Year Three or Dark Victory: Which is canon?

[Slimybug]

So Batman: Year Three by Marv Wolfman, in 1990, states that Dick Grayson became Robin in Year Three of Batman's career.
Then, in 1999, Jeph Loeb put up his own version of the story in Dark Victory, which I'm still reading right now, but I believe posits that Robin came about in Year 5.

DC will usually have a in-universe explanation for such things, like saying that Zero Hour changed the events. However, the timeline in Zero Hour still very much states Robin was in Year Three. And since Infinite Crisis altered continuity again years later, maybe that could be taken, retroactively, as the altering factor.

Anyway, has there been any talk about this already? Which do you prefer?

[thwhtGuardian]

So Batman: Year Three by Marv Wolfman, in 1990, states that Dick Grayson became Robin in Year Three of Batman's career.
Then, in 1999, Jeph Loeb put up his own version of the story in Dark Victory, which I'm still reading right now, but I believe posits that Robin came about in Year 5.

DC will usually have a in-universe explanation for such things, like saying that Zero Hour changed the events. However, the timeline in Zero Hour still very much states Robin was in Year Three. And since Infinite Crisis altered continuity again years later, maybe that could be taken, retroactively, as the altering factor.

Anyway, has there been any talk about this already? Which do you prefer?

It's been a while since I read Dark Victory but I don't remember it saying it was five years into Batman's "mission". Long Halloween was only slightly after Year One and Dark Victory was I believe a few months after Long Halloween so year three would seem right.

[Slimybug]

Well just slightly after Year One is Year Two, and as you'll recall, the whole series The Long Halloween is based on months of the calendar. So the first issue is in October, and the fourth is on New Year's Eve. So issues 5-13 take place from January to October of Year 3.

Dark Victory starts by stating it's been a year since Harvey became Two-Face, so it's late Year 4. It then also goes month by month, so I just finished Issue 2, which was November. So yeah, it will extend into Year 5.

[Aahz]

I think long Halloween and Dark Victory should be treated as Else World.

If you put them in they would stretch the timeline to much and there are iirc some other things that don't really fit with continuity.
Selina being Falcones Daughter was never really mentioned anywhere else and contradicts the Catwoman origin stories they put out, and there are iirc some other problems like Calendar mana nd Poison Ivy being a villain from the silver age who should not be present that early in Batmans career.

[Frontier]

I think long Halloween and Dark Victory should be treated as Else World.

If you put them in they would stretch the timeline to much and there are iirc some other things that don't really fit with continuity.
Selina being Falcones Daughter was never really mentioned anywhere else and contradicts the Catwoman origin stories they put out, and there are iirc some other problems like Calendar mana nd Poison Ivy being a villain from the silver age who should not be present that early in Batmans career.

I think the death of the mob bosses and Gilda/Holiday were treated as canon. I think they came up when Winnick was writing the main book while Dick was Robin.

I thought Post-Crisis they'd put all his Rogues showing up pre-Robin?

[PurpleGlovez]

The internal timeline of Dark Victory does indeed end in Year Five. Long Halloween and Dark Victory are canonized wholesale in Tony S. Daniel's Batman run, and they are referenced obliquely in Hush, the bizarre Two-Face: Year One, various DC Encyclopedias including the 2008 edition, and some more recent comics. So, the events are canon, and it's not at all clear how you could remove those events from the intricately-plotted timeline which revolves wholesale around holidays and specific passages of time. To put it simply, Year Three was the classic Robin debut year but Dark Victory may have changed things. DC is still "pick your poison" with continuity though so it's up to you. I've been down this road but I concluded that Long Halloween and Dark Victory simply can't (for better or worse) be removed from the timeline.

[Slimybug]

I've heard people say that Year 2 is no longer in continuity. Is there anything in The Long Halloween that contradicts Year 2?

[PurpleGlovez]

In Dark Victory, after Bruce adopts Dick, Bruce says that he never found the man who killed his parents (the Waynes). But he does meet their killer in Year Two. Grant Morrison would later retcon the fate of Joe Chill as well. Also Batman doesn't have the yellow oval throughout Long Halloween and Dark Victory, and Year Two has Gordon as commissioner whereas he is still captain throughout Long Halloween. The Reaper is a canon character and the broad events of Year Two are even canon to the current comics via Peter Tomasi's Detective Comics run. But Year Two's version of the Joe Chill story is apparently apocrypha.

[bat39]

In Dark Victory, after Bruce adopts Dick, Bruce says that he never found the man who killed his parents (the Waynes). But he does meet their killer in Year Two. Grant Morrison would later retcon the fate of Joe Chill as well. Also Batman doesn't have the yellow oval throughout Long Halloween and Dark Victory, and Year Two has Gordon as commissioner whereas he is still captain throughout Long Halloween. The Reaper is a canon character and the broad events of Year Two are even canon to the current comics via Peter Tomasi's Detective Comics run. But Year Two's version of the Joe Chill story is apparently apocrypha.

The Joe Chill aspect of Year Two was definitely rendered non-canon after Zero Hour. That apart, there's not much in Year Two that explicitly contradicts The Long Halloween. The thing is that Year Two is a pretty standalone story that isn't exactly a direct sequel to Year One. Apart from the title, there's nothing to suggest that it's even set in Batman's second year! In fact, there are references in the story to the Wayne murders occurring 20 years ago (in Year One it as 18 years ago), so I think it's actually set in the third or fourth year of Batman's career.

Coming to current post-Rebirth continuity, I don't think The Long Halloween/Dark Victory are canon anymore. But by the end of pre-Flashpoint continuity, they almost certainly were canon. And I don't think Dick debuting in Year Four or Year Five is much of an issue - before Flashpoint, we were definitely looking at something like a 19-20 year timeline for Batman's career. A wider gap between Bruce becoming Batman and Dick becoming Robin could explain how James Jr. could be an adult, while Dick still is potentially the right side of 30...

[Frontier]

The Joe Chill aspect of Year Two was definitely rendered non-canon after Zero Hour. That apart, there's not much in Year Two that explicitly contradicts The Long Halloween. The thing is that Year Two is a pretty standalone story that isn't exactly a direct sequel to Year One. Apart from the title, there's nothing to suggest that it's even set in Batman's second year! In fact, there are references in the story to the Wayne murders occurring 20 years ago (in Year One it as 18 years ago), so I think it's actually set in the third or fourth year of Batman's career.

Coming to current post-Rebirth continuity, I don't think The Long Halloween/Dark Victory are canon anymore. But by the end of pre-Flashpoint continuity, they almost certainly were canon. And I don't think Dick debuting in Year Four or Year Five is much of an issue - before Flashpoint, we were definitely looking at something like a 19-20 year timeline for Batman's career. A wider gap between Bruce becoming Batman and Dick becoming Robin could explain how James Jr. could be an adult, while Dick still is potentially the right side of 30...

I think Carmine Falcone is still alive and Sal Maroni was in Nightwing.

[bat39]

I think Carmine Falcone is still alive and Sal Maroni was in Nightwing.

Falcone was still alive as of Batman Eternal, and that's still in canon along with most (all?) the New 52 stuff. Forgot about that!

[Restingvoice]

Oh I thought that dark victory is immediately after long Halloween
Well what matter is the timeline after Dick Grayson debut since it's related to Tim and Jason's ages
What happened before can take as long as it can since Bruce never age anyway

So my timeline now looks like this
Batman Year One - January - Bruce age 25
Zero Year Secret City - Summer - Bruce age 25
Man Who Laughs + Lovers and Madmen - Winter - Harleen graduating pre med
Year Two (Monster Men > Mad Monk > Prey) - January to Summer - Bruce age 26
Long Halloween (October- December)
Year Three - Long Halloween - January to Summer - Bruce age 27
Long Halloween - Summer to October
Two Face Year One - October to December
Year Four - Two Face Year One - January to Summer - Bruce age 28
Two Face Year One - January to October
Dark Victory - October to December - Death of Flying Graysons
Year Five - January to Summer - Bruce age 29 - 6 months of Robin training
Dark Victory - Summer to October
Batman The Gauntlet - October-November
Robin Year One - November- December
Robin Year One - January to Summer - Bruce age 30 - Dick Grayson attending middle school (age 12-13)

[PurpleGlovez]

In various Who's Who profiles of the late 80s and early 90s, Batman's confrontation with the Reaper is said to be his last case as a solo agent before the death of the Flying Graysons. So perhaps we can imagine "Year Two" taking place around April of Year Five of Dark Victory's timeline, with the Graysons dying in May, and there's a nice gap here in the story where Selina is gone so Bruce can date Rachel.