Batman Annual #8 (*October* 1982)



"The Messiah of the Crimson Sun"

Script: Mike W. Barr
Pencils: Trevor Von Eeden
Inks: Trevor Von Eeden
Colors: Lynn Varley
Letters: John Costanza

Grade: n/a (only exploring Robin's role in this story)

I considered skipping this one. After all, if it's unlikely any editors or future creators were paying attention to those Batgirl B stories (though it turns out that both were), then it's practically a guarantee that no one was going to take note of an annual with a fill-in writer. So maybe this story won't do much to reflect how the Batman Office sees Robin, nor will it do much to guide what future writers do with him, but it's written by Mike W. Barr--who will go on to write what is arguably the definitive Batman and (Jason Todd) Robin team-ups in a few short years--so I couldn't resist checking out his take on Robin here.

It was not what I expected.

I'm continually annoyed by fans who argue that Frank Miller was the first to make Batman dark after he'd been campy/hokey for decades. For one, I don't see the outstanding work done throughout th '70s and '80s by Robbins, O'Neil, Englehart, Wein, Conway, nor Moench as being at all silly, lacking in quality, nor catering to kids. If anything, the non-David V. Reed pre-Crisis stories are often stronger and better editorially managed than those of the Post-Crisis. Additionally, the bad-ass Batman is clearly present in several stories and runs well-ahead of Miller, including here:



This Batman is so dark and terrifying that he even scares those closest to him:



and that just might include Robin at times:




As with Miller, Barr seems to feel that Batman is darkest as a solitary figure, a brightly colored teen side-kick taking away from some of the effect, so Batman is primarily a solo hero here, but (slightly different from what we are seeing in Conway's core titles), Dick is a very willing side-kick. His "teen-ness" is played up far more though, and so he wakes up at 11am, hoping to join in on whatever fun is already in progress:





As a teen, though, he is also a little cocky and quick to get in over his head. Barr takes the opportunity to make it absolutely clear that Dick is no equal to Bruce:




And then Dick pretty much fades into the background of this story, needing to be rescued by Talia, and beyond that point functioning as a narrative tool who can conveniently get Batman to explain his plans for our sakes:




Make no mistake: Barr sees Batman as a solo act, sometimes allowing his teenage sidekick to play a role, largely in the background. This is no more obvious than in Trevor Von Eedon's striking final panel, in which Robin is off in the back, looking in the wrong direction, while Batman takes up all the primary focus and stares down the reader:




In a way, this is actually quite similar to how Conway was writing Dick prior to the most recent issue of Batman. But perhaps Barr drives home the idea that Robin is second-fiddle a little more definitively.

It really does make one wonder what Dick Grayson is even doing back in the Batman titles. Is Levitz really trying to hold down the star leader of the ultra-successful New Teen Titans comic just so that Batman can look superior to him in two titles that far fewer people are reading?

Detective Comics #519 (October 1982)





Well, it's official.



Len Wein takes over as editor next issue. As much as Wein's Bat Office will soon go on to produce nearly all of my absolute favorite Batman stories of all time, it also seems clear that Wein was very much opposed to The Batman Family and any retro hokiness that might come with it. Thus, Kesel and Von Eeden's new approach to Batgirl will be abruptly cancelled next month, only two issues in, and Dick Grayson is only a few months away from being replaced entirely.

So here come the final Dick and Babs stories of the Giordano era.




"...Like a Dreadnought in the Sky!"

Script: Gerry Conway (plot); Paul Kupperberg (script)
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: John Calnan
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda
Editing: Len Wein

Grade: n/a (only exploring Robin's role in this story)

Robin's new role seems to be consistent -- he's the assistant on the sidelines, there for the purposes of getting exposition out of Bruce:



and occasionally being the B-team on some adventure in which Batman gets the primary action, fighting solo:





"f**k you, Robin. I punched a dude."



Still, I really enjoyed this panel, in which Newton gives a warmth to this "family" that offers relief from the darkness of Batman's solo outings:



It's not that this new handling of Dick Grayson in the Batman titles is a poor choice, but it is odd to portray him as eagerly on the sidelines when he has an entire team to lead in another title that is outselling these books by a mile wide.

But I guess Len Wein is about to change all of that.





"...When Velvet Paws Caress the Ground!"

Script: Barbara Kesel
Pencils: Trevor Von Eeden
Inks: Rodin Rodriguez
Colors: Gene D'Angelo
Letters: Janice Chiang

Grade: B-


The second and final outing for the Kesel/Von Eeden team concludes a story that doesn't end up doing very much to wow us, and leaves us with a potential long-term villain for Batgirl that no one was going to care about. Still, the art was sophisticated, as was this characterization of the unstable brother that seemed to intensify and abruptly change with every passing page:



Indeed, what was most interesting about this story was the characterization of Babs Gordon. On the one hand, Kesel wants to repeatedly remind us that Batgirl is waaaaay tougher than people give her credit for:



In fact, it looks as if Giordano wouldn't let Kesel change the intro to the feature, so she wrote her own beneath it:



One reads like a bad soap opera. The other introduces a bada$$.


And, on the other hand, Kesel dares to depict a more vulnerable side to her that only a woman could pull off. This little reminder about biological clocks and maternity, for example, thrown in as an after-thought, might have seemed like sexism coming from a male,



And yet it certainly is something a female crimefighter in her mid-twenties would have to be thinking about that wouldn't necessarily haunt a male counterpart.

Or this display of irrational emotion that absolutely would reek of sexism if written by a man, and yet feels sincere/authentic for this character:



Maybe it really does take a woman to write a woman, if for no other reason than that a man would never get away with depicting women like this, accurate or otherwise.


Had this series been allowed to continue, I suspect that it didn't have much steam left in it. Kesel's first story really isn't an intriguing one beyond the brother's characterization, and the plotting is frankly dull. I wonder how many good stories she had in her. Her depiction of Babs is at least interesting, but I'm not sure that giving Babs stereotypical female characteristics would have been enough to keep me interested. Still, it's at least better than the weak and incapable maiden that Burkett was writing by the end of his run.


Thus begins the slow movement of Batgirl towards DC obscurity. Nine more appearances prior to Crisis on Infinite Earths (most of them in 1983, and as an un-costumed Babs Gordon), and then seven appearances after Crisis and before being crippled by The Joker. After this issue, it will be twenty-nine years before Barbara Gordon gets her own ongoing feature as Batgirl again.

Batman #353 (November 1982)



"Last Laugh"

Script: Gerry Conway
Pencils: José Luis García-López
Inks: Dan Adkins
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: n/a (only exploring Robin's role in this story)


One issue into Len Wein's editorial reign, and the shake-up is already evident. Dick Grayson will not be appearing at all in the next two issues of Detective Comics, and this is literally his only moment in this story:



An obedient servant who doesn't even get a line of dialogue. If the leader of DC's hottest selling title seemed marginalized in these titles before, it sure seems like things are going to get a lot worse until a replacement is introduced four months from now.





"'The Sting'-- Batman Style"

Script: Mike W. Barr
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Dennis Jensen
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Todd Klein

Grade: n/a (only exploring Robin's role in this story)


Well I'll admit to being more than a little surprised, after seeing Robin get so thoroughly shafted in the lead story, to turn the page and find this:



And hey, if that isn't refreshing enough, it begins with showing off just how much popularity and influence Robin still has in Gotham a page later:



...but don't get fooled.

It's Mike W. Barr writing, the guy who played Robin as an utter chump in Batman Annual #8 last month, and (if anything), the depiction is worse here. Bruce is constantly (and kindly) noting what an idiot Dick is, getting swindled by known conmen because he has devoted multiple weekends to earning money for their made-up charity without ever taking the time to investigate any of it:



going off on his own to confront them, with Bruce concerned that two middle-aged conmen will somehow be too much for him:



Dick getting defeated by a sprinkler before he can even get to the conmen:



and then deciding to impersonate Batman poorly (even though he has successfully done it multiple times in the past), while inadvertently blowing Bruce's plan to recover the money as Matches Malone:



Bruce then taking him down easily so that they can head home and Dick can reflect on just how much he sucks as a crime fighter:



before Bruce puts everything right without him.


Really, the entire point of this story was to turn Dick into comedy relief who could never conceivably be trusted to fight crime on his own.

Even while he's leading the Titans...


Fortunately, there is no follow-up to this installment. This was likely the final Batman and Robin team-up to see print before Dick gives up the costume and Jason Todd takes over. Not really the legacy that an iconic duo should go out on.

I wonder if some fans-turned-creators pushed back against the idea of a more mature Robin simply because that wasn't the Robin they knew and stories such as the above was their way of "making things right".  From time to time, you hear about one creator taking umbrage with something another has done (John Byrne claiming that Chris Claremont's Doctor Doom in such and such an issue was a Doom-bot; Peter David "rewriting" Erik Larsen's Doc Ock victory over The Hulk to make the former look like a fool; The Punisher beats up Wolverine in Punisher's title so whoever was writing Wolverine says Punisher must be gay  ; etc, etc).  Perhaps something similar was going on here but handled less extremely.  

I read "The Sting - Batman Style" a little over 30 years ago and enjoyed it since it felt fairly in keeping with the Robin I was also reading in those solo tales you'd sometimes find during the Silver Age.  Not knowing much about New Teen Titans it didn't occur to me that Dick Grayson was being depicted elsewhere as a more capable hero.  I wonder if some of those writers who grew up with those same Silver Age tales I was reading back issues of - such as Mike Barr - looked at Robin leading a team of heroes and handling himself more than capably and thought "Come on - Mr. "Holy-Bunnions, Batman!" is now supposed to be an almost Batman level strategist and fighter?  Pfft!  We'll see about that!" 

No Batgirl book for 29 years? Birds of Prey doesn't count? I suppose she's not Batgirl there, but Oracle, but it's very clearly her book.

OK, that's fair.   

I actually like her better as Oracle... makes her alot more unique than just another Bat person.

Batman #354 (December 1982)



"Showdown"

Script: Gerry Conway
Pencils: Don Newton
Inks: Alfredo Alcala
Colors: Adrienne Roy
Letters: Ben Oda

Grade: n/a (only exploring Robin's role in this story)

I suspect that we are going to fly through the Wein Era very quickly, as it is clear from the start that Dick and Babs were Wein's first casualties. Don't get me wrong -- here begins my absolute favorite era of Batman comics (and, in fact, this issue is my absolute favorite of Conway's run; I actually got it signed by him) -- but this is a bad time for fans of the Bat Family as these characters get further and further marginalized. Batgirl's feature is now cancelled (I'm honestly not sure how many more times we will see her in costume before The Killing Joke, less than six years from now), and Dick is left out of the next two issues of 'Tec entirely, his appearance here not being all that much better.

Consider this scene from the final 'Tec issue under Giordano:



The Batcave is a sort of home, Alfred and Dick being it's usual occupants, always there for Bruce when he needs them.

Contrast that with the Batcave in this issue:



Alfred is there, but no Dick. And before you start making the case that one can't expect Dick to be hanging around the Batcave all the time, just how does Alfred keep all of Wayne Manor clean if he is constantly in the basement? His default presence here makes less sense than Dick's, so this isn't a question of logic; it's a question of who is in Batman's immediate supporting cast and who is not.

Dick's only appearance in this issue is as a plot device, a means by which Batman can still act even while he is incapacitated:



I mean, at least we've already forgotten Mike W. Barr's embarrassing portrayal of Dick as an utterly useless crimefighter who could never pull off impersonating Batman JUST LAST ISSUE:



But even still, Dick is not a person here. He has no character and could just as easily have been The Human Target again. It's like Conway and Wein aren't ready to write him out of the Batman titles just yet, but also want nothing to do with him, so they throw him a bone just to remind us that he's still alive.


Not much to say beyond that. The reviews will likely go very quickly from here on out, at least until I get to the big retirement in New Teen Titans #38 and the subsequent passing of the torch in Batman #368.