Perhaps no superhero has had a more successful big screen career than Batman. Past adaptations like 1989’s Batman and 2008’s The Dark Knight are regarded as some of the best superhero movies ever made, and some of the biggest stars in Hollywood have had a turn playing either the Caped Crusader himself or one of his many iconic villains. Now a whole new generation is getting their chance, as Warner Bros. works to reboot the franchise with 2021’s The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson.
Given the massive critical and commercial success of past Batman movies, The Batman definitely has its work cut out for it. How can director Matt Reeves and his cast escape the shadow of past Batman movies? And what can The Batman do to distinguish itself from other incarnations of the Dark Knight? That’s what we hope to explore in a recurring series called Rebuilding the Batman.
Rebuilding the Batman: It’s Time for Bruce Wayne to Be Happy Again
In this installment, we’re shining the spotlight on Batman’s other half, Robin. Whether it’s his original sidekick, Dick Grayson, or more recent partners like Damian Wayne and Stephanie Brown, Batman is never truly whole without a Robin. Yet you wouldn’t know that from watching any of the live-action movies from the past two decades. Read on to find out why it’s past time DC reunited the Dynamic Duo on the big screen.
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What Robin Brings to Batman’s World
Robin is nearly as old as Batman himself, having debuted just one year after the Dark Knight in the pages of 1940’s Detective Comics #38. Those earliest Batman stories were surprisingly dark, featuring a gun-toting vigilante who wasn’t above killing his enemies when they annoyed him. It didn’t take long before DC’s predecessor National Periodicals decided the franchise needed to be re-centered to more directly appeal to young readers. After all, in those days it was mainly children who were buying and reading comics.
Introducing Robin was a major part of pushing the Batman comics in a more kid-friendly direction. Whereas Batman was the cool, older brother readers looked up to, Robin was the character they could identify with. Who wouldn’t want to join a cool billionaire for a night of cruising the streets in a souped-up sports car and punching costumed criminals in the face? Even if killjoys like Frederic Wertham (whose book Seduction of the Innocent infamously attempted to tie comics to juvenile delinquency) tried their best to add a homoerotic subtext to Batman and Robin’s adventures, Robin was the hero countless kids aspired to be.
Robin tends to get a lot of flak from older Batman fans, in part because the idea of a grown man dragging an underage boy in pixie boots along on his nightly rounds is inherently ridiculous. It doesn’t help that most live-action incarnations of Robin have tended to be extremely campy. But as the franchise has grown and evolved, many storytellers have fleshed out the dynamic between Batman and Robin and illustrated why someone like Bruce Wayne needs a young sidekick. Robin is the necessary antithesis to Batman. He’s the light to Batman’s dark, reminding Bruce that solving mysteries and fighting crime can actually be fun. He’s also a chance for a perpetual bachelor like Bruce to build a family of his own and move beyond the trauma that defined him for so much of his life. Welcoming Robin into his life is a key part of Batman’s journey, which makes it all the more disappointing Robin has played such a small role in recent incarnations of the movie franchise.
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The Challenges of a Big-Screen Robin
Robins absence on the big screen is disappointing, but not necessarily difficult to understand. As mentioned, a lot of fans tend to associate Robin with the campier aspects of the Batman franchise. Even after all these years, Burt Ward’s iconic but very goofy take on Dick Grayson is the one most people think of when they hear the name “Robin.” Chris O’Donnell’s Robin didn’t necessarily win over hardcore fans in 1995’s Batman Forever, even if he was the least of that series’ problems at that point.
Robin may be a necessary part of Batman’s story, but there’s a delicate balance necessary in making him work well on the big screen. For one thing, there’s the issue of age. Make Robin too young and Batman becomes guilty of child abuse. Make him too old and his entire origin story doesn’t even make sense. We’re still not sure why Val Kilmer’s Bruce Wayne felt obligated to adopt a ward who was clearly pushing 30.
Tonally, it’s been hard to reconcile the very concept of Robin with recent live-action incarnations of Batman. The Dark Knight is about as grounded and realistic as you can get when telling the story of a rich orphan who dresses like a bat, and that’s probably why Robin was re-imagined as Robin “John” Blake in The Dark Knight Rises, a GCPD cop who graduated straight to becoming the next Batman at the end of the movie. Meanwhile, Batman v Superman introduced a brooding, Frank Miller-inspired take on the Dark Knight, with Robin being relegated to the role of a vanished martyr in Bruce’s crusade. Only that Joker-defaced costume serves as evidence to suggest Robin ever existed in the DCEU.
Unfortunately, what little we’ve seen of The Batman so far suggests it’s more Christopher Nolan Batman than Tim Burton Batman. In a version of Gotham where Batman is a heavily armored, almost militaristic vigilante, Robin may be a tough pill to swallow. Still, as we argued in the previous Rebuilding the Batman column, the hope is that we’ll see Robert Pattinson’s Bruce evolve over time and become a happier, more well-adjusted person. Just as he did for the Batman comics, Robin could be just the catalyst needed to push this saga in a different direction.
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Which Robin Is Best for Robert Pattinson’s Batman?
One key advantage of Robin is that it’s a mantle that has been passed among several different teen heroes. Each Robin is unique, meaning director Matt Reeves can choose the Robin (or Robins) who best matches the tone of his movies. If original Robin Dick Grayson is deemed too campy for this version of Gotham City, the focus could shift to characters like Tim Drake or Bruce’s hotheaded son, Damian. Young though he may be, Damian’s twisted family history and penchant for violence could help him work in a way more traditional Robins wouldn’t.
The series could also opt for even less traditional choices than Damian. We certainly wouldn’t mind seeing Stephanie Brown or Carrie Kelley show up and give fans a female Robin for a change. Given that The Batman seems to be influenced by the comic storyline Batman: Zero Year, perhaps Duke Thomas may be in the cards. As a teen genius who loses his parents in a devastating attack by the Joker and finds a new father figure in Batman, Duke may thrive on the big screen in a way no other sidekick would.
Given rumors The Batman is meant to be the start of a new trilogy, introducing Robin could be a way of reflecting the passage of time over the course of three movies. Each movie could feature a different character wearing the Robin costume. We could see a character like Dick Grayson evolve from Batman’s little brother to confident, independent hero Nightwing by the end of the trilogy. Or if Stephanie Brown is put in the spotlight, we could see her debut in her original identity as Spoiler, become Robin in the second movie and finally Batgirl in the the third movie.
The main takeaway here is that even after so many cinematic Batman reboots, there’s still so much untapped potential when it comes to the Dynamic Duo. Even Dick Grayson has yet to receive the definitive live-action portrayal, to say nothing of successors like Tim Drake, Jason Todd and Damian Wayne. If DC truly wants this latest reboot to stand apart from the rest, there may be no better way than finally making Robin a core piece of the Batman puzzle again.
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For more on what to expect from Batman’s latest cinematic adventure, find out how Zoe Kravitz is keeping up with her Catwoman training during quarantine, why Reeves is tweaking the tone of the movie, and where The Batman falls in DC’s revamped movie release schedule.
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Jesse is a mild-mannered staff writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter.