No superhero is complete without a strong supporting cast and Batman is certainly no exception. Over his many years of crime fighting, the Dark Knight has enlisted the aid of many allies, most notably his side-kick Robin. There have been several different men, and even a woman, to accept the duties and responsibilities of the Boy Wonder. Without further adieu, here is every Robin in the canonical Batman universe.
Dick Grayson/Nightwing
The youngest in a family of acrobats known as the "Flying Grayson's", when Richard John "Dick" Grayson was born his mother nicknamed him "little Robin." Little did she know how relevant this term of endearment would be in her son's life.
While on tour in Gotham, he overheard "Boss" Tony Zucco, a well-known and feared crime lord, threaten the performers unless the circus' owner paid protection money. The owner refused, and that night Dick watched in horror as his parents' high wire snapped, sending his parents to their deaths while many of Gotham's elite watched on. Dick felt responsible for this tragedy because he failed to warn his parents of Zucco's threat in time.
Sent to an orphanage after his parent's death, Dick soon met and was adopted by Bruce Wayne. One evening, frustrated by the lack of attention from his new guardian and the mystery still surrounding his parents' death, Dick snuck out of Wayne Manor to solve the crime on his own. While out and about, he came across Batman, who had also been investigating the murder. Seeing a reflection of himself in Dick, Batman gave the young orphan the chance to become his crime-fighting partner. Dick agreed and chose the name Robin, after the nickname his mother gave him, and his grueling training began.
Eventually, Dick yearned for more than simply being Batman's sidekick. After turning over leadership of the Teen Titans to Wonder Girl, Dick turned to none other than Superman for help in solving this dilemma. Superman told the Boy Wonder that long ago on his home planet of Krypton, there was a man who dreamed of a world ruled by justice, and set out to protect the helpless of Krypton. As his true identity was never revealed, he was known only as "Nightwing." Dick adopted this name and set out to become a hero in his own right, eventually becoming the protector of Blüdhaven, a nearby city. Following Batman's "death" at the hands of super-villain Darkseid, Dick briefly takes up the mantle of Batman. When Bruce returns to once again claim the cape and cowl, Dick returns to his duties as Nightwing.
Jason Todd/The Red Hood
When Dick Grayson moved on and became Nightwing, Batman searched for another Robin to fill his shoes. Abandoned by his father and his mother recently passed, Jason Todd turned to petty crime, most notably ripping off car parts for cash. One night, Jason came across the Batmobile parked in an alley and attempted to steel the tires, but was soon stopped by Batman himself. Batman tried to put Jason in a boarding school for troubled youths, but this plan proved futile as the owner of the school was actually running a training ground for future criminals.
Batman instead decided that the boy's anger could be channeled against criminals as Robin, or else he would likely end up a criminal himself. While he was not the naturally gifted athlete that Dick Grayson was, he had raw potential and possessed practical skills honed on the streets of Gotham. While Jason proved to be a capable side-kick, his methods became increasingly violent and unrestrained. The most dramatic example of this came when Jason tracked down Felipe Garzonasa, a foreign national who had raped a young woman and subsequently drove her to suicide. Moments after Jason arrived, Garzonasa fell to his death from the apartment balcony. While never confirmed, it is heavily implied that Jason pushed Garzonasa off the balcony, thereby breaking Batman's ultimate rule.
While initially popular, this darker version of Robin was not well-received overall. For 1988's A Death in the Family story-line, DC Comics held a telephone poll to determine whether or not the character would die at the hands of the Joker. Following a close vote of 5343–5271, Jason's fate was sealed. In A Death in the Family, Jason discovers that the mother who raised him was not his biological mother, and promptly began an exhaustive search and investigation. . After following several leads, Jason finally tracks his mother, Sheila, to Ethiopia, where she works as an aid worker. While Jason is overjoyed to be reunited with his real mother, he soon discovers that she is being blackmailed by the Joker who is using her for various medical supplies. It is revealed that Sheila has been embezzling from the aid agency and hands her son, who arrives as Robin, over to the Joker to protect herself.
The Joker beats Jason to near-death with a crowbar and leaves him and his mother in the warehouse with a time bomb. Despite their desperate attempt to escape, they are still inside when the bomb explodes. Batman arrives a moment too late and is only able to hold Jason's lifeless body in his arms. Jason's death comes to forever haunt Batman, who keeps Jason's Robin costume on display in the Batcave in memorial. Batman considers this to be his greatest failure: not properly training Jason, and failing to protect him from the Joker. Jason would soon be revived thanks to some funky dimension-bending from Superboy-Prime along with the Lazarus Pit, a mythical pool of regenerative waters that super-villain Ra's al Ghul uses to maintain his youth. Upon returning to Gotham, he takes on the identity of the "Red Hood," Joker's original persona, and begins to dispense a more brutal, less forgiving kind of justice.
Tim Drake/Red Robin
When the Joker killed Jason Todd, Batman, stricken with grief, considered hanging up the cape and cowl altogether. However, he realized that without his protection, Gotham and its citizens would fall, and so he began the search for another Robin. Tim Drake was just a boy when Dick Grayson first took on the role, having idolized the Flying Grayson's throughout his life. One day, when watching footage of Batman and Robin (then Dick Grayson) take down the Penguin, Tim noticed that Robin had performed a quadruple somersault, a feat only possible by acrobats as skilled as the Flying Grayson's. From this, Tim deduced that Robin must be Dick Grayson, and with the knowledge that Grayson had been adopted by Bruce Wayne, realized that Batman must then be Wayne.
After the death of Jason Todd, Tim noticed a drastic, almost frightening change in Batman's behavior and decided that he needed another Robin to stabilize. To this end, Tim contacted Nightwing and convinced him that Batman needed help. Where Dick intended to help his old master as Nightwing, Tim maintained that it would only be another Robin who could truly help. When Batman and Nightwing were one day captured by Two-Face, Tim donned the Robin costume and, with some help from Alfred, was able to rescue the duo. Batman was impressed by this but was reluctant to take on Tim as his student, the death of Jason still fresh in his mind. Following months of grueling training, Tim earned the title of Robin and his own, unique costume.
Tim proved to be a very competent and effective Boy Wonder, capable of taking down Batman's toughest adversaries like the Joker or the Riddler with little to no help. When Bane broke Batman's back in the provocative and gripping Knightfall story-line, Tim accompanies Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael when he takes up the cape and cowl. Valley's increasingly aggressive methods and volatile behavior did not sit well with Tim, but when Valley defeats Bane and surprisingly does not kill him, Tim realizes he may be a worthy successor after all. When Bruce recovers and reclaims his role as Batman from Valley, Tim once again takes his side as Robin.
Tim continues to fight at Batman's side until the Dark Knight's apparent death at the hands of super-villain Darkseid when Dick Grayson takes up the cape and cowl to replace Bruce. Dick chooses not to ask Tim to continue serving as Robin, deeming him more his equal and capable ally than a potential protege. Tim wholeheartedly believed that Bruce was still alive somewhere in the world and set out to find him. He adopted the name "Red Robin" as the role of Robin had been passed on to Bruce's son, Damian.
Damian Wayne
Damian Wayne is the son of Bruce Wayne and Talia al Ghul, daughter of arch-nemesis Ra's al Ghul. However, Batman was not aware of Damian's existence for a considerable time, as he was grown and genetically perfected in an artificial womb. Raised by Talia and the League of Assassins, Damian was born to be a formidable fighter. He becomes a talented martial artist by the time he is a pre-teen, at which time Talia reveals Damian's existence to his father and leaves him in Batman's custody in an effort to disrupt his work.
Despite genuinely wanting to help his father in his endless war on crime and corruption, Damian proves to be very spoiled, emotionally unstable, and problematic early on. When grounded for instigating a fight with Tim Drake, Damian dons a makeshift Robin costume and comes across the minor villain Spook. Taught only in the merciless ways of the League of Assassins, Damian defeats and decapitates the villain, further reinforcing his potentially fatal instability if not quickly and properly trained by his father.
In one of the most defining events in Damian's young life, his grandfather Ra's Al Ghul devises a scheme to use the boy as a vessel for his soul. Damian learns of this through his mother and goes to alert his father, but encounters Tim, who due to their ongoing tension and conflict does not believe the story. This misunderstanding escalates into a full-blown fist fight, which members of the League of Assassins capitalize on to infiltrate Wayne manor. Damian and Tim enter into an uneasy alliance to defeat their assailants, but are ultimately defeated and captured due to their inability to cooperate and fight as one. Fortunately, Batman discovers what has been occurring and saves the duo from Ra's and his League of Assassins.
Damian continues to fight by his father's side until his death in Batman Incorporated #8 by his clone, The Heretic, during an invasion of Wayne Tower. Ra's steals Damian's body from his grave outside of Wayne manor and plans to produce a number of clones to use in his war against Batman. Later, Damian's body is taken by Glorious Godrey, a servant of super-villain Darkseid, to the hellish world of Apokolips. Batman follows him there with the rest of the Bat-family, and he and Darkseid face-off with the Dark Knight wearing his enhanced "Hell-Bat" suit. After defeating Darkseid, Batman returns to the Batcave with a mystical Chaos Shard in tow in order to heal Damian. The shard revives Damian and gives the resurrected boy wonder a number of supernatural powers.
Honorable Mention: Stephanie Brown
This character first appeared in Detective Comics #647 in August 1992 and is the daughter of the criminal Cluemaster. Initially created as a foil and love interest to Tim Drake, Brown soon became an integral part of various story-lines, and eventually served as Robin for a short time herself.
There is considerably controversy in the fan community about both the character's death by torture and the fact that despite her tenure as Robin, she received no monument or memorial in the Batcave in the years after her apparent death, unlike the second Robin, Jason Todd.
During a Q&A at a convention in March 2007, DC executive editor Dan Didio responded to questions about the absence of a tribute in the Batcave, stating that the official position of DC Comics is that Brown "was never really a Robin", despite previous on-panel claims to the contrary. Notably, when a dying Brown asks Batman if she was ever truly Robin, the Dark Knight responds affirmatively.
