Tim Drake: Robin #10 Preview (Final Issue)

[WebLurker]

Limbo or kill him/j

I'd just restore his pre-flashpoint status quo

You mean the "Red Robin"? If it didn't work then, what would they need to do to make it work again?

[godisawesome]

You mean the "Red Robin"? If it didn't work then, what would they need to do to make it work again?

Fabian Nicieza and Marcus To, perhaps, or Chris Yost and Marcus To, or someone likewise skilled and styled as a creator, and a mission statement of just along that era of his comics.

The original, cowled Red Robin book actually never failed or got cancelled for any sort of low sales or underperformance; by most accounts, it was performing exactly as successfully as hoped during a generally successful time for the Bat-books (back when even the disappointing sales of Steph’s Batgirl run were offset by startling success in the TPB market.)

The book was one of the unfortunate victims of the New 52’s attempts to define everyone into specific niches and “rankings”… and how that wound up putting a now cowl-less and soon history-less Tim into the “care” of Scott Lobdell in a Teen Titans books that was clearly trying to use Tim’s fanbase alongside the generic Titans fanbase and those of his friends to create a Dan Didio-style niche for the characters.

I mean, this was back when Didio insisted on swimming upstream against the fanbases of DC by eventually trying to completely erase as much of Dick Grayson’s generation as possible, including their Titans team, and ordering all new origins for everyone in Tim’s generation and generally giving a journeyman creator like Lobdell too many assignments because he was a pliable yes-man to micro-management.

And I think taht not only did that vision of Tim and his generation as the “designated kid generation” stick too long, but by the time it stopped, pretty much every creator who got ahold of the character afterwards seemed to forget his pre-Flashpoint status quo - outside of Tynion, who still seemed to prefer Chuck Dixon’s era and tired merging the two together to “meh” results.

[skyvolt2000]

Fabian Nicieza and Marcus To, perhaps, or Chris Yost and Marcus To, or someone likewise skilled and styled as a creator, and a mission statement of just along that era of his comics.

The original, cowled Red Robin book actually never failed or got cancelled for any sort of low sales or underperformance; by most accounts, it was performing exactly as successfully as hoped during a generally successful time for the Bat-books (back when even the disappointing sales of Steph’s Batgirl run were offset by startling success in the TPB market.)

The last issues of both books were in the 20K with Tim at 26K and Step at 22K.

Tim was doing better than Green Arrow, Birds of Prey, Batman/Superman while Step was beating Legion, Batman Beyond, Superboy, Supergirl, Gotham City Sirens, Secret Six, Titans, Zatanna, Power Girl and some of the Flashpoint books.

Steph wasn't even the worst Bat seller.

Compared to who they were beating they were doing fine.

And there is still the big elephant in the room-will whoever DC gets to write Tim be given a chance by fans. Who scream they hate Bendis, Lodbell and others but won't give new blood a shot.

[NOCTPHOENIX]

You mean the "Red Robin"? If it didn't work then, what would they need to do to make it work again?

It did work but Flashpoint botched it

[dietrich]

The last issues of both books were in the 20K with Tim at 26K and Step at 22K.

Tim was doing better than Green Arrow, Birds of Prey, Batman/Superman while Step was beating Legion, Batman Beyond, Superboy, Supergirl, Gotham City Sirens, Secret Six, Titans, Zatanna, Power Girl and some of the Flashpoint books.

Steph wasn't even the worst Bat seller.

Compared to who they were beating they were doing fine.

And there is still the big elephant in the room-will whoever DC gets to write Tim be given a chance by fans. Who scream they hate Bendis, Lodbell and others but won't give new blood a shot.

Yes the RR solo had similar numbers to RSOB. That was also prematurely ended. Books end all the time.

Tim fans loved bendis at first. They love Tynion.They loved Megan until YJ [a lot still do]. Megan is young blood and Tim fans gave her a chance and heaped praise in her even before Robin Eternal started.

Zardasky is young blood and Tim fans love him.

So Nope, You are wrong there. Tim fans do give young blood a shot. We just saw them do that.

Tim fans even give old blood that have killed Tim over and over. They don't dislike Taylor. They were singing his praises after he finally wrote Tim in nightwing.

Tim Drake is a favourite of many DC staffers. He is the Robin most likely to be written by a writer who is both good and a fan. Lobdell is the only writer who wasn't an Uber Timfan.

The problem Tim has is that

-writers are such fans that they take it to an extreme and it ends up becoming detrimental.

-writers are such huge fans of 90's Tim they reset him to their favourite version of Tim.

Tim like batman is lucky enough that 90% of the people who handle him love him and editorial loves him to the point that they are willing to invest in him even when he is underperforming.

Heck DC messed Tim up because they were trying too hard and/or they can't get out of the 90's.

Tim would benefit from being handled by a good writer who understands the character yet isn't a huge fan.

A dedicated creative writer who can look at things objectively without the nostalgia goggles or personal feelings.

The pre-52 RR couldn't have carried on because the reason why Tim took the name was no longer present. Once Bruce came back the name and role became nullified.

The new 52 with the rebooth changed things for everyone. Tim always being RR was bad but so were the changes to pretty much every other character. DC rather than finding a good reason for him to leave Robin [such as the fact that someone is now Robin/that the creator and owner of Robin gave that title to someone] They just want to ignore it or act like Tim is still resentful of Damian being Robin after 4 years [that's what it says in the Pride Special]

All Tim needs is for those who love him to move into the 2000's/2010's.

[dietrich]

It did work but Flashpoint botched it

Flashpoint didn't botch it. The instant bruce came back the role was redundant and the premise over. There was no reason for Tim to continue using the name.

[Frontier]

Flashpoint didn't botch it. The instant bruce came back the role was redundant and the premise over. There was no reason for Tim to continue using the name.

I think the title and stories helped him stand out, but I guess without a series to call his own and New 52 Teen Titans hijacking him we never really got to see that play out.

[godisawesome]

I think the more globetrotting, chess-master-y story Nicieza built for him removed any redundancy and gave the story a new purpose, actually. I even think that if he’d kept Nicieza as his writer and his solo book, he would have also escaped redundancy if Dick still got pushed back into Nightwing…

But I think a lot of that had to do with how much faith I had in Nicieza to maintain a solid and competent monthly series to make those more subtle differences work; while I think Yost *did* have a more solid single arc during his run either the book, Nicieza was still one of those “workhorse” writers who could make several arcs work well enough while maintaining a high degree of quality on monthly issues.

A not-insignificant number of the Batfamily characters struggle when the writer they get isn’t *quite* the workhorse needed.

[Aahz]

Flashpoint didn't botch it. The instant bruce came back the role was redundant and the premise over. There was no reason for Tim to continue using the name.

I think if flashpoint had come a few years later so that that Morrison had wrapped up his stuff and more or less restored the status quo to the default, and after that some competent writer had gotten some time to give Tim a more stable status quo, or if Flashpoint had happend before identity crisis, he would not have been hit so hard by flashpoint, since the post flashpoint writers would have had a better foundation to build on.

[Konja7]

Flashpoint didn't botch it. The instant bruce came back the role was redundant and the premise over. There was no reason for Tim to continue using the name.

I think redundancy was avoided before New52 because they follow the "dark" aspects in Red Robin.

However, Jason started to have a solo in New52, so he could follow the "dark" aspect further than Tim.

[Konja7]

I think the title and stories helped him stand out, but I guess without a series to call his own and New 52 Teen Titans hijacking him we never really got to see that play out.

I think DC didn't give Tim a Red Robin solo in New52 because they feel Tim solo stories were redundant.

In New52, Dick has Nightwing solo again and Jason gets a book too. So, the ex-Robin solo stories were already covered in two pretty different directions.

I assume they wanted Tim niche to be leader of Teen Titans (which was an important team). That's why they wanted his Teen Titans team to be the first team.


PS: They also want Tim fans to support New 52 Teen Titans comic.

[Fergus]

If Tim became RR to find bruce because with the name he was able to do what Ribin couldn't then what reason does he have to continue under the name once Bruce came back?

What reason did the series have to continue?

None. The mission was over. The team disbanded. Everyone go home.

[Jackalope89]

If Tim became RR to find bruce because with the name he was able to do what Ribin couldn't then what reason does he have to continue under the name once Bruce came back?

What reason did the series have to continue?

None. The mission was over. The team disbanded. Everyone go home.

Okay, then have him go to college, become a private eye that works with Bruce at times. That way you still get the "normal guy doing good things" but you still get the detective too without infringing on everyone else. Or becoming not-Tim Drake of New 52 (I remember that not being his real name at the time or something).

[Triniking1234]

How was being Red Robin when Bruce came back redundant? We had two Batmen running about and Cassandra came back as Black Bat. Tim could've stayed as Red Robin without Flashpoint.

[Frontier]

How was being Red Robin when Bruce came back redundant? We had two Batmen running about and Cassandra came back as Black Bat. Tim could've stayed as Red Robin without Flashpoint.

Pretty much.