After 38 Years, DC Permanently Kills Another Robin
Warning! This article contains major SPOILERS for Absolute Batman #23.Absolute Batman juggles a ton of characters, many of whom we don’t get to see as often as readers may like. This is especially true following the reveal of Absolute Batman’s Robins—Dick Grayson, Stephanie Brown, Duke Thomas, Jason Todd, and Tim Drake—who all joined the book simultaneously, rather than being added piecemeal over the course of decades like their mainline Prime Earth counterparts.
However, it may be in our best interests to not get too attached to any of these Robins. Absolute Batman has relished flipping iconic lore established in Batman’s ordinary mythology, which is why it was seemingly inevitable that there’d be a death in the flock. Startlingly, only four issues after they made their series debut, a Robin is killed in Absolute Batman #23—but not the Robin you might expect.
As Batman, Clayface smothers Jason and Tim before impaling Tim on an elongated pauldron spike. Now, considering how iconic Jason’s death is in Batman’s “Death in the Family” storyline, nobody was anticipating that Jason would be the first Robin to die in Absolute Batman.
As a bit of foreshadowing earlier in the same issue, the Robins acknowledge a poll voting for “Gotham’s favorite Robin,” with Tim as reigning supreme as the “heart (throb) of the team.” This vote is a brilliant and ominous nod to how nonfictional fans legitimately voted for whether Jason would live or die in 1988, and this particular scene basically informs readers of which Robin is on the chopping block this time around. If this vote is meant to be dissected further, it’s possible that we may already know a rough order that they’ll die in: Tim first, and Dick last.
Moreover, Tim’s murder is brutal, but it is far quicker than Prime Earth’s Jason’s was. A Robin’s death was inevitable, and Scarecrow mocks Batman with a joke from his stitch-sewn mouth to readers’ ears when he says, “I guess it was bound to happen eventually… Batman.” Of course, neither Jason nor any Robin is safe.
Absolute Batman’s Bruce Wayne doesn’t have a relationship with the Robins, let alone Tim, and Tim wasn’t around long enough for readers to get to know this iteration of him well. Thus, casting aside any love or nostalgia that readers may have for the character from other continuities, this death isn’t nearly as devastating because we barely knew Tim.
Jason was either dazed or unconscious after being smothered (suggesting that Tim was when he died, too), and blames Batman for Tim’s murder since Clayface had vanished into the sewers by the time he recovered. That said, the blame could easily land on Jason for this significant Absolute Batman death, as it’s arguably Jason’s fault that Tim was there at all after guilt-tripping him and saying, “You’ve got my back, right?” Tim felt compelled not to let a hotheaded Jason go hunting for Batman solo, and that’s a choice Tim made that he didn’t have to.
Absolute Batman #23 is out now.