Poll of the Day > #WokeALERT: Robin is the latest Comic Character to Come 'Out'...

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://ew.com/books/robin-comes-out-as-bisexual-in-batman-urban-legends-comic/

Think this will happen in the DC Films as well?

Which one?

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Name a character more bland than Tim Drake.

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Cool its nice to see some male bisexual representation

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this is a shocking revelation

keyblader1985 posted...

Which one?

Seriously

You have enough Robins to hit every combination on the gender, sex and orientation spectrum

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God dc and marvel are jokes..

"Why is nobody buying are comics?? is it because we keep changing beloved characters for literally no reason??? No its the customers thats the problem".

Blighboy posted...

Seriously

You have enough Robins to hit every combination on the gender, sex and orientation spectrum

Yeah, its almost as if they should have just made a new robin, or god forbid a new fucking character. But nobody would care about them right? The secret is to trick people, then try to shame them when they call you out on it!

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To be fair, being bisexual isn't really a big change. Unless the character has explicitly mentioned a specific sexuality, being bisexual would not go against previous canon.

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Kimbos_Egg posted...

God dc and marvel are jokes..

"Why is nobody buying are comics?? is it because we keep changing beloved characters for literally no reason??? No its the customers thats the problem".

It's because they haven't gotten a new customer in 30 years

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keyblader1985 posted...

Which one?

Yeah, I was going to say this. I dont read the comics and can name three.

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Kimbos_Egg posted...

The secret is to trick people, then try to shame them when they call you out on it!

who is tricking you. what did they trick you about

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So the entire multiverse/alternate dimension shit is believable, but one character being something other than straight is "WOKE", seriously get a fucking grip. And it's the most unpopular Robin besides that little girl(that nobody knows about) so why? Is giving character development/features to him such a bad thing? Oh wait, it's only because he's not straight, if he was revelaed to be into chubby girls none of you would care.

All Im saying is that Bruce Wayne probably has a lot of Boys sized shorts delivered to Wayne Manor that he doesnt plan on wearing.

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Cruddy_horse posted...

if he was revelaed to be into chubby girls none of you would care.

not true

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Yeah thatd be cool too

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There's always been at least some implication that Tim was bi already. There was a storyline years ago where they kind of hinted that his feelings for Superboy might be a lot stronger than just "friendship".

If they're going to do sexuality retconning, I'd much rather they make people bi than gay, though. Because it's easier to justify "Well, he just happens to like some guys as well as women" than it is to justify "No, he just likes dudes, only dudes, exclusively dudes" when you've shown a character solely being interested in women for like 40+ years (and doubly so because in comics, we can HEAR people's thoughts).

Like, if they made Peter Parker gay tomorrow, it would be like "Wait, so in 60 years worth of stories, which was something like 15+ years worth of his in-universe life, where he was in relationships with like two dozen women, and where he has never had a single sexual thought about men but has repeatedly been infatuated with women, now he can't get off to women at all and is only interested in guys? That's kind of bullshit." And no, "Oh, he's just been really, really, really deep in denial but now he accepts his true self!" isn't really a great counter-justification.

Conversely, Northstar (who was always kind of written as a closeted gay man) comes out, and most people are like "Ehh, makes sense." And then there are characters who are newly introduced as gay right out of the gate (like Wiccan and Hulkling), where most people are "Ehh, fine, cool, whatever." Or even older characters who were never really established as having much sexuality can start to express as whatever and most people don't mind because it isn't contradicting previously established continuity.

The problem is, most of the time this sort of thing is done as a PR stunt by companies who are hemorrhaging readers away, in a desperate attempt to draw in new readers via shock outrage or pandering. So they deliberately choose characters that make no sense and that will prompt backlash because the backlash is what they want, not organic storytelling. And because they're more focused on the reaction than the narrative, the writing tends to be shallow as fuck, and even the people they're trying to attract don't care enough to start reading.

And then you get stuff like people complaining about how Jean Grey made Iceman gay.
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Tim Drake? Who gives a fuck about Tim Drake?
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GanonsSpirit posted...

Tim Drake? Who gives a fuck about Tim Drake?

He's my 4th favourite Robin after Jason, Damien and Commissioner Gordon

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Fierce_Deity_08 posted...

Yeah, I was going to say this. I dont read the comics and can name three.

There is 4 in the main universe that I know of. Dick Jason Tim and Damien.

Tim is probably the least popular. Woulda been jason as the fanbase literally voted to have him killed off but he came back as red hood who is somewhat popular.

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Kimbos_Egg posted...

God dc and marvel are jokes..

"Why is nobody buying are comics?? is it because we keep changing beloved characters for literally no reason??? No its the customers thats the problem".

Yeah, its almost as if they should have just made a new robin, or god forbid a new fucking character. But nobody would care about them right? The secret is to trick people, then try to shame them when they call you out on it!

2020 generated more comic revenue than any year in history. Its a billion dollar a year industry. Im sorry your angry opinions in no way match reality.

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mooreandrew58 posted...

There is 4 in the main universe that I know of. Dick Jason Tim and Damien.

Tim is probably the least popular. Woulda been jason as the fanbase literally voted to have him killed off but he came back as red hood who is somewhat popular.

He was voted to be killed by 72 votes out of over 10,000 and many people think several individuals voted a ridiculous amount of times which skewed the vote.


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kangolcone posted...

2020 generated more comic revenue than any year in history. Its a billion dollar a year industry. Im sorry your angry opinions in no way match reality.

hahaha maybe you should actually recheck your numbers bro.

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mooreandrew58 posted...

There is 4 in the main universe that I know of. Dick Jason Tim and Damien.

Tim is probably the least popular. Woulda been jason as the fanbase literally voted to have him killed off but he came back as red hood who is somewhat popular.

5 if you include Stephanie's short stint before Batman fired her. (Pre-New 52 and Rebirth though)

keyblader1985 posted...

Which one?

This so hard. There have been at least 5 Robins in the mainstream continuity, not counting the sub-continuities.

Veedrock- posted...

Name a character more bland than Tim Drake.

Oh, Tim Drake? Fuck DC, I like that one and hate it when people just randomly mess with his character.

ParanoidObsessive posted...

There's always been at least some implication that Tim was bi already. There was a storyline years ago where they kind of hinted that his feelings for Superboy might be a lot stronger than just "friendship".

If they're going to do sexuality retconning, I'd much rather they make people bi than gay, though. Because it's easier to justify "Well, he just happens to like some guys as well as women" than it is to justify "No, he just likes dudes, only dudes, exclusively dudes" when you've shown a character solely being interested in women for like 40+ years (and doubly so because in comics, we can HEAR people's thoughts).

Yeah, but that would suggest that any of this ever involves good writing. SJWism is generally piss-poor everything because the messaging is seen as more important than the actual content to these the assholes behind these decisions (and ditto when it's done as a marketing ploy).

mooreandrew58 posted...

There is 4 in the main universe that I know of. Dick Jason Tim and Damien.

Tim is probably the least popular. Woulda been jason as the fanbase literally voted to have him killed off but he came back as red hood who is somewhat popular.

Jason Todd is the most widely-hated Robin. Even Stephanie Brown doesn't get that kind of heat for her time as Robin, and she caused a fucking war. You could say "Oh, well, he's Red Hood now and people kinda like that!" but they had to reinvent his character to make him palatable. He had by far the worst Robin run, and was so heavily disliked that the poll ran in the first place.

Dick Grayson was fucking bland for much of his original run, whereas Tim was entertaining. Honestly, the Robin I hate most is probably Damian.

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Blighboy posted...

He's my 4th favourite Robin after Jason, Damien and Commissioner Gordon

lol

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I do not like Damien at all

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I actually liked Tim in TAS.

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keyblader1985 posted...

I actually liked Tim in TAS.

Pretty sure it was Dick in TAS? Unless Tim appears in later episodes that I'm forgetting

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It's not that big of a deal for people to get this upset. Literally no one liked Tim Drake or Red Robin before this.

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Blighboy posted...

Pretty sure it was Dick in TAS? Unless Tim appears in later episodes that I'm forgetting

He did show up in later episodes unless I'm mistaken.

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Zeus posted...

Dick Grayson was fucking bland for much of his original run

Most people love him because of all the stuff he's done since becoming Nightwing. And the fact that he's sort of become a memetic sex-god where it's implied that pretty much everyone in the DC universe wants to fuck him.



Blighboy posted...

Pretty sure it was Dick in TAS? Unless Tim appears in later episodes that I'm forgetting

The episodes where Robin is voiced by Loren Lester (basically the first two seasons) is Dick.

The final season (the one usually refered to as "The New Batman Adventures") turns Dick into Nightwing and introduces Tim as Robin.

And, of course, Tim's the Robin in Return of the Joker...



EvilMegas posted...

It's not that big of a deal for people to get this upset. Literally no one liked Tim Drake or Red Robin before this.

Comic fans did. Tim was fairly popular among people who actually read comics. It's just the mainstream audience who only really knows Batman from the films and cartoons who tend to default to Dick.

It's the same deal with Barbara Gordon as Batgirl - she was a much better character as Oracle, and both Stephanie and Cassandra Cain were more interesting Batgirls - but the average person mostly only knows Barbara as Batgirl, so anything resembling character development, legacy characters, or actual story progression in the comics has to get shoveled into the furnace so they can go back to having Barbara as Batgirl.

Arguably it's a large part of why some comic fans have stopped being comic fans. In the Iron Man comic, Pepper Potts was a minor love interest in the 60s who eventually married Happy and was shuffled out of the comic for nearly 50 years. But then she was a major character in the movie so the comics felt like they had to include her, so suddenly out of nowhere they had her divorce her husband, move back into Tony's life, and suddenly become a far more significant character than she'd ever been before in the desperate hope that at least some of the people who liked the movie would start buying the comics (which never really works).

There's no reason to care about characters in comics anymore, because none of their stories will ever lead to actual change or growth, and they'll all be radically retconned the next time a popular film or cartoon comes out involving those characters.
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I didn't really like a lot of the later TAS episodes so I'm probably forgetting him.

And Robin basically vanishes from any future DCAU cartoons.

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Blighboy posted...

And Robin basically vanishes from any future DCAU cartoons.

It's mainly because of this:

http://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/Bat-embargo
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Blighboy posted...

Pretty sure it was Dick in TAS? Unless Tim appears in later episodes that I'm forgetting

Tim came in with the redesign

EvilMegas posted...

It's not that big of a deal for people to get this upset. Literally no one liked Tim Drake or Red Robin before this.

He's the 2nd best Robin

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Mead posted...

Cool its nice to see some male bisexual representation

ParanoidObsessive posted...

It's mainly because of this:

http://dcau.fandom.com/wiki/Bat-embargo

I don't even understand the motivation behind a decision like that.

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Just another established character being used for diversity because it's too much to create anything new.

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Kimbos_Egg posted...

hahaha maybe you should actually recheck your numbers bro.

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/86791-2020-north-american-comics-sales-grow-to-1-28-billion.html

Heres mine with an article.

Wheres your numbersbro. Why do people insist on being dumb about something you can verify in 30 seconds on google?

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Blighboy posted...

I don't even understand the motivation behind a decision like that.

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViewersAreMorons
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ParanoidObsessive posted...

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ViewersAreMorons

valid

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Okay.

kangolcone posted...

https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/comics/article/86791-2020-north-american-comics-sales-grow-to-1-28-billion.html
Heres mine with an article.
Wheres your numbersbro. Why do people insist on being dumb about something you can verify in 30 seconds on google?

This. People keep asserting the "get woke, go broke" nonsense over and over again, when it's clearly got no basis in reality; it's just copium... as if comics haven't been far more "woke" on average than most other mediums anyway. For example:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RQNhwkgFQm4

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Such a drastic change for comics, which have never addressed any sort of social issue before. Marvel certainly doesn't have a commercially successful team who was basically a metaphor for LGBTQ+ issues in the 90's.

IronBornCorps posted...

Such a drastic change for comics, which have never addressed any sort of social issue before. Marvel certainly doesn't have a commercially successful team who was basically a metaphor for LGBTQ+ issues in the 90's.

Such a stupid nonsense stance. I love how you dimwits always strawman into irrelevant points like "comics have always commented on social issues" or imply that people are saying the problem with Tim being bi is because we think there's something wrong with being bi. There isn't. The problem is casually altering characters that some of us have been fans of since we were kids to pander to Twitter morons. Guess what? Just like I like Tim, I also like Midnighter and I'd be just as pissed off if they made him bi. Because he's not bi. He's gay. I truly hate people like you.

I bet you are lot of fun at parties...

Characters have also been "casually altered" pretty much since their existence as their likeness is passed from writer to writer, but ok.

Grischnak posted...

The problem is casually altering characters that some of us have been fans of since we were kids to pander to Twitter morons.

Do you throw a tantrum every time something changes with a character, then? Hair color, height, costume design, etc? Jesus, can you imagine how fucking boring comics would be if they just kept shit the same all the time for fear of triggering these snowflakes?

It reminds me of when I was a kid and I was upset when Link was changed from being left-handed to right-handed. Guess what? That was stupid of me and I got the fuck over it because I'm not a goddamn baby anymore. Creators can do whatever the fuck they want, and if all you cared about was "getting a good story," then you wouldn't be wasting your time sniveling about minor tweaks.

No one is stupid enough to believe you when you claim that something doesn't matter to you while you simultaneously throw non-stop tantrums about the very things you claim are superficial and irrelevant. At a bare minimum, own up to your pettiness. Better still? Grow the fuck up.

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I truly hate people like you.

r/nobodyasked

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Grischnak posted...

"comics have always commented on social issues" or imply that people are saying the problem with Tim being bi is because we think there's something wrong with being bi. There isn't

Even beyond that, there's the issue that there's a huge difference between "subtext" and "TEXT". Using a group of characters as a metaphor for multiple minority groups (or the original intention, which was simply as a metphor for the alienation teenagers tend to feel because they feel out of place in the world) is a lot different from going "Okay, everybody's gay now".

If anything, the latter is far worse because it just comes across as lazy, preachy, and purely agenda-driven. Whereas the stories where the writer actually used subtext and metaphor was much more likely to be well-received, accepted, and potentially even accomplish the goal of influencing people to see the world from a different perspective.

Basically, it's the difference between telling a good story and laying your message into it, as opposed to bludgeoning people with your message and then forgetting to tell a worthwhile story to justify it.



IronBornCorps posted...

I bet you are lot of fun at parties.

Every single time I see someone use this as an insult online, it always seems to strike me as coming from the sort of people who almost certainly never get invited to parties in the first place.

It's playground-level rhetoric, and is usually indicative of the person having no valid or worthwhile arguments to defend their position, so they have to resort to shit-flinging just to make themselves feel better.

It's about a half-step up from just yelling "NO YOU!" and acting like you're a Master of Quips.



Gaawa_chan posted...

Do you throw a tantrum every time something changes with a character, then? Hair color, height, costume design, etc?

When it's arbitrary? Yes. When it feels pointless? Yes. When it feels like you're making a change solely to pander who don't give a fuck about you and are never going to pay to read your comics anyway? Yes. Comic fans do indeed complain about those sorts of things.

But the funny thing is, most comic fans love change. So long as it's earned. People point to the "Demon in a Bottle" storyline from Iron Man as one of the best storylines in comics, and it basically tells the story of a man who slowly falls into alcoholism, hits rock bottom, struggles to clean himself up, and then in the end makes himself a better person than before - and now having that specter of potentially losing control and falling back into that hole again as a character trait that is ever-present in future stories. That story was told over years (and arguably, has been retold at least once), and fans loved it. The character changed, the fans responded positively.

Conversely, shortly thereafter, Marvel told a Spider-Man story where they were like, "Hah, remember that Spider-Man story from the 70s where there was a clone Spider-Man? Yeah, that was actually the real Spider-Man, and he's back now, and he's replacing the guy you've been reading about for the last 15 years. All those stories you think you enjoyed? Yeah, hah hah, none of that shit matters now. So, yeah, fuck you." Fans... did not respond positively.

(Nor, for that matter, did fans respond positively when Marvel undid years worth of change by having the Devil magically erase Spider-Man's marriage to MJ for incredibly stupid reasons because the editor-in-chief decided he should be single again.)

Write a story well and slowly evolve your character over time in interesting ways and the fans will love you for it. Half-ass ridiculous ass-pull retcons with almost no justification simply because you don't give a shit about continuity, and you kind of earn all of the disdain and negativity you provoke.

And make no mistake, they're fully aware of the negative reaction that's coming. They're praying for that reaction. Most of the time, it's the sole reason they're doing the thing in the first place. Because pissing off the few fans you've got left to spark outrage on Twitter is about the only way they can get the average person to even pay attention to or give a shit about comic books anymore.



Gaawa_chan posted...

Better still? Grow the fuck up.

Perhaps he should strive to show the level of maturity and respect you clearly evince? You are truly a role-model for our times.
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If someone is going to "truly hate people like me" based on one post, I really feel no obligation to bring my A-game in terms of smack talk, nor do I feel compelled to continue the discussion.

I would argue that stories that used subtext for these themes in the past HAD to in order to be released, and actually being able to bring it to mainstream text has only recently occurred in the last 10-15 years.

the people who I predicted would be unreasonably upset at this are upset at this

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