What should be done with Tim Drake when he gets back?

[The Whovian]

New solo book.

Yep. Give him a solo book. Have Rucka or Dixon writing it and a good artist and DC will get my money.

[godisawesome]

...Okay, I apparently saw this thread only after a little crazy had started, but here's a Tim Drake Rebirth pitch:

I'd keep the Red Robin designation. I like it. That's really my only justification for it, aside from the fact that the other proposed alternatives haven't appealed to me yet. I suppose someone who does comics for a living can make a good one, but I'll stick with Red Robin for this one. I'd also mostly just reintroduce the cowled costume from Pre-Flashpoint, though with a few fun changes: I'd go with a darker maroon coloring for the red, and replace the gold with silver, to differentiate it from the Robin color palette, and I'd maybe even let the artists toy with modifying the suit from story arc to story arc, to play into the idea of Tim being inventive but still human, since some designs will fail or be less practical, or get mocked for looking bad (just picture Steph making fun of it). He keeps the cowl, though, because I like the way it changes his profile compared to his brothers and emphasizes that he protects his noggin and needs more armor than the others.

Okay, backstory: hybrid of the few interesting elements of the New 52 (the Penguin as a personal bad guy threatening his family and his family still being alive) and otherwise just throw in all his old history. He figured out Penguin was threatening his dad, and as one of Jason Todd's old internet resources, he noticed Jason's death and deduced Batman was Bruce Wayne and everything else in spite of the numerous red herrings and contradictions Bruce planted online to keep from having someone "prove it." So, he tried to get Dick and Bruce to save his parents, then noticed Batman's darkening after Jason's death and replaced him. They rescued his parents, but they did get poisoned and there's still a contract on them. While they were recovering, he did the Hong Kong adventure (I'd like to keep the Lady Shiva training idea, even if they don't seem to have referenced it yet in TEC) and most of his old adventures took place in a very vague way. That way, if a new writer wants to have Tim reveal a history with the Ghost Dragons and their successor the Golden Dragons and their undercover HKPD leader Lynx, he can, or reveal something like the Red Robin solo *kind* of happened in regards to Tim and Ra's tangling, and yeah, he does have one clearly solid win over Damian. Oh, and Red Robin was an ID he took after Bruce "died" for operational freedom while Damian took his old Robin ID.

New direction? I kind of like the idea of making Tim be a hybrid base command and field agent character, so in general, he doesn't dress out as much as the others, but he still does at least once per arc, he just does a lot of research and resource management first. Tim's focus? Large criminal organization's instead of individual criminals. He spends weeks building up dossiers and plans on his to dismantle an entire criminal network, and after he does so, tries to replace them with something positive, like the Neon Knight Youth Centers idea, or sometimes, regrettably, less evil criminal organization's. He also does try to manage a small network of people across the world, scraping together old Batman Inc. resources, cop allies, and criminal informants.

Now, for the real fun stuff... His normal life. Mom and Dad are still alive, but Penguin's assassins are still flushing them out occasionally and forcing them to move and sometimes hurting them. Tim was living with them while he was Robin, until an oppurtunity if Cap. Boomerang severely injured his father when he heard about the bounty. Tim has since buried himself in his work, so a key part of the first story is getting him to reunite and stay with his family, even though he now feels the best way to protect the is to dismantle the criminal networks that threaten them. I'd make his mother be a constant presence by always calling him while his father recovers, and maybe even play with expectations by having her kind of support him, while his dad, when lucid, doesn't. He also tends to take a break from criminal investigations with online gaming with Ives, and is considering restarting Tim Drake's social life outside. A big part of this is making it clear that Tim is hurting and lonely, but is sometimes a little too stubborn to admit it.

Oh, and as for his book situation? I'd like a Fabian Nicieza penned solo, but either way I want a solo, and a Young Justice book where some of the humor comes from Tim having grandiose plans for his new team (with a rebooted Kon, Bart, and M'gann) but finding himself sometimes just babysitting Superboy and Impulse, and trying to help them learn how to be normal kids even as he struggles with it. I had a post on the "make your own Young Justice" thread on the DC boards, so if you get curious at all, you could find it there.

[Assam]

He should go right back to the 'Tec team and Spoiler should follow suit.

Tynion may love them, but I'm not a fan of how he writes them. I'd prefer to see Cass and Steph being Tim's partners in a Red Robin book. Dixon's back with DC writing the Bane mini, and he'd be my pick to write it. The 'Tec team can keep Jean-Paul and Luke around, because Tynion actually writes them pretty well.

[Pohzee]

You know WHY Grayson happened at all, right? DiDio, who hates Dick and has wanted him gone since Infinite Crisis, thought that if he turned Dick into a secret agent, the book would bomb, and he could be rid of him forever.

Yeah, that kinda backfired, didn't it.

That isn't how it happened. Didio's reputation for hating Dick Grayson came from his attempt to kill Dick in Infinite Crisis because he saw the mantle of Nightwing as both redundant to Batman and Robin (back when there was even only one active Robin and one former Robin.) He later acknowleged that this was a mistake. Grayson was is second attempt to make Dick stand out from the rest of the Bat-Family by making his a spy rather than simply "Former Robin 1 of 3."

Bringing Tim back as the "former Robin 1 of 3" and "Leader of young superhero group 1 of 3" is incredibly redundant, especially since Tim's generation was what tanked the Titans franchise in the New 52.

[failo.legendkiller]

Dixon as writer for his new solo book would be magnificent, I'm not a fan of Tim's Tynion too.

[Assam]

Bringing Tim back as the "former Robin 1 of 3" and "Leader of young superhero group 1 of 3" is incredibly redundant, especially since Tim's generation was what tanked the Titans franchise in the New 52.

The New 52 Tim and his Titans tanked because they took away everything people loved about the characters. There's nothing redundant about having Titans, Teen Titans, and Young Justice all active at the same time, since they all represent different things, at least in concept.

[Atlanta96]

That isn't how it happened. Didio's reputation for hating Dick Grayson came from his attempt to kill Dick in Infinite Crisis because he saw the mantle of Nightwing as both redundant to Batman and Robin (back when there was even only one active Robin and one former Robin.) He later acknowleged that this was a mistake. Grayson was is second attempt to make Dick stand out from the rest of the Bat-Family by making his a spy rather than simply "Former Robin 1 of 3."

Bringing Tim back as the "former Robin 1 of 3" and "Leader of young superhero group 1 of 3" is incredibly redundant, especially since Tim's generation was what tanked the Titans franchise in the New 52.

No, Tim's Generation did not tank the Teen Titans. Scott Lobdell and DC editorial tanked the book. I know this because JT Krul's TT run just before the reboot was perfectly fine.

I think many people who blame the YJ4 for the failure of New 52 TT just don't like those characters and are trying to make them look bad. The New 52 YJ4 weren't even written like their Pre-Flashpoint selves, they were pretty much completely new characters since the reboot.

[Pohzee]

The New 52 Tim and his Titans tanked because they took away everything people loved about the characters. There's nothing redundant about having Titans, Teen Titans, and Young Justice all active at the same time, since they all represent different things, at least in concept.

Johns's run with the YJ4 wasn't hot stuff either. In reality, people are really reaching for the roles of the young team books. The Teen Titans book can cover any area that a Young Justice book can cover. They can be a junior Justice League and still be friends and hang out. And if you think that these two concepts are irreconcilable, then give one of those two roles to the older Titans. Any explanation I've seen defending the existance a a YJ team seems to start with the assumption that there should be a Young Justice team and work backwards, trying to construct a place for them to be where none exists.

Moreover, my main point was that Tim coming back to lead a group of former superheroes and act as a solo graduated Robin is redundant, more so than any circumstance that Didio has deemed meritable enough to shake up Dick's status quo for being.

[Atlanta96]

Johns's run with the YJ4 wasn't hot stuff either. In reality, people are really reaching for the roles of the young team books. The Teen Titans book can cover any area that a Young Justice book can cover. They can be a junior Justice League and still be friends and hang out. And if you think that these two concepts are irreconcilable, then give one of those two roles to the older Titans. Any explanation I've seen defending the existance a a YJ team seems to start with the assumption that there should be a Young Justice team and work backwards, trying to construct a place for them to be where none exists.

Moreover, my main point was that Tim coming back to lead a group of former superheroes and act as a solo graduated Robin is redundant, more so than any circumstance that Didio has deemed meritable enough to shake up Dick's status quo for being.

There's still a bit of distrust towards Teen Titans because of their mishandling for the last decade, which prevents a lot of readers from getting into their current book despite its improved quality. A teen hero book that doesn't carry the Titans name could turn out to be hugely successful, Young Justice carries no negative connotations. It could be a great opportunity to attract readers who are still on the fence about getting into TT.

[FishyZombie]

N52 failed when they choose Dick as agent of Spyral instead of Tim. He needed that role much more than Dick and would have been more logic.

I agree, Dick was just coming off from being freaking Batman, he was fine. Though that's kind of the thing though with Tim. They never do any risks with the character. Dc did plenty of risks with Dick, Damian and Jason, putting those characters out of their comfort zones, to great success. With Tim they kinda just play it safe and that's why he's been the odd man out for so long. He basically just goes through the motions that Dick already did. Plus if they made Tim the secret agent, maybe it actually would have stuck, since with Dick we knew it was temporary is since Nightwing is so popular.

[Aahz]

And the only thing I'm arguing about Rebirth Batgirl is that you make it sound like its losing money for DC and on the brink of cancelation, which seems a bit much. It's more a middle-of-the-road title (probably "adequate" would be my guess) than a "FAILURE" from what I see. (But if you can quote someone knowledgeable at DC who says otherwise, please feel free to do so.)

While I also don't think that Batgirl is in danger to get cancled, it is still one one the least successful titles of rebirth. It is one of the few titles that is allready back to pre rebirth numbers (the last issue of the prvious run sold 26,492 times) while most other books sell still significantly more than pre rebirth, and it has lower sales than RHatO and Batman Beyond, which had pre rebirth far lower numbers than Batgirl.

[Godlike13]

There's still a bit of distrust towards Teen Titans because of their mishandling for the last decade, which prevents a lot of readers from getting into their current book despite its improved quality. A teen hero book that doesn't carry the Titans name could turn out to be hugely successful, Young Justice carries no negative connotations. It could be a great opportunity to attract readers who are still on the fence about getting into TT.

Well if there is distrust towards the Teen Titans brand because of their mishandling of it for the last decade, which there is. You don't think then there is distrust towards the characters that the last decade of mishandled TTs was centered around. So while the Young Justice brand might not carry negative connotations, the characters that it would presumably be centered around very well might.

[Godlike13]

While I also don't think that Batgirl is in danger to get cancled, it is still one one the least successful titles of rebirth. It is one of the few titles that is allready back to pre rebirth numbers (the last issue of the prvious run sold 26,492 times) while most other books sell still significantly more than pre rebirth, and it has lower sales than RHatO and Batman Beyond, which had pre rebirth far lower numbers than Batgirl.

And thats true, though we are talking like a 2000 unit difference between those books, but i don't think anyone is arguing that the current Batgirl is a break out hit or anything. Just that its not really a "major sales bomb" leaving its lead character at risk of being outed by DC.

[Aahz]

What also should happen is that Tim should get at least one full length flashback story fro his time as Batmans partner maybe as an Annual that era is completely unexplored in the new 52 (and they should do the same for Jason).

[Atlanta96]

Well if there is distrust towards Teen Titans brand because of their mishandling of it for the last decade, which there is, you don't think then there is distrust towards the characters that the last decade of TT was center around. So while the Young Justice brand might not carry negative connotations, the characters that it would presumably be centered around probably do.

Maybe, but 'Tec featured Tim prominently for its first arc and still had solid sales. I think the distrust is more to do with the brand than the characters.