In 2021, Robin realized he had a crush on a boy. It was a candy story, delivered and not using a drop of fanfare from DC Comics — a narrative that gave me, a queer reader and massive fan of Robin, the singularly euphoric expertise of seeing queer subtext truly and unexpectedly turn out to be textual content. However earlier than I might take pleasure in it, my on-line discourse-poisoned mind handed me an pressing task, and I figuratively sat down at a college desk to do my “Illustration Calculus” homework.

Marginalized followers know all about Illustration Calculus: Is that this “good” illustration, or the sort of skinny stereotype the bulk has realized to tolerate? How a lot danger is that this capitalist enterprise truly assuming right here, or is it enjoying issues protected and in search of kudos? Is that this a personality anybody has heard of, or will hear of ever once more? What’s the worth of this gesture?

One might assemble a proof to indicate that Tim Drake popping out as queer kinda sucks truly. The sturdy headline “Robin simply had a queer awakening” obscures the onerous reality of “The second-most obscure of the 5 characters who’ve at one time been Robin simply had a queer awakening.”

However there’s one other method to make the case for Tim’s queerness as a internet optimistic. No, not due to what Tim Drake can do for queer illustration in media, however due to what queer illustration can do… for Tim Drake.

Who’s Tim Drake and why have I not heard of him?

Tim on the duvet of 1993’s Robin #1. Picture: Tom Grummett, Scott Hanna/DC Comics

Really, it’s solely attainable that you’ve. Tim (with some backstory cribbed from Jason Todd) was the Robin of The New Batman Adventures, the gently revamped continuation of Batman: The Animated Sequence. He received that billing as a result of he was sort of a giant deal within the comics, for sort of a very long time — it’s simply that that very long time was a very long time in the past.

Tim was the primary Robin to have his personal ongoing solo title, which ran for almost 200 points over 16 years (ending in 2009). That’s an unheard-of quantity for a personality within the fashionable period — or not less than one who has by no means appeared in live-action movie.

From 1989 to 2009, Tim was Robin, and the one Robin. Dick Grayson, the primary Robin, had been aged up into a special superhero, Nightwing, chief of the immensely well-liked New Teen Titans collection. The second Robin, Jason Todd, had met a horrible destiny because of unpopularity with readers. Tim was the candy spot between them: completely different sufficient in character and origin from Nightwing to satisfy a brand new period of followers, however with sufficient qualities in widespread to carry out Robin’s very important function as Batman’s emotional foil. (Stephanie Brown did take a short stint within the go well with in 2004 that’s honored in her fashionable incarnation, however on the time was merely an editorial feint.)

However every part modified when Grant Morrison attacked took the reins of DC’s core Gotham collection, Batman, and the course of the Batman mythos. By 2009, the author had been cultivating the origin story of Damian Wayne — the grandchild of Ra’s al Ghul and the son Batman by no means knew he had — for 3 years, by means of numerous miniseries and crossovers. Following Bruce’s obvious homicide in 2009’s Closing Crisis occasion (he’d truly turn out to be misplaced in time; don’t fear about it), Nightwing took up his costume because the Batman of Morrison and Frank Quitely’s Batman and Robin, with Damian as Robin.

Fly away residence

It was the third time the function of Robin had been given to a brand new character for retains, however the first time it had occurred whereas there was an present Robin. Jason Todd’s creation was prompted by Nightwing’s growing recognition as chief of the Teen Titans fairly than Batman’s companion. Tim was created to fill the house left by Jason’s homicide. To belabor a metaphor, Nightwing and Jason Todd had fledged, however Tim had been compelled out of the nest. And within the years since, Tim has flitted from one nest to a different, by no means fairly discovering one which works.

Instantly after Damian took his costume, Tim adopted a brand new look and began calling himself Red Robin, a reputation with some historical past in DC lore however that can be… properly, additionally the trademarked identify of a sequence restaurant. The New 52 reboot gave him a totally revamped origin story that lasted solely six years earlier than James “Tim Drake megafan” Tynion IV’s Detective Comics rolled it again to his outdated one — in a collection the place Tim’s inner battle was all about how being Red Robin match into his private id. In 2019, within the pages of Young Justice, Tim modified up his costume significantly and introduced that his new superhero identify was simply “Drake,” a transfer that fortunately by no means made it out of the pages of Young Justice.

Tim’s short-lived brown go well with as “Drake.” Picture: Brian Michael Bendis, John Timms/DC Comics

Tim is at all times included when the Robins group up, and when he’s a author’s favourite or related to a group — he has turn out to be a personality who will get invited to events however by no means throws his personal. With each reappearance, creators have tried to deal with the elephant within the room: Tim has by no means developed a powerful editorial id apart from Robin, Batman’s companion.

Dick Grayson is the Robin Who Got here First and have become Nightwing. Jason Todd is the Robin Who Died, and he got here again because the Red Hood. Stephanie Brown is the Robin Who Is a Girl. Damian is the Robin Who Is Batman’s Son. Tim… Tim was solely ever simply Robin. Besides he isn’t. As a result of Damian is Robin, and has been since 2009.

In a supreme irony, the cumulative and unintentional impact of a decade of experimenting with who Tim Drake may very well be has given him a distinguishing area of interest: Tim is the Robin Who Doesn’t Know Who He Is.

And that’s queer-coding, child!

Picture: Geoff Johns, Francis Manapul/DC Comics

Now, to be honest, years earlier than Damian occurred alongside, queer followers had checked out Tim Drake — the nerdy, empathetic child who turned Robin as a result of he romanticized the Batman and Robin partnership and appeared extra emotionally invested in his friendship with Superboy than any of his on-again-off-again girlfriends — and mentioned “He’s considered one of ours.” Tim’s decade-long disaster of id is de facto simply ink over pencil traces.

And he’s not alone on this type of editorial coming-out story, becoming a member of the ranks of characters like Iceman, Surprise Woman, Kitty Pryde, and Mystique. The record of superheroes by chance or intentionally coded as queer who’ve by no means canonically been introduced out of the closet due to homophobia is lengthy and miserable. “Refreshing” is just too gentle a phrase to explain a creator a queer-coded character who wanted one thing to differentiate him from his straight cohorts, and truly attending to make him queer.

However wait, I can hear the feedback already: So now Tim is simply The Robin Who Is Homosexual? Come on Susana, queer persons are extra than simply their queerness! That’s dangerous illustration!

It’s a salient argument, and I’ve given it quite a lot of thought, main to at least one conclusion: I don’t care. For one factor, Tim Drake isn’t an individual, he’s a collection of inventive choices courting again to 1989. For an additional, Kate Kane is Jewish and an Military veteran and has a fairly completely different motivation than Bruce Wayne. That hasn’t stopped anybody from lowering her all the way down to “Lesbian Batman” and it by no means will. (Additionally, “Lesbian Batman” is objectively superior.)

A queer realization suits Tim narratively, solves his core editorial deficiency, and opens up new choices for storytelling. Chip Zdarsky informed me as a lot once I reached out to him about his upcoming run on Batman, for which he picked Tim — not Damian, Dick, or Jason — because the Dark Knight’s featured companion.

Tim (inset) on the duvet of Batman #125.Picture: Jorge Jiménez/DC Comics

Amongst different issues, the author mentioned through e mail, “Bruce is also frightened about Tim and the remainder of the bat-family, all struggling to seek out that stability between combating crime and their private lives. Tim being queer and extra snug with who he’s reveals that there’s a stronger path to happiness for him in life.”

And, if I could also be purely cynical for a second, Tim’s queerness additionally provides future DC Comics editorial an crucial cause to maintain him within the highlight. If the queer Robin by no means seems in comics? Not an incredible look! From the purely mercantile standpoint of an individual who simply needs to learn extra Tim Drake tales, it’s implausible that this as soon as central, now little-known character could be boosted alongside DC’s different queer superheroes together with his inclusion in DC’s 2022 Satisfaction anthology, his Satisfaction one-shot particular that collected his popping out story with new materials, and in Tim Drake: Robin, his first solo ongoing collection since 2011, to be written by Meghan Fitzmartin and drawn by Belén Ortega, the inventive group who walked him out of the closet within the first place.

‘The second-most obscure Robin simply had a queer awakening’

Tim and his outdated good friend/new boyfriend Bernard in DC’s 2022 Satisfaction particular. Picture: Travis Moore/DC Comics

What they don’t inform you in Illustration Calculus 101 is that Illustration Calculus sucks truly! There’s no such factor as good illustration. We’ve got a phrase for anticipating a single character or creator to shoulder all the load of normalizing the underrepresented: It’s tokenism. Within the utopian future we’re all striving for, it should truly be nice when somebody introduces a Black Spider-Man, a lesbian Batwoman, a feminine Thor, GNC member of the Flash household, or a trans ally of Supergirl and there aren’t any press releases written about it, no articles, no breathless headlines — as a result of it’ll be as regular as “Canine Bites Man.”

Tim Drake’s story speaks to what advocates for variety can neglect and homophobes would fairly ignore: There are professional causes to offer a long-standing straight character a coming-out story past “extra variety is extra.” Or to place it in painfully apparent phrases: Change and variety are storytelling instruments, and refusing to make use of them is nothing however a self-imposed drawback.