Tim Drake, Red Robin, and DC Being Stupidly Obsessed with Making hime Evil
Tim Drake, Red Robin, and DC Being Stupidly Obsessed with Making him Evil
So recently I read Red Robin # 24 and found out about the weird that we get another prediction that Tim is going to turn out evil. Before you had Teen Titans with future gun totting Batman Tim; which always seemed wrong to me. Partly because a gun just doesn’t seem like Tim’s style, unless it was for dealing with a super. They did the same kind of stuff to Cass. They are doing it to disgusting extreme in the nu52. But I try not the think about the nu52. (Perhaps if the collective fandom wills it hard enough it will go away.) Anyway, it feels that at some point writers decided that smart/talented……EVIL!! When really, really it should be the other way around. Plus part of what made Tim Drake so great is how much he cared about people and his doubt. I feel no reason why he should ever lose those qualities completely or for long.
Plus a lot of the times they are trying to make Tim seem mean/evil they either write him completely out of character or other batfamily comes off crazy. Like during the resurrection of Ras al Ghul when when Alfred berated Tim for attacking Damian when he broke into the manor again. It’s completely crazy to give Tim a hard time for doing so because he has no reason to think that Damian isn’t trying to kill them like he was last time. It’s not like Tim is telepathic, their was literally no way he could have known and was just trying to protect Alfred. Batman is one of the worse at this; for instance the way he treated Nightwing after he nearly killed the Joker despite the fact that he nearly killed Joker at least once as well. Batman’s genius response is to give the emotionally unstable Dick Grayson the cold shoulder and plenty of alone time with his thoughts, BRILLIANT!! There’s no way something bad could have happened by doing that (sarcasm). I mean seriously, that should be high on the list of things not to do in the guide for caring for Dick Graysons.
Then later Batman is failing again at the whole mentor thing when Tim is shown considering killing Boomarang he treats Tim like a monster. This is despite the fact that you know he’s had similar thoughts before about the guy that killed his parents. Not to mention the countless WTF plots Batman will put his people through like what he instructed Steph to do in the last couple issues of Robin. I wonder how that conversation went down…”now Spoiler if I should disappear, things will bad and Gotham will be in a bad state, so I want you to make Robin’s job as DIFFICULT as possible. ” ” Yes, sir, batman!!” ( That and the vanishing of life threatening third degree burns over night and ruining of earlier more innocent stories. I mean I know that Batman is supposed to be escentric; but he is Also supposed to be great at reading people and a super profiler. He looks just plain general kind of stupid when they write Batman this way. I like my Batman to have and to use at least some SOME emotional intelligence when it comes to taking care of his own people. Even an emotionless cold captain knows that taking care of his crew is essential.
Granted I think it is out out of character for him to tr to kill Boomarang in the first place, especially when he’s been shown to be content to stick back in prison were he belongs. I mean if he was going to kill Boomarang he would have done so much earlier, when the pain was more raw. I also don’t see Tim allowing Damian to possibly find the ‘hit’ list; Tim is far to careful for that. He also wouldn’t deliberately leave it so Damian could find and I do not believe he would antagonize Damian like that. Tim would not antagonize Damian not because Damian has suddenly become his favorite Robin or anything but because he feels the exact opposite. Tim would leave Damian to Dick and would in doing so avoid them both. Simply put Tim is the practical, careful planning type especially if he has puzzles to solve. If you want to show him having family issues it should be Tim giving Dick the run around or tacking on too much etc. Not that Tim wouldn’t defend himself from Damian if he had to.
I doubt he would even make a list because Tim likes being a detective not a one man defense force. When ever they have Tim doing these kind of controlling things they fundamentally misunderstand what Tim’s nature is and what drives him. Tim Drake’s calling is detective work and investigation not Gotham vigilante cop. Tim Drake does not enjoy controlling people and managing them. He can lead and manage if he has to but he does enjoy doing so. This is partly because he understands the danger, burden and pointlessness of trying to control everything.
After finding Bruce I would have expected Tim Drake to realize how much he likes being a traveling Sherlock Holmes and would keep doing what he was before. Except maybe this time he might take the time to enjoy the sites. Like Ginko from Mushishi he would travel but also have home bases he would return to at times. When Red Robin was like this it was both cool and unique for a batman book.
Also I wonder did they put Nightwing through this kind of stuff?
So recently I read Red Robin # 24 and found out about the weird that we get another prediction that Tim is going to turn out evil. Before you had Teen Titans with future gun totting Batman Tim; which always seemed wrong to me. Partly because a gun just doesn’t seem like Tim’s style, unless it was for dealing with a super. They did the same kind of stuff to Cass. They are doing it to disgusting extreme in the nu52. But I try not the think about the nu52. (Perhaps if the collective fandom wills it hard enough it will go away.) Anyway, it feels that at some point writers decided that smart/talented……EVIL!! When really, really it should be the other way around. Plus part of what made Tim Drake so great is how much he cared about people and his doubt. I feel no reason why he should ever lose those qualities completely or for long.
Plus a lot of the times they are trying to make Tim seem mean/evil they either write him completely out of character or other batfamily comes off crazy. Like during the resurrection of Ras al Ghul when when Alfred berated Tim for attacking Damian when he broke into the manor again. It’s completely crazy to give Tim a hard time for doing so because he has no reason to think that Damian isn’t trying to kill them like he was last time. It’s not like Tim is telepathic, their was literally no way he could have known and was just trying to protect Alfred. Batman is one of the worse at this; for instance the way he treated Nightwing after he nearly killed the Joker despite the fact that he nearly killed Joker at least once as well. Batman’s genius response is to give the emotionally unstable Dick Grayson the cold shoulder and plenty of alone time with his thoughts, BRILLIANT!! There’s no way something bad could have happened by doing that (sarcasm). I mean seriously, that should be high on the list of things not to do in the guide for caring for Dick Graysons.
Then later Batman is failing again at the whole mentor thing when Tim is shown considering killing Boomarang he treats Tim like a monster. This is despite the fact that you know he’s had similar thoughts before about the guy that killed his parents. Not to mention the countless WTF plots Batman will put his people through like what he instructed Steph to do in the last couple issues of Robin. I wonder how that conversation went down…”now Spoiler if I should disappear, things will bad and Gotham will be in a bad state, so I want you to make Robin’s job as DIFFICULT as possible. ” ” Yes, sir, batman!!” ( That and the vanishing of life threatening third degree burns over night and ruining of earlier more innocent stories. I mean I know that Batman is supposed to be escentric; but he is Also supposed to be great at reading people and a super profiler. He looks just plain general kind of stupid when they write Batman this way. I like my Batman to have and to use at least some SOME emotional intelligence when it comes to taking care of his own people. Even an emotionless cold captain knows that taking care of his crew is essential.
Granted I think it is out out of character for him to tr to kill Boomarang in the first place, especially when he’s been shown to be content to stick back in prison were he belongs. I mean if he was going to kill Boomarang he would have done so much earlier, when the pain was more raw. I also don’t see Tim allowing Damian to possibly find the ‘hit’ list; Tim is far to careful for that. He also wouldn’t deliberately leave it so Damian could find and I do not believe he would antagonize Damian like that. Tim would not antagonize Damian not because Damian has suddenly become his favorite Robin or anything but because he feels the exact opposite. Tim would leave Damian to Dick and would in doing so avoid them both. Simply put Tim is the practical, careful planning type especially if he has puzzles to solve. If you want to show him having family issues it should be Tim giving Dick the run around or tacking on too much etc. Not that Tim wouldn’t defend himself from Damian if he had to.
I doubt he would even make a list because Tim likes being a detective not a one man defense force. When ever they have Tim doing these kind of controlling things they fundamentally misunderstand what Tim’s nature is and what drives him. Tim Drake’s calling is detective work and investigation not Gotham vigilante cop. Tim Drake does not enjoy controlling people and managing them. He can lead and manage if he has to but he does enjoy doing so. This is partly because he understands the danger, burden and pointlessness of trying to control everything.
After finding Bruce I would have expected Tim Drake to realize how much he likes being a traveling Sherlock Holmes and would keep doing what he was before. Except maybe this time he might take the time to enjoy the sites. Like Ginko from Mushishi he would travel but also have home bases he would return to at times. When Red Robin was like this it was both cool and unique for a batman book.
Also I wonder did they put Nightwing through this kind of stuff?