Warning! Spoilers for Cloaked #1 ahead!
In the new Dark Horse series Cloaked, readers meet a version of the Batman and Robin relationship that has never been seen before. This is revealed in the very first issue of the new series. It’s written by Dark Horse President Mike Richardson and illustrated by Jordi Armengol.
The series is about a Batman archetype vigilante vigilante who uses guns and has an eerily similar Batmobile-like car. Although the hero has several names given to him by others, he has no official name. The press calls him Sentinel and Guardian while criminals refer to him as Reaper. The story begins twenty-five years after the vigilante’s disappearance as a private eye named Roger Stevens is hired to discover the vigilante’s true identity.
Stevens tracks down Dicky Johnson, who is the vigilante’s grown up sidekick, obviously the Robin to the vigilante’s Batman. Johnson was outed as the sidekick known as Wonder Boy and has used his fame to earn money ever since. Johnson is not rich, but was paid money to give interviews and tell stories about his adventures, many of which he admits were fabricated. Several years later, Johnson is short on money and an alcoholic. Stevens asks him if he knew the vigilante’s identity, at which point Johnson reveals a relationship that is unlike any readers have seen in past Batman-inspired stories.
Johnson was just a regular thirteen-year-old kid when a stranger pulls up to him in a car and offers him twenty dollars to wear a costume and go into a building. Johnson says this is the only time he ever saw the vigilante out of costume. He then discovers that the building is filled with criminals who debate whether or not to kill the boy for seeing their faces. At that point, the vigilante barges in and kills all the criminals. He then drops the boy off at a street corner and drives away until the next time he contacts the boy to do the same.
The Batman/Robin relationship readers are used to usually involves some sort of bond between the two, a father and son connection that solidifies their crime fighting adventures. Yet here is a murderous vigilante that pays his “Robin” to literally be nothing more than a distraction. It’s been discussed in actual Batman stories before that Robin, dressed in bright colors, is mainly a distraction for Batman to take out his foes, but this takes that tactic to the extreme.
There have been countless Batman “clones” in comics past. Marvel has several and even DC has Batman copies with Midnighter, but none have a sidekick relationship quite like Wonder Boy. The idea of a sidekick who is doesn't know their hero's secret identity and only works with them for cash truly sets this duo's dynamic apart from the others in comics. The first issue of Cloaked from Dark Horse Comics is on sale now.