Aging in the DC Universe

[CPSparkles]

The really wired thing is that Damain still looks exactly like he did when he was 10.

Btw. where was it said that Damian is 14 now?

Williamson said so on an interview on DC.com.

That could be the manga influence. he's taller though.

[bat39]

Does it matter? Say Batman ages 10 years for roughly every 30 - he'll be in his 60s when I'm in my 60s.
I don't want the future of Bruce Wayne Batman to be old codger Batman. It's bad enough I'll be in my 60s, I don't need my heroes to be in it with me.



So they made a mistake and did the First Sin. That's not a good reason to push on with it.



So? I don't need the kid characters to grow into teenagers to grow into adults. I don't need my favorites to become "veterans" which is another word for "over the hill."



I'm aware. That's one of the reasons why I hope the next reboot is finally the hard reboot that's needed.

So basically, you want a world where Dick Grayson remains a 12 year old Robin forever. Which is fair enough, and I do think you and other fans should get more stories and more media with that kind of status quo.

But the superhero genre has been all about serial storytelling and progression for a long time now, and nothings going to change that, even though the nuances of how to organize continuity will change over time, as will the whole comic-book industry as a whole.

[Aahz]

That could be the manga influence. he's taller though.

I haven't read his new series, but at least pre infinite frontier he was at age 13 as small as at age 10 (with some Variation depending on the writer).

OK Tim has also not grow much between 13 and what ever he is now, but his height (in most comics) is at least reasonable for someone of his age, Damian was absurdly small for a 13 year old.

[Vakanai]

So basically, you want a world where Dick Grayson remains a 12 year old Robin forever. Which is fair enough, and I do think you and other fans should get more stories and more media with that kind of status quo.

But the superhero genre has been all about serial storytelling and progression for a long time now, and nothings going to change that, even though the nuances of how to organize continuity will change over time, as will the whole comic-book industry as a whole.

Honestly? I don't really care much about Dick Grayson, so long as he doesn't age up Bruce - but I wouldn't have him start as 12. I'd say maybe have him come to Bruce as 15, and start as Robin at 16 maybe...

The superhero genre has also been all about rebooting, retconning, and compressing that progression while also playing into the illusion of change over actual change, and nothing is going to change that either. I'm just pushing for whatever reboots, retcons, and compressions are needed to ignore aging.

[The Darknight Detective]

The two big age increases during the Bronze Age were made, not to gradually age all of the characters, but to rectify past silliness (the kiddie sidekicks) and to create an alternate future on Earth-2 where the Golden Age superheroes were now middle-aged and mentoring the younger generation. Earth-1 Clark and Bruce were still in their late twenties through all of this.

[sifighter]

But what if change was permanent?

We would very likely have a new Batman every 5 to 10 years, with very likely every writer wanting to make a character they created to be the next Batman.

Is that really desirable?

I don't know, again we are kind of doing that anyway and it appears that it would all be based on the quality of writing. Besides its not as if the writers have free range to make anyone Batman, they got to get it past the higher ups first who would agree or not on a character being Batman.

This is all speculation anyway, who really knows what will happen even one year from now let alone 5 or 10. I just think a little age can't hurt when they've proven they can write stories with the characters older.

[Aahz]

Honestly? I don't really care much about Dick Grayson, so long as he doesn't age up Bruce - but I wouldn't have him start as 12. I'd say maybe have him come to Bruce as 15, and start as Robin at 16 maybe...

He was anyway 15 from at least the late 40s to the mid 60s, and I'm not really convinced that he was meant to be much younger than that in earlier comics.

In general I think ageing makes only sense when it is really coupled with some kind of development and change of the character, Damian is imo an example where the ageing up didn't make much sense, since isn't really much of a difference between the 14 year old version we have now and the 10 year old version we had 10 years ago.
All him being 14 does at the moment is either ageing up the rest of the DCU or leading to really timeline.

[sifighter]

The really wired thing is that Damain still looks exactly like he did when he was 10.

Btw. where was it said that Damian is 14 now?

This panel right here in Robin #1, he says he has 14 years of experience.

[The Darknight Detective]

He was anyway 15 from at least the late 40s to the mid 60s, and I'm not really convinced that he was meant to be much younger than that in earlier comics.

Dick was no older than 12 until the mid-'60s, FWIW.

[SiegePerilous02]

I'm a fan of some characters aging and understand why some shouldn't. DC is a business not a Fcharity or a rando online writing stories based on prompts from readers.


Their primary goal is to make money and increase market share. Suggesting they replace their biggest guns for characters less who are not as profitable, well known and established. Is unrealistic. It's not a smart move for the company.

DC has elseworlds, Black label etc and an Omniverse. They can use those to explore stories like that. That's a fair compromise.

I think DC would be a smarter business if they didn't put most of their efforts into Batman and his corner at the expense of developing other IPs (even Superman at this point).

But I agree that aging the iconic characters across the board, including Batman, would be bad business. They are proven to bring in the money and they are a company that exists to make money and stay afloat. And the big characters endured this long because they have no problems getting new fans when conditions allow.

[Aahz]

Dick was no older than 12 until the mid-'60s, FWIW.

In his solo stories in Star Spangled Comics it was shown that he was in high school and around 15.

Belive me I did way to much research into the ages of the Batfamily.

[bat39]

Dick was no older than 12 until the mid-'60s, FWIW.

Yeah, that's how I see it.

He was definitely at least 13 when the Teen Titans started (hence, Teen Titans ) which was in 1964 I think. And by 1969, he ws off to college so he was around 17 at least.

I dunno how old Dick was supposed to be when he first became Robin Pre-Crisis, but I guess it'd be around 10-12. Which means he'd been Robin for 5-7 years. And assuming that Bruce was Batman for at least a year before Dick became Robin (the pre-Robin era was a lot shorter Pre-Crisis than it is today by accounts), then we're looking at Bruce being Batman for 6-8 years at least by the end of the 60's. Which fits reasonably well into the age of around 29 that is first given in the 1970 story ''There's No Hope in Crime Alley''.

So 1969-70, around thirty years into Batman's existence, was the first time they definitively and permanently aged Bruce a bit from however old he might have been when he started out as Batman, through ageing up Robin. And the next explicit age-up was around 1984 with ''The Player on the Other Side'', which states that the Wayne murders happened 25 years ago, making Bruce around 33 at least. And Dick himself was 19 around that time, and turned 20 around the time of COIE. It doesn't line up perfectly of course, but basically it took 15 years real-time to age Bruce and Dick up another 3 to 4 years. And another decade after that for the Post-Zero Hour timelines to maybe age them up a couple more years. And that's kinda where he stood for another decade...till Damian came along.

Basically, Batman's ageing was mostly tied to Dick's, but today its tied to Damian's. The fact is though that ageing close to 20 years in a span of 82 years real-time is still pretty slow ageing and not something to get too worked up about. If Bruce is in his early 40's now, going by past trends he's likely to stay there for a long time to come even without any reboots or time compression.

[The Darknight Detective]

In his solo stories in Star Spangled Comics it was shown that he was in high school and around 15.

Belive me I did way to much research into the ages of the Batfamily.

Well, the New Look made a big deal of moving Dick into high school back in '64, so those stories you referenced are outliers. He definitely didn't look like he was in high school until that time, IMO.

[Aahz]

Well, the New Look made a big deal of moving Dick into high school back in '64, so those stories you referenced are outliers. He definitely didn't look like he was in high school until that time, IMO.

Not really, there aren't any stories from that era that show him to be younger than 15 or to be in middle school.
And there were iirc multiple stories that show him in high school, and I think there his even one where he is driving a car in his civilian identity.

[The Darknight Detective]

Not really, there aren't any stories from that era that show him to be younger than 15 or to be in middle school.
And there were iirc multiple stories that show him in high school, and I think there his even one where he is driving a car in his civilian identity.

The show was post-New Look, so that's why he was in high school.