Michael Koby

There is a lot of talk on movie websites about the inclusion of the character Robin in the latest round of Batman movies.  You check out these articles from SlashFilm and Cinematical.  The main issue seems to be that no one believes that Robin should be included and some even argue that the character of Robin should be removed from the Batman mythos altogether.

This is a horrible idea and further proves that most of the people calling for the removal of Robin 1) do not understand the Batman mythos and 2) have probably only experienced the Chris O’Donnell Robin (which is not Robin).  Allow me to explain.

Robin serves a major role in the Batman universe in all 4 incarnations.  For those that are not aware there have 4 Robins to date: Dick Grayson (now Nightwing), Jason Todd (Killed by Joker but recently brought back due to a split in universes during Infinite Crisis), Tim Drake (the current Robin), and Stephanie Brown (aka the Spoiler and Robin only for a short time).  In every instance, Robin is the more optimistic (usually) character to Batman’s dark pestimistic view on the world.  This adds a touch of humanity to Batman, having someone around that constantly looks on the brighter side of things, even in the face of danger.  But each Robin serves their own distinct purpose as well.

Dick Grayson

Dick Grayson, whose parents were tragically killed by criminals trying to harrass the circus owner of the circus he and his parents traveled with, was brought in under Batman’s wing to give him a outlet for his anger and giving young Grayson someone who could mentor to him and teach him a path that didn’t end in disaster.  Something Batman did not have.  Dick was the first to wear the Robin mantle (and if you’ve read Robin Year One then you know he also help come up with the name).  Dick is also the most likely successor to the mantle of the Batman as he as been trained from a young age to be a detective and crime fighter.  The main point here is that Grayson’s path was set by Batman, it also gave Batman a partner in his lone war on crime.

Jason Todd

Jason Todd was the exact opposite of Dick Grayson.  A criminal who Batman found stealing tires off the Batmobile, Batman figured he could give the boy a more constructive hobby.  The problem with Jason Todd (and the reason he was killed) is he wasn’t Dick.  People had grown to like Dick Grayson and had watched the boy grow up.  The idea of a new Robin didn’t sell well (at least the first time).  Jason Todd’s role as Robin is now that he is Batman’s greatest failure.  An innocent who was killed in the line of duty by Batman’s greatest foe.  It is this mistake that causes Batman to have reservations about taking another Robin.  But when a third Robin does come around, Batman goes to great lengths to ensure his safety.  Without Jason Todds death, Batman has no large failure.

Tim Drake

Tim Drake, the third Robin, is the only Robin to have his own monthly series.  And under the guide of writer Chuck Dixon, is really shown to have a place in both the Batman mythos and the DC Universe as a whole.  Where Jason Todd is Batman’s biggest failure, Tim Drake is his brightest student.  Batman is on record as saying that Tim is smarter than him and will more than likely take over some day.  The main reason people like this Robin is because he has a tie to Dick Grayson (he has a picture of himself sitting on Dick’s lap while attending Haily Circus) and was there when Dick’s parents died.  Also Dick Grayson cares for Tim like a brother (and since Bruce has officially adopted Tim, they are brothers).  Tim is important because he is the one who made Batman understand that he needs a Robin.  Batman needs a Robin to make him really think through all the angles and not be so gung-ho in battle (read A Lonely Place of Dying).

Stephanie Brown

Stephanie Brown served as Robin when Tim Drake temporarily quit at the request of his father.  Stephanie was also fired as Robin for not obeying orders.  Stephanie’s purpose as Robin is two-fold.  First, she is proof that not everyone that wants to be Robin or included in the Bat-Club can cut it.  Secondly, she is a cautionary tale about understanding just how deep Batman’s secrets go.  He never let her in on all the secerets and because of this, she inadvertantly started a gang war that seemingly ended with her dying (it has since been revealed that she is not dead, and has returned to Gotham as the Spoiler again).  She is also proof that Batman wants soilders, people who are willing to follow orders without too many questions.  Most of the time, it is his way or the highway.

How to Do Robin Right

Now, I can understand some people’s fears on bring Robin into the Nolan Batman movies.  The last time Robin was brought into the movies, it was pretty horrible.  He wasn’t a kid, and he had too many anger issues, and they gave him Tim Drake’s suit.  So Robin in Batman Forever had Dick Grayson’s origin, Jason Todd’s anger, and Tim Drake’s outfit.  Too much at one maybe?

So how should someone write Robin into the Nolan Batman movies?  Since this is probably never going to happen, here is how I would do it.

• Make sure he is a kid! This is the big one folks, for Robin to work you have to make him a teenager (like 12-14 max).  It also adds to the reason that Robin always told jokes when fighting, because it was the only way (as a kid) he knew to mask his fear.
• Keep the circus origin, it is important that Robin be athletic and an acrobat (gives him a leg up when the training starts)
• You’d need a training montage.
• Make his costume more realistic (like Batman’s), it can be darker but it still needs color (the color was meant to be a distraction so Batman could act quickly)
• Make sure Batman has the father-figure thing but at the same time ensure that it is something he learns over the course of a couple of films.  Bruce and Dick still have issues relating with each other to this day.
• Get someone like Chuck Dixon to help write and help folks understand Robin.  Chuck Dixon is the best writer of both Tim Drake’s Robin and Dick Grayson’s Nightwing.  He truly understands both characters.

The solution is not full proof.  And Robin should not show up for at least 2-3 more movies.  And if you really want to follow continuity, you’ll need to bring Batgirl around first anyway.  The idea here is that Robin is important to the overall character development of Batman.  It shows he’s human and is not just a over-obcessed nutball, he has a mission and he needs people to carry on that mission after he dies.  He needs family, something that he never truely had.  This is something that a lot of people don’t fully understand for some reason.

Recommended Reading:

• Dark Victory
• Robin Year One
• Nightwing Year One
• Lonely Place of Dying

This little tidbit came to me via email last night.

Just wondering…

Where are all of the Hollywood celebrities  holding telethons asking
for help in restoring Iowa and helping the folks  affected by the
floods?

Where is all the media asking the tough  questions about why the
federal government hasn’t solved the problem? Asking  where the FEMA
trucks (and trailers) are?

Why isn’t the Federal  Government relocating Iowa people to free
hotels in Chicago?

When will  Spike Lee say that the Federal Government blew up the
levees that failed in  Des Moines?

Where are Sean Penn and the Dixie Chicks?

Where are  all the looters stealing high-end tennis shoes and big
screen television  sets?

When will we hear Governor Chet Culver say that he wants to  rebuild a
‘vanilla’ Iowa, because that’s the way God wants it?

Where is  the hysterical 24/7 media coverage complete with reports of
cannibalism?

Where are the people declaring that George Bush hates white, rural
people?

How come in 2 weeks, you will never hear about the  Iowa flooding ever
again?

Earlier this week, California made it completely legal for gay folks to get married.  All nice and legal like.  Basically, I hate this idea, this concept, etc.  Many people are going to flame me righteous for saying so, but you know what?  It’s my blog.  Why can everyone else share their opinion, as long as it goes with this new flow of acceptence and political correctness.  So when someone says that they don’t like the idea of gay marriage they get attacked as being bigots or even some form of “raciests” and to me that is completely unacceptable.

Here’s why I fine the idea that I’m a bigot unacceptable.  Mainly because the same people who would call be a bigot and tell me that I should be more accepting of views that aren’t my own are guilty of the very thing they are calling me a bigot over.  As an American, I’m entitled to my beliefs and opinions, the same as every other American citizen.

So with that in mind, I feel that I need to share.  But before I truely open up I need to set the record straight.  If you have read this blog for any length of time you probably know already but I’m going to say it anyway for the interest of full disclosure.  I’m a Christian, not hell-fire-and-brimstone, but a Christian none-the-less.  Also, I’m republician.  Again, not some insane republician that gives us a bad name, but generally one that has a good head on his shoulders.  So with that out of the way, can we move on now?

So my two main issues with the idea of gay marriage is the fact that view homosexuality to be wrong.  It’s unbiblical and it is not in God’s plans to further the species.  The Bible talks about this.  And I do not mean in the Old Testement either.  It is talked about in the first chapter of Romans.

“For this reason God gave them over to degrading passions; for their women exchanged the natural function for that which is unnatural, and in the same way also the men abandoned the natural function of the woman and burned in their desire toward one another, men with men committing indecent acts and receiving in their own persons the due penalty of their error.” (Romans 1:26-27)

The above has to do with the fall of the Roman empire (and you wonder why there was so much gay sex in HBO’s Rome).  There are some other Old Testement references, but since people seem to frown on those, I’ll avoid them.  The main point I want folks to understand (at least about my point of view) is that if you read the passage you notice that God basically says “fine, you want to trade Me for idols, then I’ll give you over to that which is unnatural.”  The key here is that word, unnatural.  The Bible is very clear about homosexuality being an “unnatural” ordeal.  So this is one of my main issues with the idea of homosexuality.

The second issue is the fact that homosexual’s can’t (without scientific help) reproduce.  They can not naturally continue the human species.  If everyone today was gay, the human as a species will cease to exist.  Some are going to argue “artificial ensemination” but that is not a natural form of reproduction (it needs scientific intervention).  So by accepting the practice of homosexuality you pretty much are okay with the end of human existence.  Okay, that’s a little far fetched and more than likely unrealistic, and since I don’t know an extremely large percentage of you, I really can’t say what you okay with.

So let me end with this note.  I don’t hate gay people.  Met some really cool ones over the years and I’m sure I’ll meet many more in my lifetime.  I believe in a phrase “hate the sin, love the sinner” and it something I try to adhere to.  So if you feel the need to flame, you may, but know that I will not respond to angry flames.  Heck I probabably won’t respond to any flames at all.  But I will not delete or censor comments (unless they are just really bad, my parents read this blog people).  This was an opinion piece, my opinion, on my blog.  Keep that in mind as you shout your taunts of “bigotry” and “unacceptance” please.

Today, Steve Jobs used this years World Wide Developers Conference (WWDC) to accoune the release of the second generation iPhone, also known as the “iPhone 3G” and all I can say is “so what?”

Seriously, lets look at the latest features for this next generation smartphone from Apple.  We have 3G data speeds (something Nokia, Sony Ericsson, & even LG have had for years), GPS, and a new low entry price.  These are some of the features Steve made the center of his announcement.  Some others include Exchange support (and more enterprise worthy features), third party applications, and a nice new look.

So we have some features that have been in other phones for at least 2-3 years now and yet Steve Jobs demonstrated these features like they were extremely cutting edge.  Features like 3G and GPS have been in phones for the better part of 2 years (not all phones mind you) so these things are not new.

I guess the best the way to describe this latest generation iPhone is a true iPhone 1.0.  If Apple had wanted to be cutting edge on all fronts, they would have released the iPhone a year ago with at least 3G data speeds.  I’ll give Apple that GPS in phones is just now getting popular and a year ago wasn’t a deal breaker like it is now (though this should be some sort of testament to how fast technology moves).

In case you can’t tell, my general overall opinion on today’s announcements is lackluster at best.  We have features that people up and down claimed should have been in the first iteration (but I’m sure the Apple fan-boys will back-pedal on these previous statements under the guise of “Apple can do no wrong”).  I’m overly unimpressed, and was honestly expecting more from Apple.  There was nothing truely groundbreaking (though the service push for things like IM is nifty).  But I’m sure I’m a lone man on this opinion as I have already seen several blog articles touting the new iPhone’s supposed greatness.