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Tweak says, "banana hammock!"

queenursula (queenursula) wrote in scans_daily,
@ 2009-09-11 18:45:00

Entry tags:

char: batman/dick grayson, char: robin/red robin/tim drake, creator: chris yost, creator: ramon bachs, publisher: dc comics, title: red robin

Red Robin #4

Dick tells Tim he wants to help.

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Re: I dunno, he kinda reminds me of...

ladymirth
2009-09-13 01:00 pm UTC (link)

Aww, I'm the exact opposite. I have severe Bruce issues, and Tim is my favourite Bat. I think he would make an even better Batman than Bruce, mostly because of his famed emotional resilience (which has gone to hell since OYL, but given everything that's happened to the poor kid, we've got to give him a bit of time). Bruce had already singled him out as having the most potential:

"Dick was in it for the thrills; I suspect that's why he outgrew it. Jason saw it as a game - that's what probably got him killed. But Tim...the boy actually wants to become the world's greatest detective."

And yet, he constantly told himself he didn't want to do this forever. Not just a river in Egypt, eh, Timbo? =)

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Re: I dunno, he kinda reminds me of...

sistermagpie
2009-09-13 02:01 pm UTC (link)

Bruce had already singled him out as having the most potential

But potential for what? I agree that Tim has exceptional talent and can be a great detective/superhero in his own right. But the first part of the line is Bruce explaining why Dick and Jason aren't Robin anymore.

There's only 2 possible endings for a Robin: to go grow up or to die. Dick didn't outgrew Robin because he was in it for thrills, he outgrew it because he grew up. And Jason died because death is a hazard of the job. For Bruce to suggest that it was an attitude problem that ended either boy's Robin career is pure magical thinking on his part. (Not to mention insulting to both boys, dismissing them as not taking seriously a job that they worked hard at and risked their lives for.)

So to work up from that to the idea that "this boy" wants to be the world's greatest detective and therefore...won't ever leave him? Won't ever grow up or die? Will be an extension of Bruce instead of his own person?

I just am always very oversensitive about that line because it's so often used as proof that Tim is the best Robin in some objective way, when to me it's one of the most screwed-up things Bruce has ever said, and the least connected to the actual reality of the Robins.

Though given that Tim is now having trouble dealing with things changing, it does once more show that Tim and Bruce are a lot alike.

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Re: I dunno, he kinda reminds me of...

runespoor7
2009-09-13 09:07 pm UTC (link)

There's at least some coherence in applying the 'game' thing to Jason, which was already ~~popped out of a hat~~ used in Death in the Family - which really should be a warning all on its own to take it with a pinch of salt, but at least there's some previous canon basis for it.

Bruce thinking Dick was Robin for the 'thrills' of it... not so much.

Tim is the best Robin in some objective way

I think Tim is the only kind of Robin Bruce was likely to take so soon after Jason's death. More cautious, less impulsive, ~~rich~~, and with parents. Bruce had adopted Jason, and Tim having at least a father alive meant that this time the roles wouldn't get confused. In the long term, it didn't work out that way, obviously, but at the time it must have been a reassuring difference for Bruce.

Also I think that the very things that make Tim efficient and reassuring to Bruce are precisely the ones that make him the least Robin-like of the Robins.

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