You would’ve had a like from me. You had to go & blow it with a shot at Damian lol.
4 Likes
Carrie Kelley, for the simple reason that she is “nothing special”. No acrobatic abilities, no street tough/jack your wheels, no hacker skills, no trained since birth and silent as the grave, no DNA sharing,
What she does have is compassion and an innate sense of doing the right thing because it’s the right thing to do. She is the least trained of all the Robins, but also the most truly human. She is the extension of all those people in Gotham that Batman has fought all those years to protect. She is the embodiment of “the mission”. She is humanity, a sense of humanity Bruce lost as a kid and never got back. She is the missing piece of Batman that he has been without all these years. She completes him not as a crime fighter, but as a man. That is the role of a sidekick. To make the hero truly a better and more complete person.
Carrie Kelley is the one true Robin.
9 Likes
You put it perfectly.
2 Likes
This demonstrates the fundamental misunderstanding of what Robin represents and the role they serve in the DCU that has permeated the public perception of the role for literal decades now. Bruce does not, and has never, made any of the Robins so against their will. They all chose it out of their own need to protect others, and even if Bruce grounded or benched them, they’d be out there anyway.
Dick Grayson became Robin because he had the same burning passion to avenge his parents that Bruce did.
Jason Todd became Robin because he proved himself by helping Bruce to bust that crime school masquerading as a foster home, in addition to wanting to protect the vulnerable people in Gotham because of his strong sense of justice.
Tim Drake became Robin because Batman needs Robin, Gotham City needs Robin as the symbol of hope.
Stephanie Brown became Robin because Batman needed a Robin and there was no one else qualified to fill the role.
Damian Wayne became Robin because he wanted to join his father’s fight, on top of the other complicated legacy stuff he had to unlearn.
Duke Thomas became Robin because Gotham City needed Robin.
Carrie Kelley became Robin because she was inspired to.
All of the Robins are the kind of people that cannot stand by and watch injustice. They act. Tim, Stephanie, Duke and Carrie in particular have that quality, as they all entered crimefighting without Bruce’s blessing or knowledge. Pre-Crisis Jason had that quality in his backstory too.
There are no bad Robins. There are only bad writers, and writers who don’t understand that Robin represents hope, or that every Robin does what they do out of their own strong sense of moral justice. Bruce may have felt sorry for them, yes. He collects kids. He even trains them to defend themselves. But they are the ones who choose to don the cape and fight by his side.
All that said, while I love all the Robins, I have a particular fondness for Tim, Jason, Duke and Carrie.
11 Likes
Wonderfully said.
4 Likes
Tim Drake is my favorite Robin. Mostly because he chose to be Robin. He also is the opposite of Jason Todd. And his first costume was a huge step up. Loved it when it came out and to me it is one of the best robin costumes ever.
6 Likes
Tim Drake. He’s the detective. That fact makes him my choice every time.
3 Likes
Even without the whole Red Hood storyline Jason is still my favorite character and my favorite Robin.
He’s the underdog from the very beginning, someone that SHOULD have been destined for failure. But time and time again he proved destiny wrong, by being top of his classes even though he lived on the streets for years. Proving himself as a helpful and honorable ally to Batman, and even showing his caring nature to his mother that betrayed him, shielding her in an attempt to do one last good act before he left the world.
Each Robin is different and amazing in their own right, but Jason’s selflessness, determination, and understanding nature as Robin just makes him the best to me.
6 Likes
Wow! Who’s your favorite Robin is such a hard question to answer! I love Dick Grayson, but I always liked him more as Nightwing than Robin. Tim Drake is my choice! He’s the Robin of my childhood. I remember getting the “Robin III: Cry of the Huntress” mini-series back when it was first released and immediately loving the character. My other choice for favorite Robin, coincidentally, is Tim’s main squeeze Stephanie Brown! I REALLY like the idea of a female Robin!
2 Likes
gotta get a Duke Thomas pic up there too. show respect lol
3 Likes
@UbermenschCannabis yeah it’s ridiculous he’s not on the cover when Carrie is, and she’s from an elseworld, and Stephanie is, and was just a publicity stunt while Duke was a robin for a full two years. It’s unbelievable he’s not getting a story either.
2 Likes
Duke was Robin amongst a whole bunch of other Robins and they’re not there, either.
I respect anyone who says they like Grayson best as Nightwing. I do as well. But I still gotta choose Grayson because he is the most well rounded of any character to take the mantel in terms of skill (even though the movies always downplay them). He has shown to be a great detective as seen in Judas Contract, one of the more skilled fighters since the only one who has a shot of beating him in a fight is Damian and Dick has beat him too, he’s just as stealthy as any of them, and is more acrobatic than any of them.
He even is the best in terms of character. No other character to take the mantel has encompassed what Robin represents more than Grayson. Robin is the light to Batman’s dark - it is what’s supposed to bring actual personality and character to the table. Nobody has encompassed that funny, light-hearted nature like Grayson. It is that dynamic which always makes their team ups stand out and why they always work so well together. And sadly, why he will always be stuck under the Batman umbrella no matter how much DC tries to make it seem like he’s become his own man, they will still always use him as a plot device for the cape and cowl which is the exact opposite of what being his own man is.
2 Likes
Jason and Damian are the complete opposites of what Robin represents. But Damian does the rebel or bad boy trope better than Jason. Jason is the whinny “bad stuff happened to me so now I’m gonna kill people for a living” one. Whereas Damian was raised and trained to kill people and is trying to learn how to not be a sociopath. Far more interesting of you ask me.
Tim is the bland one.
Carrie Kelly was the closest to encompassing what Robin represents.
And Stephanie Brown… I’m not even gonna go there cuz her time was too short to make an opinion and she’s hopped around from like 3-4 different monikers since her creation so not even she knows what she is.
1 Like
And can we just agree that there is absolutely no reason to have this many Robins? It’s RIDICULOUS! Like get rid of half of them and it still seems like a lot! No other character has gone through this many sidekicks. I don’t even think Superman has ever had a sidekick. Wonder Woman has had 2. GA has had 1. Aquaman has had like 2 (Garth and Kaldur which nobody likes Garth so they can get rid of him and make Lagoon Boy an official side kick and let Kaldur take Garth’s position and IDK if you can even count Tula was she even an actual sidekick or just a supporting character???) are there any other sidekicks out there?
1 Like
Hasn’t GA had Roy, Mia, Cissy, and Emiko as sidekicks?
To your point, I’m not sure if we’ve gotten more Robins or human Green Lanterns in the last decade.
For the Robins, I don’t really consider the ‘We are Robin’ Robins to be on the same level as the main 4. (Or 5, counting Step, and even then Steph was only Robin for approximately one big story arc, right?) Still, I set main-universe-trained-with/by-Batman Robins apart from Elseworlds Robins. Carrie being included so much puzzles/bugs me a bit. Nothing specifically against the character, but she seems to be getting more attention in this anthology than some main universe Robins (regardless of their duration donning the pixie boots).
On a side note, I think this thread is interesting compared to some of the ‘Best Robin’ threads on DCU. I know the word ‘favorite’ vs ‘best’ changes my Robin rankings, as do qualifiers like ‘as Robin’ or ‘becoming Batman.’
4 Likes
IDK them so I couldn’t tell you.
Yes Stephanie has like on big story arc and “died”.
And yeah people seem to get favorite and best confused. That’s all I’m gonna say.
1 Like
Definitely gotta go with Jason on this one, maybe followed closely by Dick. There’s an issue of Red Hood and the Outlaws that shows everyone’s most cherished memory and Jason’s memory of being sick and staying at home with Bruce just hit all the feels.
4 Likes
Cry of the Huntress is incredible!!! Also, so with u on Stephanie Brown in any role. Spoiler, Robin & Batgirl.
2 Likes