Batman: The Animated Series: Wondering about the Boy

Next episode is the first appearance of Robin, the Boy Wonder, in our review of BTAS. There is no lead-in to this appearance as, once again, the producers decided that their audience was familiar enough with the Batman milieu that the presence of a sidekick teenager in a circus outfit wasn't something that needed explaining. For many, The Batman was "Batman and Robin" and this was no different. Indeed, in the original broadcast of the series, our hero was assisted by Alfred and an amateur detective named Sherman Grant before the person whom most assume is automatically his constant partner in any of his adventures or crimefighting activity first graced a rooftop. That's not something that was tagged on The Batman by the goofy TV series, either, as the first appearance of Robin in the comics was in 1940, with Detective Comics #38, only 11 issues after Bob Kane's Darknight Detective first swung through the moonlight. He was a Bob Kane creation and, as such, is part of the character in ways that few other elements can lay claim to. The problem for me is that he never seemed to fit.

I would never claim to know Bob Kane's rationale for including Robin. Most like to present him as a move intended for young readers of the comics to identify with someone other than the adult in the spotlight, so that (mostly) young boys could imagine themselves cavorting across the rooftops with the Caped Crusader. After all, if you were pretending to be The Batman, you were clearly just pretending, because he was an adult. But if you were imagining yourself as Robin, well, then that was different. If Dick Grayson could trade punches with The Joker, then surely you could, as well, right? There also could have been some pressure from Warner, in that The Batman originally began his career in the funny pages as a guy wielding two .45s and killing people like his close parallel, The Shadow. Once he had proved to be a hit, bringing in a character that lightened the mood a bit may have been an editorial nudge/suggestion/demand. After all, only kids read comics, right? It couldn't constantly be about fear and the ominous appearance of a giant bat, right? Kids could be corrupted by that stuff! Frederic Wertham, DC, and Fawcett Comics would ensure that great rival EC would feel the full impact of the "Robinization" of the comics industry a decade later.

That may sound like I'm coming down hard on the negative side about Robin and I am, in truth, but that may be a facet of, quite literally, what I grew up with vis-à-vis The Batman. As my friend, Don LaRew, mentioned a few weeks back, everyone has their Batman. It's the image of the character that may be the first one you encountered or it may be the one that had the most impact upon you. In Don's case, it was BTAS, fortunately enough. For me, it was the mid-70s when, as I mentioned previously, creators like Denny O'Neill, Neal Adams, and Steve Engelhart radically redirected the character away from the fun-loving, circus freak nature of his adventures and back toward the investigator who was a symbol of fear for the underworld and, in many ways, too ruthless for someone running around in a canary yellow cape. By the time I had my first exposure to The Batman, DC had conceded to the trend that Marvel had launched, in that characters do actually age and move on to a small degree, and shuffled Robin off to the much more superhero-y Teen Titans and college. The Batman was a loner again who stuck to the shadows, where Robin's (literal) circus costume and the image that it created simply wouldn't work. (Fair argument here as to why The Batman wears an almost-literal target on his chest, which is something I'll get to later.) My image of Robin was mostly tied to the goofy TV series and Burt Ward uttering lines like: "Holy Etruscan vases, Batman!" My image of The Batman was much more serious.

And it has to be said that I was a pretty serious kid ("Precocious" is the classical term.) I recognized right away how appropriate it was for a guy dressed as a bat to be in a much different sphere than someone dressed like he wanted everyone to see him, everywhere he went. To their credit, the BTAS producers did address that little difficulty, as his costume is much more restrained in coloration (and actually has long pants.) But the real change for me is that, when he's operating alone, The Batman is the pinnacle of my interpretation of the character. He only has himself to rely upon. Yes, that means he's relying upon a genius detective, a master of unarmed combat, and a billionaire who runs a massive conglomerate and all the resources that entails, but it still means that if some thug gets the drop on him, he can't depend on anyone else to have his back. He also can't depend upon magic lassos, heat vision, or invulnerability against someone else with one of those .45s. That, to me, provides some of the essential tension to the stories and, indeed, emphasizes the "antagonist in his own stories" phenomenon that I mentioned before. If it's just the implacable (but still human) Batman facing down the insanity of people like The Scarecrow and The Riddler, then we can focus on them. If there's someone else along for the ride, then that's a distraction that the story really doesn't need. If I'm reading a story about The Batman and his maniacal rogues' gallery, then that's what I want. I'm not really interested in Batman and This Other Guy because it doesn't add anything to the story and diverts attention from the contest of wills that our hero's encounters with his regular opponents tends to be.

So, yeah, I am not a Robin fan. I'm not radically opposed (i.e. it doesn't mean I won't read/watch a Batman story that has Robin in it) and it must be said that, in the modern era, it was a good choice to portray Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake as the occasional voice of greater reason in the face of what are The Batman's own psychological hangups. But I think that, overall, he detracts from what is the essential identity of our main character and doesn't add anything particularly notable that makes him a worthwhile addition. But my opinion may be among a distinct minority and it would be very far from the first time that that was the case.

Next up, back to our regularly scheduled program with Fear of Victory.