Is DC Moving Towards Making Tim Drake Bisexual in Batman: Urban Legends #4?

Yea agreed. It’s a valid change but clearly it is a change. The character was conceived and written as straight for thirty years, and was portrayed as unambiguously straight throughout that time.

Potentially there’s an interesting story to be told here about adolescence, the search for and nature of identity. Tim’s shifting code names become allegory for a deeper internal conflict. But this is something that’s being added/ inserted into the character, not something that has always been there.

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Well we they can easily say that it is part of the changes for Infinite Frontier. That gets rid of the retcons about times when he was clearly straight for 30 years, and lets him now be bi.

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If we never let characters grow and change from how they’d “always been intended,” Batman would have no code of honor. Superman wouldn’t fly. Lois Lane would be kind of an insufferable jerk. Characters that have been around for decades evolve; that’s the nature of these things.

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I had a code of honor. It was a very, very, very, very broken code, but I had it.

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Sure, they could. That seems like a cop-out though. If you want to make a change like this, there’s inevitably a story behind it. Ascribing it to some multiversal reality revision lessens it.

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dude you took the words like right out of my mouth, steph best story( my opinion) when she was batgirl was when she and Tim were apart. also, I prefer her friendship with Cass to dating tim

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This is a tricky topic with so many “yeah but what about?” responses. I can think of a counterpoint to almost everything I think or how it could sound even though I don’t mean it a certain way.

  1. People can absolutely change and realize their identity as they age/mature so it can happen to characters. I think where it gets tough is the stories can feel out of nowhere because it’s like the press release comes before the story and then boom the character is changed. I can only speculate that this kind of life change or decision is a journey and a lot of the time the change is made to characters between issues rather than an evolution.
  2. Someone somewhere posted a snapshot from the Pride issue that I will butcher in paraphrase. Basically, it’s important to have diversity because it means that someone out there can now see themselves in a character. I think that is an absolutely valid point but I do think it’s important to note that some people saw themselves in Tim (or Iceman, etc) already and now they don’t. A lot of the anger over these changes can be toxic internet “fanboy” (unfair use of fandom) so any time a person might resist the change they are labeled a bigot or hater but for readers that gain Tim there are others who lose Tim. There are still many many many more characters left so that’s absolutely not a plea to feel sorry for anyone, not a “won’t someone think of the straight white male fans?” rant but it would be true for some fans.
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There is no way to know that. People grow and change everyday. They realize new things about themselves all the time. Just because there hasn’t been a hint about it doesn’t mean it hasn’t been there.

Not to mention, LGBTQ characters haven’t been written often until recently. I feel like for a long time, every comic character was straight. To be able to add this growth to characters is a great parallel to the real world, as well.

No matter what direction this series goes with Tim, I’m just happy he gets some time in the spotlight. He’s been semi-forgotten about recently. It’s nice to see him.

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I see your point, but that doesn’t mean that every character change is a good idea. Was Hal Jordan better off when he turned into Parallax, or when Geoff Johns retconned that he was possessed so that Hal could return to how he was? Was Superman’s origin good when he was just sent as a baby when Krypton blew up naturally, or did it get better when Bendis changed the story so that Rogal Zarr blew up the planet? For that matter, did Superman’s character improve when he revealed his secret identity, or do most people still see Superman as having a secret identity?

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It’s always gonna be a risk making a notable change w/ an established character and sure, those risks don’t always pay off. But it’s still far better to keep trying to move them forward than just keeping them stagnant forever. Changes like this can ultimately go either way, but keeping characters the same forever is a surefire way to ensure that people get bored w/ them

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Does anybody remember this?

They should do the same with introducing new lgbtq characters instead of changing established ones. I just find it lazy of them to keep doing this with established characters. I’m okay with it happening from time to time, but dc doesn’t know when to restrain themselves. Alan Scott, Harley Quinn, Constantine, poison ivy, Tim drake, Wonder Woman, etc.

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That’s not a great argument when it comes to sexuality because sexuality can change, it’s fluid. Someone can present as straight and then later on in life come out of the closet. It’s not the same as low-effort racebending.

In this particular case, too, if Tim comes out as Bi it doesn’t invalidate any of his past relationships, just ‘adds on’ another aspect to his character. Not quite substitution, more of an addition.

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True for real people, but not so much for fictional characters. Tim is the sum of his appearances, which number in the hundreds, and in none of them was he even presented as bi-curious. We don’t see his entire inner life, so it’s possible and valid for a later writer to add something in there, but that is an addition and the story should treat it as such.

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The fact that you have to ask the question illustrates very well why DC prefers to retrofit existing characters.

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Wait, what?

Fictional people are written by real people. Real people write themselves and others into fictional people. If fictional characters don’t represent or display the traits of real people, then they are poorly written.

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Not every change is a good change, and not every change is a bad one. Writers need room to try new things, though. Stagnation is death.

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yeah on the note of changes it can help bring in new fans or rekindle old fans, for example i thought the superman id reveal was stupid, but my dad( a superman fan who hadnt read in any comic stuff for the last 20-30 years) was really excited when he heard about it

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Just because Tim isn’t straight, but dating boys and girls doesn’t mean people still can’t see themselves in Tim. Is straightness so essential to seeing yourself in a character? Tim still is interested in girls. He’s still the athletic nerd he always was. He just thinks some guys are attractive.

I’ve also seen the “The LGBTQ community has enough queer characters” comments.

  1. Robin was viewed as gay for decades as the book Seduction of the Innocent that resulted in comic burnings points out. Dick Grayson is perpetually portrayed in feminine ways, Jason Todd follows some tropes of the angsty queer character, Tim is queer coded with Connor alot, and Damian has Jon. I’m not saying every robin is queer, but historically Robin is a queer-coded character. So to see a SINGLE robin go past queer coding is cool.

  2. There’s never too much representation of minorities. Traditional minority characters are relegated to the side lines. Sure DC has Batwoman, but where’s an ongoing Batwoman story? We have Renee Montoya, but I don’t see a Question solo story. We have Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy which is 1) Queer couple in the entire batman family. Harper Rows Brother is maybe in 2 comics a year. And Dick Grayson is more queer coded. So are queer stories really at risk of “over representation?”

  3. Tim has a history of queer-coding. It’s not like this came out of nowhere. In one story, he got stuck in a pride parade and ending up being liked by everyone and invited to a bunch of pride after parties. That’s not exactly straight behavior.

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  1. Alan Scott queer stories are only happening RECENTLY, and the idea that he couldn’t come out because it was the 1940s makes a LOT of sense.
  2. Harley Quinn/Poison Ivy got their first MAJOR clear story recently in Harley Quinn: The Animated Series. Until that their relationship was always an “alternate universe” or Queer-coded story.
  3. Constantine is a great queer character and those stories have been great.
  4. Name a girl x girl Wonder Woman story. I’ve yet to read one. She’s “technically bi”, but it’s always Steve Trevor.
  5. Tim Drake is a queer-coded character and isn’t even out yet.

Also a new report says that 15% of Gen Z is queer. That number is probably because of coming out and stuff slightly higher and other generations which are numerically lower are probably also higher. So should 15-20% of existing characters be queer based on the studies? Obviously, its a story decision, but a character coming out shouldn’t be viewed as an over representation of queer character when maybe 1 in every 12 major heroes is queer.

I’d love for more new queer characters to exist and newer ones to explore their sexuality. Jonathan Kent is a wide-open question. (Sure he dated Saturn Girl, but did anyone read that story, and they had to have broken up fairly quickly). Damian is similarly a question mark.

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So we shouldn’t make any changes to comics?

In 10 years, are we just reprinting the same 5 stories? If we don’t make changes, then what’s the point of continuing comics.

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