The Batman sequel and all new Batman movies need Robin

You wouldn’t know this from about 70 percent of the movies about him, but for the majority of his existence, Batman has never been a loner. Bill Finger and Bob Kane created Batman in 1939’s Detective Comics #27, and in the 80-plus years we’ve gotten Batman stories, he was only truly alone for one; by 1940’s Detective ComicsRobin was born on #38. Eleven comic books: That’s how many were published before Batman’s creators decided to give him a sidekick.

Although there were many, Numerous comic books that featured the Dark Knight flying solo, every one of them did so with a rapidly growing cast of caped heroes joining Batman’s crusade in the background, either in comics or Saturday morning cartoons. These movies feel less Bruce Wayne than Drake and hide a child after a while. Robin is Robin. They all.

If there’s a major flaw to Batman, it’s that it’s largely a remix of the familiar. It’s an incredibly stylish and very good reconsideration of what came before, but it’s a rehash nonetheless. This is because most of Batman’s ideas are only possible when you have other characters around him: A Robin, Batgirl, Batgirl, Batwoman, Nightwing and Azrael. Detective Comics Clayface and James Tynion IV wrote the script. It is frankly bizarre that a major movie studio, in a Hollywood environment best described as “the tulip craze, but for IP,” is leaving so much franchise gold on the table due to the strange, ahistorical assertion that Batman is a solo act.

This is partly a legacy from an era when comics evangelists had to insist that this medium be used. NotThis is not a comic meant for kids. The 1980s played host to some genuinely revolutionary comics, and the growth of a fan perception of Batman as a more “real world” hero due to his lack of traditional superpowers. Batman became the avatar for the Thinking Man’s (emphasis on Man) superhero. It’s worth remembering, however, that outside of comic fandom, the average person’s touchstone for Batman was still Adam West. Batman’s universe has been full of many.

Modern Movie Batman, however, has not, this is arguably due to filmmakers’ reticence to bring on the Bat-family beyond Joel Schumacher casting Chris O’Donnell in Batman Forever and Batman & Robin(The former also featured Alicia Silvestone acting as Batgirl. Much like post-Adam West Batman comics, post-Schumacher Batman is most clearly defined by a desire to move away from a blockbuster Batman deemed too toyetic and childish, and, ironically, it’s achieved by similar means: excising Robin, the scapegoat for kiddie Batman, because he is often portrayed as a child. (For more on the cyclical nature of Batman fandom, check out Glen Weldon’s excellent book Caped Crusade.)

Image: Chuck Dixon, Tom Grummett/DC Comics

This narrow thinking is unacceptable. Robin — and the entire Bat-family — is the answer to all these ponderous questions that crop up around Bat-films about whether or not Batman’s crusade is effective or worthwhile or achieving anything. The Bat-family is how Bruce Wayne’s singular mission can take on a more complex, human shape, with characters that are raised under it and push against it and interpret it differently.

Batgirl and Batwoman start off as independent actors inspired by Batman’s crusade, each with their own motivations and subtly different moral lines. All the young Robins are constant indicators of whether Batman’s idea is working. Is Gotham safe enough to allow this man to go after him? Has bringing another of Gotham’s lost children under his wing made their lives better than his? Sometimes, the answer is yes — and Batman’s greatest tragedies are often when the answer is no.

There’s also an odd side effect to the Bat-family’s absence in film: It makes Batman’s only counterpoints villains, rich people, cops, and his own employees, direct representations of the failed institutions that necessitate Batman’s existence or, like Lucius Fox, people paid to keep him flush with toys. Batman looks and acts deranged without the support of other bat-people.

Warner Bros. Pictures

This is something modern Bat-films can understand on some level. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy ultimately became about Harvey Dent as much as it was about Batman, a symbolic force for good that could clean up Gotham within the system without the need for masked justice — and ended with a more optimistic “Robin” in place to assume the cowl if needed. Ben Affleck’s late-career Batman is haunted by the loss of an unseen Robin, and his arc across two crossover films is one where he realizes that loss has turned him sour, and he needs others to keep him focused on hope.

So much of modern Batman cinema is dedicated to selling audiences on the fiction that the character sells to criminals: That he is a weird creature of the night, a boogeyman you don’t want to ever really see. Perhaps this is why tiresome arguments persist about why doesn’t Bruce Wayne just give money to charity instead, or put his considerable resources towards something other than custom bat-themed ninja gear. There is a desire for a richer world where being Batman does something to Gotham City other than inspire an allergic rash of carnival-themed madmen — a renewable resource that will never run dry, because Batman is a character that exists to fight such madmen.

This is frustrating because the answer to “does Batman make a difference” is there, and has always been there from the start, for anyone who cares to look. Batman grows up and is brave enough to start anew, despite losing his family. Then that family builds a better Batman: One that isn’t limited to just one man, or the stories told about him.