Waid and Samnee’s Batman and Robin: Year One #1 is out this week! Here’s the best of the original Dynamic Duo…
By MARK WAID
On October 16, I’ll have the great fortune to be reunited with my good friend (and astounding artist and co-plotter) Chris Samnee as we launch Batman & Robin: Year One, an in-continuity look at the untold story of how Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson forged their partnership — and it was not as easy as you’ve been led to believe.
Bruce doesn’t know how to be a parent. He barely has any experience being a child. And now, in a well-intended but impulsive act of compassion, he’s adopted a rambunctious, headstrong boy in order to steer him away from a path of pure vengeance. Now they have to not only learn to work together but learn to like one another.
It’s a take on Robin’s earliest days that you’ve not yet seen — and Chris and colorist Matheus Lopes do it up right.
Dan has asked, in honor of that launch, for a list of my 13 favorite Bruce and Dick stories. Now, given that Dick abandoned the Robin identity 40 years ago, the tales on this list are understandably on the older side — but no apologies. This was the Flying Grayson at, in my opinion, his best.
From the Super DC Calendar 1976. Neal Adams and Dick Giordano.
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Star Spangled Comics #88 (Jan. 1948), “The Man Batman Refused to Help!” by Bill Finger (Poss.) and Jim Mooney. In 1947, DC awarded Robin his own series in the anthology Star Spangled Comics, but despite a five-year run, the feature never quite felt like it was on solid footing. Halfway through, Robin lost the cover spot to the frontier-era hero Tomahawk, but not before the publisher threw a Hail Mary by rerouting Batman and Robin stories intended for elsewhere so they could put the Darknight Detective on the cover. The War on Batman: Batman 1, Robin 0.
Jim Mooney
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Detective Comics #218 (April 1955), “Batman, Junior and Robin, Senior!” by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Stan Kaye. I wish I had a dollar for every time a DC scientist invented a gas or chemical that could affect people’s ages. I’d be a millionaire. But it is fun watching adult Robin keep telling Batman that he’s too young to be taking risks. Acting out much?
Win Mortimer
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Batman #122 (March 1959), “The Marriage of Batman and Batwoman” by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Ray Burnley. Dick Grayson falls asleep while Bruce is out on a date with Kathy (Batwoman) Kane and has a nightmare about the two adults getting married and the fallout to all of them when a gust of wind blows Batwoman’s mask off, trashing all their secret identities. It’s on my list not so much because it’s a great story (it’s not), but as a reminder to everyone that DC at the time believed that most comics were bought by boys young enough to be scared of girls.
Curt Swan pencils, Stan Kaye inks
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Batman #150 (Sept. 1962), “Robin, the Super Boy Wonder” by Bill Finger and Jim Mooney. When the Dynamic Duo are forced down by lightning over the Yucatan Plateau in pursuit of a criminal, Batman is shocked to learn that his partner no longer remembers him and has acquired super powers due to a stray lightning bolt (as one does). The search for the crook is complicated when a native tribe, believing Batman had stolen their emeralds, sets Robin after him. Batman has, of course, been framed by the crook and manages to catch the guy and set everything straight after several attempts on his life. All this in 7 and 2/3 pages, by the way.
Possible Mooney pencils, Sheldon Moldoff inks
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Batman #156 (June 1963), “Robin Dies at Dawn!” by Bill Finger, Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris. All kidding aside, this is the one. This is probably the single most famous Bruce and Dick story, and for good reason — it’s chilling, it’s incredibly heartfelt, and it shows the profound love Batman has for his ward. Seriously, ask any Silver Age fan for his favorite Batman stories and this will turn up on their list, guaranteed. I don’t want to spoil anything; go find it. It’s been reprinted repeatedly, most recently in Robin: A Celebration of 75 Years.
Moldoff pencils, Charles Paris inks
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Detective Comics #342 (Aug. 1965), “Midnight Raid of the Robin Gang!” by John Broome, Sheldon Moldoff and Joe Giella. I have a soft spot for stories in which Robin goes undercover. Nothing will ever beat his star turn on the 1966 TV show when he tried to pass himself off as a leather-jacket-wearing cigarette fiend, but this is up there.
Carmine Infantino pencils, Joe Giella inks
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Detective Comics #374 (April 1968), “Hunt for a Robin Killer!” by Gardner Fox, Gil Kane and Sid Greene. Robin’s brutally beaten half to death by a vengeful crook and Batman lands some savage punches in retribution, with a dynamism that only Gil Kane could bring.
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Detective Comics #378-379 (Aug. and Sept. 1968), “Batman! Drop Dead…Twice!”/”Two Killings for the Price of One!” by Frank Robbins, Bob Brown and Joe Giella. Though Batman never aged for his first 30 years, we watched Dick Grayson go from grade school to high school senior, eventually leaving the nest for college. In the months prior, we got a heap of stories accentuating the generation gap between him and Bruce. This was one of the better ones.
Irv Novick
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World’s Finest Comics #184 (May 1969), “Robin’s Revenge!” by Cary Bates, Curt Swan and Jack Abel. The sole “imaginary story” on this list (the term we use today is “Elseworlds”). When Batman is murdered before his eyes and Bruce Wayne is no more, Dick Grayson has to cover his dual identity by changing his name to Rick Danner and moving to Metropolis. Don’t ask me, I’m not from around here. Point is, wearing a bitching new Adult Robin costume (with pants!), he and the Man of Steel eventually track down the man responsible — and get a shock!
Swan pencils, Jack Abel inks
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Batman #222 (June 1970), “Dead… Till Proven Alive!” by Frank Robbins, Irv Novick and Joe Giella. Hardly the first time this story’s been mentioned on this site. I like that it starts like a sitcom — Dick Grayson invites his favorite band to stay at Wayne Manor while playing in Gotham — and spirals from innocent mystery (is it true that Paul McCartney/Saul Cartwright of the Beatles/Oliver Twists is dead and has been replaced by a lookalike?) into a legitimate crime caper.
Neal Adams
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Batman #237 (Dec. 1971), “Night of the Reaper!” by Denny O’Neil (with help from Bernie Wrightson and Harlan Ellison), Neal Adams and Dick Giordano. One of the best, best-remembered, and most impactful Batman stories of all time, as Batman and Robin scramble to find a costumed murderer among a sea of costumed citizens celebrating Halloween in Rutland, Vermont (the Rutland superhero-themed Halloween parties having been a very big thing at the time, run by famous Bat-Fan Tom Fagan). Highly recommended.
Adams
NOTE From Dan: It was just released Wednesday as a Facsimile Edition, so if you haven’t grabbed it, you can pick it up this week at the same time as Batman and Robin: Year One #1!
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Batman #316 (Oct. 1979), “Color Me Deadly!” by Len Wein, Irv Novick and Frank McLaughlin. The upside to Robin having moved away to Hudson University was that on those rare occasions when Dick Grayson did return to town, the stories felt like something special. He wasn’t a sidekick anymore — he was a partner, an equal, and, in this story in particular, contributed just as much as his mentor to solving the case and bringing the villain to justice. Our little Robin was all grown up.
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Star Spangled Comics #124 (Jan. 1952), “Operation: ‘Escape’!” Author unknown, art by Jim Mooney. This one’s my one cheat — this isn’t really a “Batman and Robin” story as Batman doesn’t appear at all, but to our mutual surprise it’s Chris’ and my absolute favorite Robin solo story, so I felt it was worth mentioning. Robin’s being held captive in a pit closed with a trap door that has a hanging hoop for a handle. He has no utility belt and just a few abandoned items at his disposal — a tennis racquet, an old golf ball and a golf shoe, and a battered baseball — yet nonetheless figures out how to escape using only those things. Can you? All the clues are before you!
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MORE
— FIRST LOOK! The BATMAN AND ROBIN: YEAR ONE Trade Dress and Color Pages. Click here.
— BATMAN AND ROBIN: YEAR ONE — DC Announces ‘Noir’ Version of ISSUE #1. Click here.
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Mark Waid is a comic-book writer. Name a DC or Marvel character, he’s probably written them at some point or another.
