RIP to Zero Year
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RIP to Zero Year
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Yes, Year One is always gonna win out.
Things I love: Batman, Superman, AEW, old films, Lovecraft
Grant Morrison: “Adults...struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real.”
I don't think that 10 years is enough to make the time line work. Especally not if Dick starts agian at a young age as Robin.
Lets say you go with him loosing his parents at age 12, roughly a year after Bruce becomes Batman, then you would allready be in year 7 or 8 by the time he becomes Nightwing and Jason becomes Robin. Then you had still to compress the remaining Robin into youst 3 years.
If you want to keep all the Robins with their original starting ages in continuity, you need something like 15+ years.
Pretty much yeah. I'm not sure if the current timeline is 10. Rebirth started at 10 but I've seen people arguing that now it's 15. Especially with Astrid Arkham's origin, a 15-year timeline would accommodate her better.
By the way, I just found out from someone who uploaded a scan of Zero Hour timeline that in Post Crisis Dick was only Robin for 3 years, starting at Year 3 and became Nightwing at Year 6. Jason only has one year as usual and then followed directly by Tim, with Knightfall happening at Year 7 or 8. I thought they only started doing it in New 52 but they already compressed Dick's Robin timeline in Post Crisis. At least up to Zero Hour.
I thought it was said that there were 10 years missing, and bringing them back would stretch the timeline to 15 or 16 years.
I Post crisis they had for a long time the setting that Bruce became Batman 10 years ago, and compressed the time line accordingly.
If you want to keep the staring ages and want the timeline somewhat to make sense you will end up with something like that:
Bruce without Robin: 1 or 2 years
Dick as Robin: 6-7 years
Jason as Robin: 1-2 years
Tim as Robin: 3-4 years
That adds up to 11-15 without Damian's time as Robin.
Wow! My thread necro was very productive!
Do we have a source for King actually saying that Zero Year happened? I know the solicits said that, but has it actually been said in the text, or by King on twitter or in an interview? Knowing King, I bet he'd say "it all happened" - that's the whole point of him doing issue #44, after all, and kind of the out-of-universe point of the Street/Boat debate.
Is "Dick was Robin at 10" still really a thing? Batman and Robin Eternal seemed to imply he was around 15-16 when he started. I know that's on the 5-year timeframe, but I wasn't aware we'd gotten 10-year-old Dick Robin in Rebirth since then.
I really like that analysis of Zero Year vs. Year One, though I think there's plenty of attempted depth in Zero Year, with his meditation on Batman being Bruce Wayne's death etc etc. I just think it's kind of a failure on that score.
(King's been referencing Year One for a long time, he's just made it most explicit in #79).
Given that Snyder and Tynion are still somewhat involved in Batman's continuity through Justice League, my bet is that they're assuming that Snyder's run, the two Eternals, and Tynion's Tec are canon, and all of those are connected. However, Tynion's Tec did explicitly handwave a couple of things about the Eternals already (Tim's origin), so there's a looseness to canon since Rebirth that gives everything "options."
As it should!
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
I don't remember if they said it inside the issue if Zero Year happened or not.
Dick may well be Robin starting at 16 since that's as far as they go with Robin flashback, but the main point of that timeline is that Dick came into Bruce's life when he's a kid
I pretty much use the same approach as Snyder and Tynion to the Eternals for Zero Year. Largely happened or only certain events happened and not exactly the same.
Due to sales Year One.
As for the rest, its mostly just your usual comic stuff of "Cant make time fit with the stories" so you have to either headcanon or roll with it.
That's what I call "The Rebirth approach to canon." It ALL happened, some how, but it's probably not literal.
And since I've loved Year One, even after retcon after retcon has made parts of it not work, I don't care. I just want great stories like Year One to matter, even if you have to fudge the details in your mind.
"We're the same thing, you and I. We're both lies that eventually became the truth." Lara Notsil, Star Wars: X-Wing: Solo Command, Aaron Allston
"All that is not eternal is eternally out of date." C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
"There's room in our line of work for hope, too." Stephanie Brown
Stephanie Brown Wiki, My Batman Universe Reviews, Stephanie Brown Discord
The past doesn't limit the future. It limits the past. Writers like Snyder and Tynion need to stop digging their wells in the characters origins and move forward to tell new stories. We don't progress with characters like Hawkman and such if we just keep retelling origins.
No need to reinvent the wheel, just go somewhere with it.
It's the Dynamic Duo! Batman and Robin!... and Red Robin and Red Hood and Nightwing and Batwoman and Batgirl and Orphan and Spoiler and Bluebird and Lark and Gotham Girl and Talon and Batwing and Huntress and Azreal and Flamebird and Batcow?
Since when could just anybody do what we trained to do? It makes it all dumb instead of special. Like it doesn't matter anymore.
-Dick Grayson (Batman Inc.)
It matters if it affects the present
This is not exactly an answer to your question but it reminds me why I don't like some revised back story or superhero comic attempt at realism.
Like for example... Batman being scared of Joker in Death of The Family doesn't make sense to me because that story is part fanservice to every story involving Batman vs Joker, but if Batman's been fighting Joker that long he shouldn't be that scared of Joker.
In New 52, if Dick only stayed with Bruce for 3 years tops he shouldn't be that loyal or trusted.
After reading Batman Year One and stories around it, I'm not buying that Batman will ever consider involving a child that young in crime-fighting, no matter what Dark Victory and Robin Year One tell me. All-Star Batman makes more sense because he's crazy. The teenage Robin in New 52 makes more sense.
I only give a pass to Golden Age because they're just writing simple hero stories without any attempt at realism, but Year One and Batman Begins are selling the realism.
If Talia really has been trained sword fighting since birth and has been dunked in the pit over and over, and according to Honor Blackman, Talia's already adult when she met her as a child, I'm not buying that Selina can beat her in a sword fight.
If The Court really have been watching Gotham in a long time and they will send an assassin to steer Gotham to the direction they want why won't they assassinate Bruce Wayne when he took Dick before them.
People don't like New 52 Tim became an academic and athletic prodigy and forcing his way to be Robin but that's the only way I can think of to fit the 5-year timeline.
So on and so forth. Some work some don't.
Last edited by Restingvoice; 09-19-2019 at 03:06 AM.
I honestly prefer Zero Year. It (well the first half at least) felt like an update to Batman's Golden Age origin, which I liked.
“Somewhere, in our darkest night, we made up the story of a man who will never let us down.”
- Grant Morrison on Superman