The year was 1989, and I was an awkward 11-year old boy sorely in need of a hobby. I was reared by wonderful parents in a small town–the kind of place where mundane was a way of life, but where amazing things seldom occurred outside of one’s dreams. I was something of a “dabbler” when it came to my pastimes: I had “dabbled” with piano lessons (though I don’t remember attending a single lesson), dabbled with little league baseball, and even spent some time in week-long workshop with a magician at our local library, all in the hope of finding something to tickle my fancy, something to ignite the fires of my imagination and give me something on which to pour all of my pent-up, pre-adolescent energy. At that point, outside of devouring novels like Goldfish crackers, I had found nothing to fit the bill.
And then, it happened–summer, 1989. The Year of the Bat. Tim Burton’s twisted interpretation of Batman gripped me like nothing had ever done before, and after multiple viewings, I finally decided that I had found precisely that for which I was looking. I purchased my first comic book from Waldenbooks (Detective Comics #605, a copy of which resides in my safe at home), and settled in to my new favorite pastime.
Around that same time, I purchased another comic book, the cover of which featured a grown man staring pensively at a costume bedecked in bright yellow, red, and green–the unmistakeable pallette of Robin, the Boy Wonder. Above this man were the grim silhouettes of Batman and a rather lizard-like gentleman (whose moniker, I would later learn, was “Two-Face”). Tucked away in the right corner of this cover was a young boy, clothed in a leather jacket and faded blue jeans, looking at the man and the Robin suit with mouth agape and eyes filled with innocence and wonder.
The boy’s name was Tim Drake. And though I did not yet realize it, he would make an indelible mark on my life that remains to this day.
If Batman was the character that got me interested in comics, Tim Drake was responsible for keeping me there. The story of his transformation from curious young boy to potential Boy Wonder found me at a time in my life when my boyish dreams of greatness still hung ripe on the vine, ready to be plucked and consumed. The idea that a young person–someone near my own age!– could aspire to become a hero and succeed in that endeavor was infectious to me. I couldn’t get it out of my head. I knew that Batman had lost a Robin before Tim, knew that Batman claimed not to want or need the assistance of anyone, and though I understood the power of the lone Dark Knight’s image, I couldn’t help but agree with young Tim as he pled his case to his hero:
“Batman needs Robin. No matter what he thinks he wants.”
I followed his story carefully over the next months and years, waiting with baited breath as issue after issue passed with little to no mention of Tim. He had become a figurehead for me, a character that resonated with me like no other had before, and the anticipation of seeing Tim suit up and fight crime alongside of Batman was palpable whenever a new issue would hit the stands. And when it finally happened–when Tim donned the red, green, yellow, and black in all of its Breyfoglesque glory–I was elated. Batman and Robin were together again.
See, Tim Drake has always been my Robin. I read as he took his first steps into this brave, new world. I followed him as he traveled to Europe for training with Lady Shiva, as he faced the Joker for the first time, as he came into his own and starred in his long-running solo title, as he succumbed to a deadly virus in the Contagion crossover, and gradually assumed more responsibilty and earned more respect within the Bat-family. I rejoiced when he assumed leadership over the Teen Titans, and grieved when his father was murdered. And when Damian Wayne was handed the suit in the aftermath of Bruce Wayne’s “death” forcing Tim to assume the mantle of Red Robin, I too felt betrayed.
But when the New 52 initiative was announced–with no mention of a solo book featuring Tim Drake–I really began to worry that he was going to be marginalized in this new universe. Yes, he was given a starring role in Teen Titans, but now that five months have passed since the relaunch, it’s safe to say that there’s been barely a hint of Tim’s relationship with the rest of the Bat-family in either Titans or the Bat-books. It doesn’t feel right to me, not at all, and his exclusion (temporary or not) from the narratives that spawned him gives one the impression that Tim Drake just doesn’t matter.
But he does matter. He matters to me, and to countless other fans who never knew Dick Grayson or Jason Todd as the Boy Wonder. He matters to those of us who, in our prepubescent awkwardness, found in Tim Drake the courage to believe ourselves capable of more than we could ever have imagined. Tim Drake represents the hope of every young boy and girl whose dreams are cruelly tread upon by the harsh realities of life–the hope that with a lot of work and a little luck, they too might be able to rise from the muck and become larger than life, a hero whose exploits will be praised and sung for ages to come.
I know Tim Drake does matter to the powers that be at DC Comics. I appreciate what Scott Lobdell and Brett Booth are doing with him in Teen Titans, and I appreciate DC for trying new things with different characters. But I still hold out hope that one day in the not too distant future, Tim Drake will be free spread his wings and fly in his own solo title once again, and that he will rejoin his Bat-family brothers and sisters in Gotham. It’s where he really belongs, after all.
