Doesn't do anything for me I'm afraid

(Reply to this)

I like it. I missed the green in the Robin costume and the boots are cool.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I looove the boots.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Motto :D

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Wow. They look shiny. As if there's a shiny sheen on them. o_O

(Reply to this) (Thread)

That's my big pet peeve with colouring these days. Everything is so fucking shiny. Even skin.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Yeah, after all the years of "He's not going to blend into the shadows" (Which Tim's original costume pretty much sorted out), it's quite refreshing to see them embracing a shinier, brighter costume again. Of course, if it has Damian IN the suit, I'm still not sold on on the concept unless he's had a complete personality makeover too, but he SEEMS happy here.

And whilst I rather like the notion of Robin wearing leather, I'd want an older Robin to be in leather to make me feel slightly less pervy. Mmmm, Dick Grayson in leather... WOOF! Ahem, sorry...

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

My fanwanky explanation for bright, shiny colors on the costume is that it forces the Robins to learn how to hide, rather than rely on just not being seen. Assuming that he was training his partners to take over for him should the need arise, Bats probably wanted them to be better at his job than he was.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

There are canonwank explanations for that! One of them is that Robin wears bright colours to make people think because he's the good cop. It also ties in with the idea that the kid in red green and yellow is going to be underestimated, which is always handy.

Of course the explanations aren't mutually exclusive. More fun that way.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Oh come on. I'm going to defer to the master here... (from http://www.seanbaby.com/superfriends/robin.htm , slightly paraphrased):

"Robin looked like a circus clown halfway through getting dressed"... "The whole idea of Robin was irresponsible crime fighting. It was bad enough to send a 13 year old boy against homicidal maniacs, but to dress him like a fucking signal flare is just asking for a disaster. It's all fun now, but you know any day a villain's going to think to aim at the bright red helpless target and then Batman's going to have to call the kid's parents and explain."

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

What's that got to do with anything? Of course the idea of a 13-year-old, no matter how he dresses, out fighting criminals and winning is ludicrous. The idea of people flying is ludicrous, too. The idea that Batman might exist and somehow never have been caught is not only ludicrous but also terrifying.

I'm just pointing out, Robin being dressed in bright colors has been discussed in canon.

Alfred: And I trust that Master Richard is the "good cop"?
Bruce: Why else do you think he wears the bright colors?
- Batgirl: Year One

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I don't understand the point you're trying to make. The DCU is a fictional universe in which costumes citizens - "heroes" - go out and beat people up. In the world I'm living in, this is a crime and the police would be looking for them.

The 'industry' of critics and literature professors would, I suspect, agree with me on the fact that literature requires suspension of disbelief and knowledge of the rules of the genre.

The rules of the DCU tell me that their superheroes can dress in bright colors. The best I can do is come up with theories why this is possible, and when the canon is nice enough to provide scraps of hypothesis, I'm not going to ignore them.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Look up Asimov's rules of plausibility sometime. In short form, it states that there are limits on suspension of disbelief which requires certain things be present in a work of fantastic fiction. There are three primary rules for this:

1: All deviations from real world rules must be acknowledged and given an explanation by the author, even if that even is merely implied rather than expressly stated.

2: All rules must be consistent within the story, and any changes must be supplied with an explanation.

3: Anything not given an exceptional rule as above will be presumed to work as normal.

There's a rule in the DCU for why Superman flies, it's acknowledged that he operates under an exception to the normal rules of physics. There's a reason that heroes are allowed to operate without the law being on their case, the social and legal rules of the DCU are different than our own. Even when not given a precise explanation for these things, one is implied to exist.

There's no special rule in the DCU for why a brightly-dressed thirteen year old normal human crimefighter would not become an instant bullet magnet.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Oh hell, I screwed up the thread order with my post edit via delete and repost. I hate not having an edit button... *sigh*

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Which is why he does become an instant bullet magnet, as you say.

Dick and Jason are shown jumping and twisting to avoid the bullets. Tim, of course, has the advantage that his cape makes it much easier to blend with the shadows. (It's not that much of a leap to think that Tim's Robin costume is less colorful because Bruce became aware of how little protection the first costume offered.)

They're shot at, and sometimes they're wounded.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Dick's costume was fabric, and he was just THAT fast.

Jason's costume had the tunic adjusted to make it like a bulletproof vest.

Tim's costume was a prototype kevlar/nomex weave to make it both bulletproof and fireproof, and the cape had ballistic shielding to absorb impacts.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Oh, right- I figured there'd been adjustments between Dick's and Jason's, but I couldn't remember what it was. I really like the progression between each version of the costume, btw.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

You're not seriously going to use the "it's all fiction, so any idea no matter how silly or inconsistent is acceptable" excuse, are you? There's no such thing as good or bad ideas, or thematic or logical consistency, or rules of plausibility, and anything someone wants to stick on a page is an "idea" and is all equally "ludicrous" --that's what you're saying when you use that defense.

Why are we even discussing anything in the first place, then? If there's no such thing as objective or subjective measures that can be placed on a work of fiction, then none of us can have opinions.

I prefer to think that things can be analyzed, and standards placed. An entire industry of critics and literary professors would tend to agree.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

You're not seriously going to use the "it's all fiction, so any idea no matter how silly or inconsistent is acceptable" excuse, are you? There's no such thing as good or bad ideas, or thematic or logical consistency, or rules of plausibility, and anything someone wants to stick on a page is an "idea" and is all equally "ludicrous" --that's what you're saying when you use that defense.

It would be foolish to deny that there are certain fundamental rules of a fictional universe. Some of the ones for a standard superhero-verse would include;

1) A pair of glasses, or a simple domino mask, will conceal your identity completely from even your closest friends, family and significant other.

2) Even the weakest excuse will allow you to leave a room to handle an emergency.

3) Teenage kids can take out fully grown, heavily muscled, gun-toting thugs with a single punch if they have right on their side.

4) It is completely possible to master all forms of unarmed combat, be a natural CSI and a detective to make Sherlock feel inept every night AND run a major corporation during the day.

5) Due process is suspended if you are arrested by someone wearing a cape.

And so on...

Kid sidekicks definitely fall into that category. They are an insane notion, any right thinking adult would view it as appalling, unforgivable idea. But it's a comic convention, in the same way that the last act of any detective show features the bad guy CONFESSING to the crime, when any decent lawyer would tell them to keep their traps shut.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Actually, it's an outdated and almost entirely defunct genre convention. Most original sidekick characters were phased out long ago, and virtually none introduced since. The idea lingers on as a throwback, and is anachronistic anywhere beyond a flashback / homage to earlier decades or in parody.

With, of course, the notable exception of Robin. Despite the efforts of numerous brave souls over the years to finally put the nail in the sidekick concept's coffin, people keep digging up Robin and pasting him back to Batman's side as if it were still 1960. As if brightly-colored, whimsical and lighthearted Batman stories are what anyone but a vocal minority want.

And yet, DC caters to them. We're back to the grey spandex with the underwear on the outside for Batman, and brightly colored backgrounds, and Robin's smiling child's face mocking us with it's blatant silliness.

It's like Burton, Nolan, Miller, Moore, Dini, or Timm never happened. Like there was no 80s or 90s, hell hardly even a 70s. Instead, it's back to the Silver Age.

And DC wonders why it can't turn a billion dollar motion picture into an audiece for their books.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Actually, it's an outdated and almost entirely defunct genre convention.

Ummm... what? Robin, Superboy, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Batgirl, Lagoon Boy, Son of Vulcan, Secret and many, many more... Oh and then we have Runaways, Power Pack and Young Avengers over at Marvel. Mostly not sidekicks, but that's ever worse as they are lacking in any for of mentorship.

Dini and Timm have both attested to the usefulness of Robin as a concept once they'd introduced him, allowing a much richer range of Batman stories, so why you're citing them I have no idea.

And Tim has NEVER been what anyone would call "whimsical and lighthearted".

If the 1990's comics never happened, how much would actually be lost?

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I find that it's easy for Robin to make for much darker Batman stories, actually. It's one thing when Batman is Joker's prisoner, it's another entirely when it's Robin.

As for Robin having a smiling child's face, that hasn't been the case in a long, long time. Tim is neither a child nor especially cheerful, Jason was disliked because he was scowly, and Dick was eighteen or nineteen when he stopped being Robin. I'm not mentioning Steph because her tenure as Robin is pretty much the opposite of all things happy and optimistic.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I think it's a mistake to look at superhero comics as realistic. As Douglas Wolk writes in Reading Comics, "Of course they’re unrealistic! That’s the entire point!"

And unrealistic for a particular reason. Wolk goes on to say: “Superhero comics are, by their nature, larger than life, and what’s useful and interesting about their characters is that they provide bold metaphors for discussing ideas or reifying abstractions into narrative fiction. They’re the closest thing that exists right now to the ‘novel of ideas.’ . . .

“Virtually every major superhero franchise, actually, can be looked at in terms of a particular metaphor that underscores all of its best stories. . . . that subtext deepens the experience of the surface text, and over time it makes characters meaningful parts of the master ‘universe narratives.’

“Batman...has pushed himself to the edge of being greater-than-human—and what he’s defined as the peak of humanity is dangerousness and a lack of weakness. His relentless drive, though, had made him (for all practical purposes) psychotic: he’s a benign psycho but barely functional as a person. His enemies mostly get sent to an insane asylum rather than a prison—they’re like him but malign rather than benign, as virtually everyone who’s written Batman comics over the last few decades has hammered in. And his drive is the kind that parents often pass on to their children; hence his parental relationship with Robin, whose symbolic value is as a son trying to learn from his father’s experience and wisdom without making his father’s mistakes.” [Wolk, 92-7]

And from that I'll move to Fabian Nicieza's comments about the importance of Robin in the DC Universe, quoted here: “...we also know that the Robin concept is just as vital to the foundation of the DC Universe and has been a bedrock of the mythology since its inception.

“The concept of Robin defines the nature of the legacy in the DCU and with that, implies hope for the future, stability coming from the next generation of hero, and on a societal level, it harkens to the need for proper parenting, education and stimulation to help guide the next generation to fruition.”

You can't have a character representing the “next generation” without that character being still a child.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I like it more then either of Tim's costumes.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

See I loved Tim's original costume, it was a daring and radical reworking of the original which addressed nearly all the standard criticisms, and still left Robin with an instantly identifiable look.

His second one I was never a fan of, it added far too many Batman-esque tweaks (The glove spikes, and worst of all, the pointy edgy cloak which, if they had wanted to rework it, should have either gone "The Batman" route of and spilt down the middle at the back so it could flare up like wings, or full blown Battle of the Planets etyle) and we lost the short sleeves, which whilst impractical, made Robin's outfit insantly identifiable, even in silhouette at a distance.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I agree.

This costume just looks uncomfortable to me, actually. It seems like it would hard to move in.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

It would suffer from the same problem as the movie X-Men gear in real life (eg no one in the cast could actually lift their legs high enough to step over the small wall seen at the Statue of Liberty in the first movie) but it'd be a lot more comfortable to LAND in I think, since it has what appears to be a more durable finish and more padding on the knees than any previous Robin costume.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

I admit that was a drawback for me with the shorts. I often worried about cold, scraping and chafing.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

it seems too much like a mish mash. There is too much going on colour wise and what is with the black hoodie? I do like the gloves and the boots, I think I like it all except the cape and the arms, if the arms were red...

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Depending on the pics I've seen it's either a hood, or a slightly stiffer collarpiece with the yellow cape emerging from it. Makes it less likely to blow into Robin's face in a decent wind I suppose... or something.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I'm not completely sold on it, but HELL YEAH THOSE SHOES ARE NEAT. I, well, I really want them. :P

It looks more like a movie reinterpretation than any movie reinterpretation I've seen, but I think I'll have to see it *in use* before I make my final call. It's...certainly interesting...the black throws me off a bit, but whatever.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

"more like a movie reinterpretation"

THANK YOU! That's what's been bubbling at the back of my mind when I see it like that. Jones has given a "solidity" to the material which does make it look very "real", as opposed to most artists takes on the Robin costume (With notable exceptions) which acknowledge that it's completely UNreal and then move on.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I still think there's too much black, but cheers for the return of green and a shorter cape!

(Reply to this)

Awww, give Kyle his mask back, Robin.

I'm not really sure what to think about that costume.

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I'd say it was a lot closer to Dick's original Nightwing mask than Kyle's crab-face mask.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

So much DO NOT WANT. Firstly, I am pretty certain that's Damien and just eww. Secondly seperate short cape and hood? Really? And as much as I love 'street' and 'practical' versions of superhero outfits I just don't think it fits with Robin AT ALL, it doesn't look nice and clean cut like the other Robin costumes.

Plus there are too many colours and it makes my eyes hurt, as much as the old Robin costume seemed sort of mismatched because of the green, yellow and red it always worked. This is just, bleh.

I cannot get behind this in any way.

/rant

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I agree, re too many colors.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

This continues the trend, about a decade old, of foregrounding the bottom of the Bat-family's footgear. It used to be (as shown, for example, in your recent 1979 Crazy Quilt scans) that Batman and Robin's soles were smooth and undistracting. Then artists began to depict and finally to emphasize the tread pattern by sticking it our faces, most famously in Jim Lee's Hush. That was, presumably, part of making the crimefighters look more bad-ass.

Now boot treads are almost a requirement. Nightwing Annual, #2, retconned Dick's pixie boots to give them more sole. The first preview of the new Batwoman series features her stomping on someone's face, with a bat-themed tread.

Here Damian is wearing the latest styling in athletic shoes (which I must admit I've never understood or admired) as part of his costume. Does it add to his characterization? We don't know yet, but it would be a shame if the artists spend their time on shiny highlights and shoe-styling over facial expressions.

And speaking of facial expressions, I'm pleased to see Damian looking happy. I'm no more fond of him than any other Batman and Robin fan is supposed to be, but it's no fun seeing a sad kid. On both these covers, he's obviously pleased to be Robin. Whether that's a good thing--well, that's what the Batman and Robin magazine will be all about.

Could this magazine be Grant Morrison's catch-up to Frank Miller? Both of them exploring the historic Batman and Robin dynamic by exaggerating the characters' different outlooks and attitudes?

(Reply to this) (Thread)

I hadn't really thought about that change in footwear before, but I had always noticed the smooth-bottomed boots that they were drawn as wearing before. I'd take good facial expressions over detailed boots, but I like the fact that they include the detail of tread on their boot soles. It's just an added bit of realism that makes sense. I would not want to be running around and kicking people in fabric-thin booties.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Yeah, I like seeing tread on their shoes. The old pixie booties always make me cringe - cloth shoes like that are INSANELY slippery on smooth surfaces and unless they've got serious padding they're very uncomfortable to wear. Definately NOT the sort of thing you'd want to wear running through the city and jumping on to busses with. Over-detailing the shoes does get a little distracting, but I also appreciate the realism.

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

As an acrobat and gymnast Dick probably has some seriously heavy duty calluses on his feet, like a ballet dancer will have very ugly feet. And for some reason I never imagined the soles were fabric, or even the uppers, leather at least, and probably had some subtle grip pattern.

And his pixie boots even had heels in some artists versions.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Exactly. It'd make sense if he was regularly up on the high-wire still, but just wearing thinly-soled flip-flops for a very long walk can make your feet sore. I wouldn't want to think about how much pain Dick would be in if he was wearing cloth shoes like that out on patrol.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

Those are some very lovingly rendered boots.

I'm no more fond of him than any other Batman and Robin fan is supposed to be, but it's no fun seeing a sad kid. On both these covers, he's obviously pleased to be Robin. Whether that's a good thing--well, that's what the Batman and Robin magazine will be all about.
Heh on the 'no more fond than supposed to be' but agreed on the no fun seeing a sad kid.

I definitely think it's going to be about the two mismatched partners learning to get along aspect. Do you mean catch-up to Miller re: ASBAR? Or some other work...

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Do you mean catch-up to Miller re: ASBAR?

Yes, except this time we're gonna see the goddamn Robin.

Morrison has stated that his Arkham Asylum graphic novel of 1989 was a response to other authors [ahem: Miller] depicting Batman as crazy [ahem: Miller] earlier in the decade [ahem: Miller]. So I wonder if the thinking behind Batman and Robin was triggered by All-Star Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder. Is there some competitiveness here?

(Reply to this) (Parent) (Thread)

Yes, except this time we're gonna see the goddamn Robin.

Heh. I wonder how he'll compete with compare to the Robin who almost beat Hal to death.

(Reply to this) (Parent)

I like the one on the left more, but I don't like either really that much.

(Reply to this)

I definitely like the JG Jones one better. The hood hanging on top of the cape still looks a bit awkward, but you're right in that it does look better in the variant, since it's more apparent that it is a hood.

(Reply to this)

Damian is...Robin Hoodie!

I think the hooded costume is adorable, in a sort of muddled way. It's like he's fallen into a laundry hamper full of all the old versions of the costume and just decided to wear what he landed on. It's cute!

(Reply to this) (Thread)

Bwahahaha! That is totally spot-on what it looks like. Thanks!

(Reply to this) (Parent)