The long thread about the ''preferred duration'' of Dick's career as Robin got me thinking...how long should Bruce be Batman before Dick joins him as Robin?
Now, in a real-world publishing sense, Robin first appeared 11 months after Batman did, so there's a historical precedent for it being about a year.
But Post-COIE, there was a continuous reinvention and expansion of Batman's early years with stories like Year One, the entire Legends of the Dark Knight series, The Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Dark Moon Rising etc. Most notably, Batman's first encounters with most, if not all, big-name villains now retroactively occurred before he met Dick. So it became conventional wisdom that Robin came along two or three years into Batman's career (two is the more popular figure due to Year Three covering Robin's origin).
The New 52 brought it down to one year again due to their compressed timeline, though I assume that doesn't apply anymore.
And adaptations of course play by their own rules. If real-world release dates are any indication, Dick becomes Robin in Batman Forever about six years into Batman's career. The Batman (the 2004 cartoon) started with a solo Batman three years into his career, so I'm guessing by the time Robin shows up in Season 4 its four or five years (I haven't watched the later seasons of this show so I'm not sure). Darwyn Cooke's New Frontier, incidentially, has Dick becoming Robin in the late 1950's in a timeline where, notionally, Batman has been around since 1939!
Personally, I lean towards it being at least two years. Real-world history aside, I think it makes more sense for Bruce to be confident bringing a kid into his world if he's already pretty established and has things somewhat under control. A relative rookie vigilante turning a 12 year old into a vigilante is more messed up than the Robin concept already is! And I guess honestly, about three to five years makes the most sense.
At the same time of course, adaptations and Elseworlds notwithstanding, it can't be too long a gap because we need to compress the timeline to some extent. Then again, if you're wedded to the idea of Bruce and Dick having a father-son relationship, then maybe a longer gap is a better bet!
What are your thoughts on this pretty nitpicky question?