Warning: Contains SPOILERS for Titans season 3, episode 3.
Titans season 3 has teased that Tim Drake is set to become the next Robin and the character’s comics history makes him the perfect figure to break Batman’s problematic cycle. Season 3 episode 1, “Barbara Gordon,” only gives Tim Drake (Jay Lycurgo) some brief scenes. However, for fans of the comics, it is relatively obvious that the character will take on the mantle of Robin in due course.
The title of “Robin” has played an important role in Titans already, with seasons 1 and 2 following Dick Grayson (Brenton Thwaites) rejecting the role and questing to find himself as Nightwing. Meanwhile, Jason Todd’s (Curran Walters) Robin has battled jealousy over feeling like he is in the shadow of both Grayson and Batman. By the end of episode 1 of Titans season 3, Grayson has a new role, Bruce Wayne (Iain Glen) has shed the cowl of Batman, and Jason Todd is thought to be dead.
The introduction for Titans season 3 has doubled down on how negative the role of Robin can be, both for the holder and for Batman himself. With both Grayson and Todd having vacated the position, the question of who should fill it (and whether it should be filled) looms large over the series. In the comics, Tim Drake took over the role after Jason Todd’s death; in Titans Drake can not only take on the mantle of Robin, he can also break the dangerous legacy that was started by Batman.
Dick Grayson Became Robin For Vengeance
Just as in the comics, Bruce Wayne became a vigilante crime fighter in Titans' Gotham because his parents were murdered in front of him. The impetus for his mission was a need for vengeance against the systems that led to that event, so it makes sense that the first Robin he recruited would have a similar origin story. Dick Grayson was orphaned when his parents died in a trapeze accident that had been arranged by Tony Zucco, as he worked for the Maroni crime family.
Titans season 1 demonstrated how angry Dick was about his parents’ death as a teenager and how Batman’s attempt to redirect that anger led to a Robin who struggled to contain his more violent urges. While the show has seen Dick come to understand that Bruce Wayne was trying to help him in the only way that he knew how it has also shown how dangerous the coping method was for both of them. Dick Grayson as Robin repeatedly references that he felt weaponized by Batman and is worried about the man that he becomes when he wears the Robin mask. While he was eventually able to step away from the role, a cycle had been started.
Batman Recruited Jason Todd To Fill A Void
When Jason Todd is first introduced it is clear that he is excited to be Robin and admires the person that he thinks Dick Grayson is. However, as the show goes on, it demonstrates the darker side of Jason’s version of Robin and how he is driven by his jealousy of Bruce Wayne’s opinion of Dick and his own past trauma. For Jason Todd, being Robin is about taking back power, and it's represented in the way that he derives pleasure from beating up police officers that he felt powerless against before.
Beyond Jason’s own toxic relationship with the role, Bruce Wayne’s perspective is also clearly damaging. While it is hinted earlier on in the series that Bruce recruited Jason Todd very soon after Dick left Gotham, in Titans season 3 Barbara Gordan (Savannah Welch) confirmed that it was within one week. Batman has worked with plenty of allies in the past and is capable of functioning as a hero without a Robin. The quick turnaround on recruiting the second Robin suggests his own dependence on the figure and that his recruiting of Jason was based not on finding the best person to follow his mission searching for justice, but to find someone capable of filling the void that had been left by Dick Grayson leaving Batman and becoming Nightwing.
Tim Drake As Robin Can Break The Cycle
With the apparent death of Jason Todd at the hands of the Joker, Titans doubles down on Batman’s addict-like dependency on having a teenager to fill the role of Robin. Dick and Barbara have tried to explain to him the damage that he is doing to the children that don the mantle. However, a very short time after Jason Todd’s funeral, Dick finds that Bruce is once again scouting for somebody to fill the role. Since then, Bruce Wayne has left Batman behind and fled Gotham, asking Nightwing to “be a better Batman.” Whether this means Dick Grayson will take on the name, or merely the role within Gotham, remains to be seen, but with Tim Drake introduced to Titans season 3 it seems that the show will give Dick his own Robin sidekick either way.
Both Dick Grayson and Jason Todd became Robin to cope with loss, anger, fear, and a need for vengeance that perpetuated Bruce Wayne’s own narrative. Tim Drake comes from a very different place. In his comics origin, Tim deduced who Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne were at an early age and admired the work that they did as Batman and Robin to keep Gotham safe. When Jason Todd is killed, Tim decides that Batman needs his help and tracks him and Nightwing down and convinces them to take him in and train him to be the new Robin. Motivated by a desire to help people rather than punish them, Tim Drake shows his devotion to his ideals when he is challenged. After Batman’s back is broken by Bane and Azrael takes over as a new, more ruthless Batman, Tim pushes back on his overly violent methods and tries to remind him of the responsibility and meaning of being Batman.
Tim Drake has already been shown to admire Batman and Robin, and if Titans remains true to the nature of the character from the comics, then he can honor Dick Grayson’s character arc that has seen him reevaluate why he fights the battles that he does. Tim can also serve as a grounding point for Dick to ensure that his anger at Gotham and Red Hood doesn’t make him lose his way again. Finally, after season 3 episode 3, “Hank and Dove” saw Hank’s death at the hands of Jason Todd, a.k.a. Red Hood, Tim can serve as a spiritual successor to Hawk as someone who doesn’t necessarily want to wear the suit, but feels like they can do good by putting it on, while not being burdened by the same trauma and substance issues that Hank dealt with.
Titans releases new episodes every Thursday on HBO Max.
