!

[Tzigone]

2 years ago: Dick forms the New Teen Titans.

We're not giving Raven credit for that, anymore? I have no idea what current continuity it, to be honest. But since you have "founds" here v "co-founds" for Original TT, I was just curious.

I assume he became Robin the year after Bruce became Batman (mirroring real-world publication dates) i.e. 9 years ago when he was 12

I like this. I'm very fond of Dick having almost as much experience as Batman. I'd have kept it for my own headcanon if I wasn't using post-COIE character Cissie King-Jones. I like that he and Roy were in the game well before Hal, Barry, and other Silver Age heroes.

I assume the Titans started when he was 14 (those first two years of his time as Robin gives enough time for the World's Finest adventures with Superman to first happen, and for the Justice League to first form)

I tend to have him and Donna 16, Roy 17 and Garth and Wally 15, despite their tinyness. As I said we'd seen him driving a decade earlier in-real-life-time, Wally was already in highschool, and since Dick graduated years before Wally (1969 v 1978), I made Wally a year younger than Dick and Donna. Garth was so very tiny when introduced, so I put him in with the youngest.

[Dred]

Their 20th birthdays respectively were 3 years apart in real life so a 1 year in universe age gap is probably the upper end of where it can be there, given comics' slow time scale.

[bat39]

We're not giving Raven credit for that, anymore? I have no idea what current continuity it, to be honest. But since you have "founds" here v "co-founds" for Original TT, I was just curious.

I like this. I'm very fond of Dick having almost as much experience as Batman. I'd have kept it for my own headcanon if I wasn't using post-COIE character Cissie King-Jones. I like that he and Roy were in the game well before Hal, Barry, and other Silver Age heroes.

I tend to have him and Donna 16, Roy 17 and Garth and Wally 15, despite their tinyness. As I said we'd seen him driving a decade earlier in-real-life-time, Wally was already in highschool, and since Dick graduated years before Wally (1969 v 1978), I made Wally a year younger than Dick and Donna. Garth was so very tiny when introduced, so I put him in with the youngest.

Honestly, I didn't put much thought into it. Since it's a Batman-centric timeline, I put it as Dick founding the NTT, which also made sense since he was the leader. Wasn't really my intent to diminish Raven's role in the story...

Yeah, I did try, with this timeline, to acknowledge that early pre-Justice League period of the Silver Age, roughly corresponding to the mid-to-late 50's. Batman and Robin routinely teaming up with Superman, Green Arrow and Speedy around (as well as Aquaman), even Wonder Woman is out there somewhere (Diana had to have been operating for a while before Bruce, Dick and Clark, given Donna's origins). Oh, and of course, even J'onn is quietly working behind-the-scenes.

Their 20th birthdays respectively were 3 years apart in real life so a 1 year in universe age gap is probably the upper end of where it can be there, given comics' slow time scale.

Don't really want to nail it down too much, but if we consider that the Silver/Bronze Age continuity lasted a little over thirty years, then I guess a 3:1 ratio broadly works as per my timeline, since I've pegged Batman as being around for 10 years.'

It doesn't all fit together perfectly, but it broadly works. For instance, Dick became Nightwing roughly 3 years before COIE in real-world publication time...I think it makes sense that it was around a year in comic time.

Of course, if we apply this logic in reverse...assuming the JLA started 3 years into Batman's career, and the first JLA story was published in 1960, that would mean that in a publishing sense, the Silver Age Batman would have started 9 years earlier, as early as 1951! Which, I think is too early, but we can broadly assume that the invisible 'transition' happened sometime in the early 1950's.

[Restingvoice]

Wally's time as Kid Flash is the most incongruous. Whenever he's teaming up with Barry, he's clearly a kid. Whenever he's solo, he's clearly a teenager. Born to Run, which focuses on him, has him as a 10 year old kid. But whenever it's told from Barry's perspective nowadays, he's a teenager again. So it flipped conveyance there, too.

What's the verdict post Infinite Frontier?

[Dred]

What's the verdict post Infinite Frontier?

Flash Year One showed him as a teenager with a new origin where Wallace is present, loathe as I am for Born to Run to be thrown away just so Wallace can interject into it.

[Digifiend]

I strongly agree. I deeply dislike the age gap being made smaller (I like them dating as adults, so it's irrelevant). I really hate it that they both keeping getting de-aged (and Dick got made so much more immature alongside it) in general, and in particular her age relative to his.

Oh yes. Cissie King Jones is Bonnie's daughter from after her hero career, but she didn't even have her career until Roy was a teenager, so Cissie's age relative to the other YJ members never made any sense.

And let's not forget Dick as a hero debuted before Diana, and so Donna's origin story of being rescued by Wonder Woman, yet her being Dick's age never made sense in the first place. And Supergirl aged much faster than other teen heroes in pre-COIE.

For the previously mentioned Ollie -I never liked him being aged up to 40 in the first place (especially in conjunction with Dinah being made so much younger when retconned to her own daughter - another thing that was never going to keep making sense if mother was kept a 1940s heroine). Nor did I like it when they kinda obliquely decided to make Hal older with the gray hair. Because these, to me, do not match with their ages (relative to other heroes) when they debuted. I don't mind the non-aging of characters, I don't mind the aging of characters. I hate when they don't age at the same relative rate.

I love timelining/chronology, but I'm under no illusion that it can ever actually make coherent sense for all the players at the same time.

Dick (and Roy) debuting before Diana is Pre-Crisis Earth-2. The Earth-1 versions would've debuted at some point after 1956, when Barry Allen debuted (Donna doesn't have an Earth-2 version as Wonder Girl didn't exist until the 60s), and Diana's last shown origin has her active in the 1940s, so she could easily have rescued Donna in the 1990s.

You're right about Supergirl, she did overtake Dick's age. To the point that she actually got de-aged a bit not long before she was killed off, as she went from being an actress back to being a college student (effectively resetting her back to around Dick's age). Present day Kara is younger than Dick despite her being re-established as existing when he was Robin - her spending time dead after Crisis would explain that (her erasure and reboot has been undone, but her death hasn't).

Good point about Arrowette, if Miss Arrowette was a silver age heroine, then wouldn't modern Arrowette be no older than ten at the time of the first Young Justice? 15 would definitely be too old as it's only supposed to be 15 years since the Justice League formed, even now.

Don’t even bring up Lian Harper.

Yeah, born during New Teen Titans, when Roy was 19 or 20. And aren't that team still supposed to be in their late 20s? She's aged up too fast, as she's now a teenager, and definitely shouldn't be older than 10. Same problem as Jon Kent, who logically should be even younger.

[Tzigone]

Don’t even bring up Lian Harper.

Yeah, born during New Teen Titans, when Roy was 19 or 20. And aren't that team still supposed to be in their late 20s? She's aged up too fast, as she's now a teenager, and definitely shouldn't be older than 10. Same problem as Jon Kent, who logically should be even younger.

Roy said he was 22 in the issue where he got custody of Lian. I wouldn't think her two, but I'm bad at real kid ages, muchless comic book ages, and so a young two, maybe? But she's being bottle-fed in a later issue, so I don't think she's supposed to be that old.

I think more a problem that the adults have aged too slow. They should be in their 30s, given Damian's age. Of course, originally Dick was 19 when Bruce met Talia (and Talia was a student - perhaps 19, herself, which I would not have guessed, since I'd originally projected US-medical school age on her, which was inaccurate). Was he ever speed-aged in-cotinuity. I know retcons later put Bruce's relationship with her much earlier.

Oh, oh, do we need to talk about Nightwing Year One (I think it was that - maybe it was something else) making Dick Grayson 21 in 2001? That was a WTF? that I completely ignored.

[bat39]

Dick (and Roy) debuting before Diana is Pre-Crisis Earth-2. The Earth-1 versions would've debuted at some point after 1956, when Barry Allen debuted (Donna doesn't have an Earth-2 version as Wonder Girl didn't exist until the 60s), and Diana's last shown origin has her active in the 1940s, so she could easily have rescued Donna in the 1990s.

You're right about Supergirl, she did overtake Dick's age. To the point that she actually got de-aged a bit not long before she was killed off, as she went from being an actress back to being a college student (effectively resetting her back to around Dick's age). Present day Kara is younger than Dick despite her being re-established as existing when he was Robin - her spending time dead after Crisis would explain that (her erasure and reboot has been undone, but her death hasn't).

Good point about Arrowette, if Miss Arrowette was a silver age heroine, then wouldn't modern Arrowette be no older than ten at the time of the first Young Justice? 15 would definitely be too old as it's only supposed to be 15 years since the Justice League formed, even now.

Yeah, born during New Teen Titans, when Roy was 19 or 20. And aren't that team still supposed to be in their late 20s? She's aged up too fast, as she's now a teenager, and definitely shouldn't be older than 10. Same problem as Jon Kent, who logically should be even younger.

Yeah, there's been a weird tendency to age up anything to do with the Green Arrow mythos. Oliver was aged up to his 40's before his death (he was resurrected in a younger body, but chronologically he's meant to be middle-aged). Connor Hawke was in his early 20's and he was born just after Oliver returned from the island, so that means Oliver had been Green Arrow for a long time before Flashpoint.

Roy said he was 22 in the issue where he got custody of Lian. I wouldn't think her two, but I'm bad at real kid ages, muchless comic book ages, and so a young two, maybe? But she's being bottle-fed in a later issue, so I don't think she's supposed to be that old.

I think more a problem that the adults have aged too slow. They should be in their 30s, given Damian's age. Of course, originally Dick was 19 when Bruce met Talia (and Talia was a student - perhaps 19, herself, which I would not have guessed, since I'd originally projected US-medical school age on her, which was inaccurate). Was he ever speed-aged in-cotinuity. I know retcons later put Bruce's relationship with her much earlier.

Oh, oh, do we need to talk about Nightwing Year One (I think it was that - maybe it was something else) making Dick Grayson 21 in 2001? That was a WTF? that I completely ignored.

That's kinda the crux of the issue. They wanted the sidekicks and kids to get older, while at the same time not aging up the core heroes from the original Justice League.

I dunno if Batman's first encounter with Ra's was ever officially retconned to be earlier in Dick's time as Robin, or if that was just speculation. I have no clue how Damian's birth was supposed to work, chronologically, in the New 52!

Pre-Crisis, things were simpler. Dick going to college was I think the first significant age-up of a major character and an acknowledgement that it had been at least a few years since he first became Robin. But even with the OG Titans getting older, the timeline was manageable. The likes of Bruce and Barry were now in their early 30's instead of being in their 20's, which was perfectly fine. But today, DC wants to play the game of pretending that Bruce isn't 40 while he has a 14 year old kid!

[Tzigone]

Pre-Crisis, things were simpler. Dick going to college was I think the first significant age-up of a major character and an acknowledgement that it had been at least a few years since he first became Robin.

Well, there was Supergirl before that. Earlier on, heroes were more separate, despite the shared universe.

I dunno if Batman's first encounter with Ra's was ever officially retconned to be earlier in Dick's time as Robin, or if that was just speculation. I have no clue how Damian's birth was supposed to work, chronologically, in the New 52!

I'd had the impression it was in Bruce's training years in one version (new 52?), but I didn't actually read that story, so don't know for sure.

But even with the OG Titans getting older, the timeline was manageable. The likes of Bruce and Barry were now in their early 30's instead of being in their 20's, which was perfectly fine. But today, DC wants to play the game of pretending that Bruce isn't 40 while he has a 14 year old kid!

Yep. They keep creating newer, younger "family members" but don't want the Prime gen to get old. I sometimes think that was a reason for killing off Titans babies - to compress generations and make the first gen of sidekicks younger again to keep the Prime gen young. So they're still adults, but don't have those pesky kids around reminding us they aren't just barely adults.

[bat39]

Well, there was Supergirl before that. Earlier on, heroes were more separate, despite the shared universe.

I'd had the impression it was in Bruce's training years in one version (new 52?), but I didn't actually read that story, so don't know for sure.


Yep. They keep creating newer, younger "family members" but don't want the Prime gen to get old. I sometimes think that was a reason for killing off Titans babies - to compress generations and make the first gen of sidekicks younger again to keep the Prime gen young. So they're still adults, but don't have those pesky kids around reminding us they aren't just barely adults.

Bruce meeting Talia and fathering Damian during his training years has been a popular headcanon to explain Damian's age, but there's never really been even a suggestion of it in any actual comic-book (or even any adaptation). Hell, even during the height of the New 52 "compressed timeline", Morrison gave us a flashback to Bruce and Talia's history that was virtually identical to the original 70's comics, except that Batman was in the New 52 suit instead of the iconic 'New Look' outfit.

My problem with all these 'suggested retcons' of moving Bruce and Talia's relationship back in the chronology is that they're not in line with the spirit of the original 70's stories and Morrison's addition to them.

The original Bruce/Talia/Ra's story is that Ra's sees Batman, who is an internationally-renowned crime-fighter and superhero, as his potential heir, and so wants to arrange a marriage between him and Talia (who does genuinely fall for Bruce, but is also likewise motivated by him being a 'worthy successor' to her father). Morrison's addition was that Talia gets herself pregnant with Bruce's child (either through a consensual relationship or through coercion) so that their child can be groomed to be Ra's al Ghul's successor.

I don't think this dynamic works in a situation where Bruce is just some guy wandering the world to train to become a vigilante who just happens to encounter Talia and have a fling with her. Or in a situation where Batman is just some vigilante who's been beating up criminals in Gotham for a year.

Even leaving aside nitpicking about the finer points of continuity and timelines, if you want to stay true to the original Batman/Ra's/Talia story, then you have to acknowledge the fact that Bruce first met Ra's and Talia several years into his career as Batman, and that's the earlier Damian could have been conceived. And if Damian is supposed to be 14 now, that means that Bruce has been Batman for closer to 20 years, than 10 (and probably more than 20 years if we're being honest).

[Tzigone]

Bruce meeting Talia and fathering Damian during his training years has been a popular headcanon to explain Damian's age, but there's never really been even a suggestion of it in any actual comic-book (or even any adaptation). Hell, even during the height of the New 52 "compressed timeline", Morrison gave us a flashback to Bruce and Talia's history that was virtually identical to the original 70's comics, except that Batman was in the New 52 suit instead of the iconic 'New Look' outfit.

Thanks for the info.

My problem with all these 'suggested retcons' of moving Bruce and Talia's relationship back in the chronology is that they're not in line with the spirit of the original 70's stories and Morrison's addition to them.

The original Bruce/Talia/Ra's story is that Ra's sees Batman, who is an internationally-renowned crime-fighter and superhero, as his potential heir, and so wants to arrange a marriage between him and Talia (who does genuinely fall for Bruce, but is also likewise motivated by him being a 'worthy successor' to her father). Morrison's addition was that Talia gets herself pregnant with Bruce's child (either through a consensual relationship or through coercion) so that their child can be groomed to be Ra's al Ghul's successor.

I don't think this dynamic works in a situation where Bruce is just some guy wandering the world to train to become a vigilante who just happens to encounter Talia and have a fling with her. Or in a situation where Batman is just some vigilante who's been beating up criminals in Gotham for a year.

I agree with this assessment. Especially in Talia and Ra's' motivations. I also am admittedly fond of the old-school dislike Dick had for Talia in the bronze age, so like the idea Dick's been a hero for a bit before Bruce meets Talia, but it's not as important.

For a less important age retcon - Zatanna used to quite a bit younger than Clark and Bruce when she was introduced, but got aged up somewhere along the line. I'm honestly not sure if it a result of wanting a Bruce/Zatanna history via the DCAU or it it happened earlier.

Edit: Also, can anyone tell me what's going on with Lian Harper/Shoes and her apparent age? I haven't read anything with her.

[BohemiaDrinker]

But for actual age given, I just don't remember it. Though if anyone else does, that'd be fantastic, and I'd love to hear it.

The only things I remember being given on page with hard numbers are:

- During COIE, Earth 2 Robin mentions the only Dick Grayson he could find on New Earth was 19 years old.
- During Marv Wolfman's OYL Nightwing run, Dick mentions he's 26.
- The first issue of Wally's Flash run takes place in his 20th birthday. Donna implies that she is already 20 as well ("Welcome to the club, you're no longer a teen" or something like that).
- During Batman Rip, Bruce is stated to be over 35.

If we compress stuff as much as possible and add the one year Dick spent as Batman, that would put the fab five at 27 at the end of post Crisis, the Silver Agers at around 35 and the post Crisis timeline at around 15 years. Some characters like Ollie or Hal Jordan don't fit here, though, as both have stated to be in the supers line of businesses for over 20 years.