Is Robin a DNPC?

[Christopher R Taylor]

I liked the George Perez run on Wonder Woman, that's about it

[massey]

In the 1940s comics, Robin was clearly very young.  I think 8 or 9 years old would be about right.  Remember that it was supposed to make the book more appealing to children.  Supposedly the thinking was that kids couldn't picture themselves as Batman, but they could picture themselves hanging out with Batman.  I don't know, I never had a hard time picturing myself as Batman or Superman (I always thought Robin sucked, even as a kid).

 

[massey]

If I had to make it work in a semi-realistic way, without Batman being guilty of extreme child endangerment, I'd say he only brought pre-teen Robin along on investigative adventures.  It's not that big a deal if your 8 year old kid is hanging out in costume while you're taking fingerprints from the scene of a burglary or something, or talking to someone who witnessed a crime.  But you leave him at home when it's time to bust a bunch of mobsters.  You could even take him on "patrol" when you're pretty sure it's going to be a quiet night.

 

Now by the time he's 13 or 14, and he's in excellent shape and has been doing super advanced martial arts training with you for the last 5 years, maybe you let him help you beat up low level thugs and criminals.  It's still not super safe, but the justification is that Dick is dealing with the same anger that Bruce is, and you have to give him an outlet.

[Greywind]

Probably why Dick was an older teen in Batman Forever.

[Jhamin]

8 hours ago, massey said:

(I always thought Robin sucked, even as a kid).

Robin.... varied a lot from one version to another.  Some were OK, many were not.  I always appreciated a character that was audience friendly but wasn't useless or irritating.  I feel like a lot of folks involved in these projects assume children can only relate to idiotic bumbling cowards for some reason.  I felt like this was and is a too common trope.

Personally, I was a child of the 80s and my friends and I watched a lot of Toy IP Cartoons.  Every single one had a character clearly designed for us kids to relate too and my friends and I hated them all!!   Scooter from Gobots, Snarf from Thundercats, Orko from HeMan, Scrappy Doo, Godzooky from Godzilla, Tbob from MASK... I could go on.

GI Joe for some reason didn't have an idiot sidekick.. at first.  They eventually had ShipWreck who was an imbecile but could still fight and wasn't a child.  The Transformers had Bumblebee but he was both brave and competent and just "one of the gang".  We were OK with him.  (and he is right up there in fandom popularity even today)
 

[steriaca]

8 hours ago, Jhamin said:

The Transformers had Bumblebee but he was both brave and competent and just "one of the gang".  We were OK with him.  (and he is right up there in fandom popularity even today)
 

You kinda forgot Wheelie ("Stop. Stair. Over there."). He was a Robo Kenny (to quote Brandon on YouTube).

 

Most people don't like him because he was a kid robot. Then again most people didn't like Daniel Witwiki either. 

[Christopher R Taylor]

Quote

Robin.... varied a lot from one version to another.  Some were OK, many were not. 

 

Robin stories varied wildly, yeah.  Some were great, even way back in the golden age you'd get a cool Robin story showing how capable he was. Then there'd be a stupid one with him almost kiling Batman with a giant bowling ball or something.

 

But it took until Marv Wolfman got the character to consistently start treating him as a capable, interesting and valuable hero in his own right.