Anghus Houvouras on Robin’s fate in the DC Cinematic Universe…
It ain’t easy being Robin. First off, your parents are dead leaving you an emotional cripple. Then you end up the ward of a cold, distant billionaire. Eventually he reveals his secret to you and you join his endless, joyless war on crime. Your mentor keeps you at arm’s length and refuses you the validation you so desperately crave. On top of that, everyone is trying to kill you. The Joker… Penguin… Zack Snyder…
By now we’ve all seen that amazing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice trailer. If you haven’t, do yourself a favor and check it out here. It’s an emotional, action-packed, epic piece of marketing. DC and Warner Bros. have thrown down the gauntlet. A huge, metallic, electrified gauntlet declaring themselves the new kings of hype in the world of superhero movies. This trailer gives us so much to love and so little to complain about. However, after subsequent viewings, something started to poke at me. At first it was small, like a push-pin being jabbed into my ribcage. A simple shot of a morose Bruce Wayne staring at a display case in the Bat-Cave. The poking turned to needling: Who’s costume is that? What’s written on the front? Finally, it hits you like a crowbar to the back of the head.
It’s Robin. And in this version of the DC Cinematic Universe, he’s already dead.
It’s a bold choice. Like orange stripes on a Ghostbusters uniform. This version of Batman is older and wiser with years of crime fighting under his utility belt. The image from the trailer is cribbed from an iconic scene that has popped up in comics over the years. A morbid moment where Batman stares at a museum of old costumes including one of his fallen comrades. While I admire the iconography, I’m just a little bummed that we’re not going to get Robin in this version of the DC Cinematic Universe, or at least, one that isn’t already a corpse.
Robin has always gotten a bum rap in the Batman movies. After being scrubbed from Tim Burton’s first two Batman movies, he was finally given the cinematic treatment in 1995’s Batman Forever. Chris O’Donnell did a great job bringing the boy wonder to life before the character was rendered useless in 1997’s Batman & Robin.
Christopher Nolan did his own subtle take on Robin with the character of John Blake who combined aspects of a number of different Robins from the comics. No matter how awesome the ending of Dark Knight Rises was, it still didn’t deliver us Robin in the traditional sense.
Zack Snyder seems to be creating a huge, bombastic world for the DC Universe characters to exist in. One where the idea of a sidekick to Batman doesn’t seem all that odd. A world where an awesome Robin could exist. Where creators could tap into decades of stories and make the coolest version of Robin we’ve seen yet. Instead, we get a costume, a glass case, and a mopey look from Bruce Wayne.
I find it funny that the creative team behind Batman v Superman thinks the most interesting version of Robin is the one that is already dead.
If you dig deeper into this idea, it becomes a little more troubling. Thematically speaking, it’s designed to give Batman some gravitas. But if we never meet Robin, how much weight does it carry? How much value does the death of a character we will never meet hold? Having not seen the finished film, it’s impossible to connect some dots with rampant speculation. However, I don’t think we’re going to be seeing much of a living, breathing Robin in Batman v Superman, and that’s a little discouraging.
Robin is a character with such potential. It would be nice to one day see a proper Dick Grayson or Tim Drake make it to the big screen. The rumor mill has been working overtime regarding Jena Malone playing Carrie Kelley (Robin from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns), but the original Robin seems to be little more than a plot point to make Batman even more melancholy.
R.I.P. Robin. We hardly knew ye.
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker and the co-host of Across the Pondcast. Follow him on Twitter.
https://youtu.be/IWWtOQOZSTI?list=PL18yMRIfoszEaHYNDTy5C-cH9Oa2gN5ng
Originally published July 13, 2015. Updated April 15, 2018.
