My Favorite Robin(s)

In sync with the rankings I’ve been thinking about recently, here are the Robin’s (not including what they did afterwards) in my favorite order.

  1. Tim Drake
  2. Dick Grayson
  3. Damian Wayne
  4. Stephanie Brown
  5. Jason Todd

In many ways I think I like Tim because he’s the one I can relate the most to. He’s not the most physical, but he makes do; he’s not the most charismatic, but can get people to listen; doesn’t have the pedigree to be a street fighter; is a guy; is the best with computers of the bunch. He is the detective, and the one that tries to get people to just get along by showing them how to do it.

Dick Grayson is the original and in many ways the template for all the future Robins to follow. Everything about him is what I thought I wanted to be as a kid: athletic, handsome, charismatic, care free. As I grew older I realized that’s not me, and that’s probably for the best, there’s enough of those. Around the same time I started reading the stories with Tim and he is my Robin for the reasons above. But actually going back and reading some of the Robin stories from before, and the Teen Titans books, Grayson does a damn bang up job.

it wasn’t until a very recent issue in the New 52 that I started to like Damian; he went from brat to Robin in one teary frame. As Robin he does a great job balancing the physical prowess needed and the detective work that makes the dynamic duo work so well.

Stephanie’s run was short lived, but memorable in many ways, and not for how it ended to me. She was Tim’s girlfriend so she always knew she had someone to talk to about it, and an ally when Batman was being “a sour puss” to her. She was the flawed Robin, the one who never quit took it seriously in all reality, even though she thought she took it the most serious.

Jason seemed whiney, defensive, and a very odd choice for the Batman to allow to carry on and not just ship off to some corner of the world of dump off at Titan Tower. Something about him as Robin never settled right. In reading through some of the more recent Damian stories I wonder if that’s who Jason was supposed to be written like and why they’ve had so many great moments together. But as a Robin, Jason never seemed to quite “get it together” for me to like in that role.


Post Robin Order

  1. Tim Drake
  2. Dick Grayson
  3. Jason Todd
  4. ??? (fate unknown)
  5. Stephanie Brown

I own the complete Red Robin series from just before the relaunch. Grayson is just one of my favorite characters, and Nightwing has always been written so well. Jason was wishy washy but is now a very solid character in his own right, I look forward to Red Hood every month now. Stephanie displaced by favorite Batgirl (Cassandra) so she goes at the bottom. Damian we don’t know yet, so he gets a place holder at four.


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