Tag: Batman

Batman and Robin have a very weird and probably illegal relationship. Let’s discuss it.

But first: There’s a big joke, going back decades, that Batman and Robin are gay. This wonderful article is not about that. This is about things in the Batman and Robin relationship that everyone takes for granted, but are actually exceptionally strange, when you stop and think about them.

Also, we aren’t here to scold fictional characters. If anything, the messiness of the Batman and Robin relationship makes it more fascinating, from a storytelling standpoint, because it muddles with the boring portrayal of Batman as perfect.

In fact, as we shall show, the man who dresses up as a bat every night is a total weirdo. Starting with…

No. 1 Robin’s Costume

Batman, famously, dresses in dark colors as camouflage, allowing him to blend into the night, invisible to criminals. He’s able to dodge their gunfire in part because he’s so hard to see.

Robin, meanwhile, wears the brightest costume possible. While fighting alongside Batman. The Caped Crusader hides in the shadows, while his youthful ward… wears a garish red, yellow and green costume that attracts attention. And bullets, we assume.

We saw a Batman satire once where Robin was called “Target,” and that satire was right on the money. We would link to it if we could find it, but unfortunately when we Google “Robin costume target” we just get pages of Robin costumes… from Target.

No. 2 Robin Is a Minor

There have been many Robins over the years, and while their origin stories have changed over the decades, all are presented as minors at the time they meet Batman. Remember he’s called “The Boy Wonder.”

Dick Grayson, the first Robin, first appeared in Detective Comics #38 (eleven issues after Batman debuted in Detective Comics #27) and was a junior member of the acrobatics troupe The Flying Graysons, led by his parents, John and Mary. When criminals kill them, Batman takes on Dick Grayson as his ward, training him to fight crime.

Yes, Dick Grayson was an acrobat, which is dangerous. But taking a minor out on the streets at night to fight criminals with guns — in a brightly colored costume, no less — is child endangerment.

While we don’t know what state Gotham is in, we do know it resembles New York City, and that under New York Penal Law 260.10(1), “a person is guilty of endangering the welfare of a child when… he or she knowingly acts in a manner likely to be injurious to the physical, mental or moral welfare of a child less than seventeen years old or directs or authorizes such child to engage in an occupation involving a substantial risk of danger to his or her life or health.”

It’s a Class A misdemeanor, which can result in up to a year in jail.

No. 3. Batman Calls Robin ‘Chum’

To add to the endangerment thing… Batman often calls Robin “chum.”

There are two meanings of the word chum. It can mean friend — or it can refer to the stuff you throw to sharks, as bait.

We wonder how Batman is using it.

Also Read: All 10 Batman Movies Ranked Worst to Best

The Mask

Again, inequality. Batman wears a cowl that covers his entire face, except for his mouth. Robin wears a masquerade-party style mask that covers only his eyes.

If the point of a mask is hiding your identity, so no enemies can harm you while you’re in civilian mode, or by attacking your friends and family, Robin’s mask is a real problem. Batman is endangering not just Robin, but also himself, Alfred, Batgirl, and… I guess that’s their whole inner circle. But still.

Even the modernized Robin of the ’90s, played by Chris O’Donnell, wore a little mask that concealed almost nothing. Ditto for Batgirl (Alicia Silverstone).

The Robin Hood Thing

Robin was modeled on Robin Hood. In 1940, when Robin was introduced, Robin Hood was a red-hot pop culture property thanks to the 1938 Errol Flynn hit The Adventures of Robin Hood (see publicity still, above).

But Robin Hood is famous for two things. One is stealing from the rich and giving to the poor, and the other is shooting arrows.

Robin, on the other hand, works for a billionaire, helping him beat up street criminals, and doesn’t even get arrows, which might be helpful, given the criminals’ guns. Especially considering his loud, gaudy, bullet-magnet costume,

Death

As we mentioned, there have been several Robins through the years. When Dick Grayson grew up and became Nightwing (finally donning a dark colored costume — smart!), he was replaced by another Boy Wonder, Jason Todd, in 1983.

But five years later, in part because fans didn’t love Jason Todd, DC Comics introduced the groundbreaking Death in the Family storyline in which The Joker bombed a building with Jason inside — and fans got to call a 900 number to decide if Jason lived or died. Fans voted for him to die. (But don’t blame 13-year-old me — I voted for him to live.)

What’s even weirder than fans voting to blow up a teenager is that after Jason’s death, no one from the state came to say, “Hey — what happened?” No one investigated Bruce Wayne for maybe, potentially, putting the poor boy in harm’s way. It was just, “Hey, that kid who looks exactly like Robin never comes around anymore.”

Ward

In the classic Batman TV show Adam West’s Bruce Wayne would often refer to Dick Grayson as his “youthful ward.”

Cornell Law School’s Legal Information Institute defines a “ward” as “a person who is under the protection, care , or guardianship of another individual, typically due to being a minor or legally incapacitated.” It notes that “courts appoint guardians to oversee the well-being and decision-making of wards who are unable to care for themselves.”

This means Bruce Wayne had to go to court and explain that he wanted to take on Dick Grayson as his “ward” — despite being, in the eyes of the court, a total stranger to Grayson.

Wouldn’t it be more typical to make someone your foster child? Or adopt him? Maybe. But here’s where things may get dark, from a legal standpoint.

A ward, unlike an adopted child, does not receive an inheritance — unless the guardian specifies it in the guardian’s will. So it’s possible that Batman is endangering Robin, night after night, with no assurance that he will receive any part of the vast Wayne fortune. Which is absolutely chilling.

Amusingly, the youthful ward of the Batman TV show was played by Burt Ward, so maybe the show was just having fun with that.

Aside: Did The People’s Joker Get It Right?

While countless Batman stories have skimmed over the weirder parts of the Batman and Robin relationship, it took a low-budget satire to confront it head-on.

The People’s Joker, in which filmmaker Vera Drew plays a trans joker trying to break into the Gotham comedy scene, features a satirized version of Carrie Kelley, the version of Robin who appears in Frank Miller’s 1986 The Dark Knight Returns.

In The People’s Joker, Carrie gender transitions to become Jason Todd, who then enters into a toxic, predatory relationship with Batman, in spite of their age difference and Jason being 17.

Obviously, a sexual relationship between Batman and Robin isn’t canon, and Drew is making fun of the aforementioned gay jokes about the Batman and Robin relationship. But what the film gets right is that even in the most charitable interpretation, the Batman and Robin relationship involves a mature, wealthy man putting a much younger, orphaned partner in harm’s way. We all them the Dynamic Duo, but one half of the duo holds all the power.

It’s weird. And weirdly compelling.

Liked This List of 7 Weird Things About Batman’s Relationship With Robin That No One Likes to Talk About?

You might also like this list of the Best Superhero Movies Before The MCU or this Brief History of Krypto,Superman’s Dog.

Main image: Adam West as Batman and Burt Ward as Robin in the Batman TV show. ABC