#and rarely venturing into the other titles except when there's crossover arcs

[mzminola]

Making my way through Preboot era Tim comics in a non-linear fashion makes Tim & Bruce’s relationship hurt in a different way than fanfic made me expect.

Tim definitely doesn’t have the same relationship with Bruce that Dick & Jason did, that’s true, but it’s not, hm... the problems are neglect, secrecy, manipulation, communication issues, and high-handedness. Aside from neglect, which mostly pertains because Tim is a kid, these are the same issues plaguing all of Bruce’s other relationships. And the manipulation starts out relatively low.

Bruce isn’t being an overly-critical, violent taskmaster in some attempt to chase Tim off. He’s harsh during their introduction, but once that’s done he settles into acceptance and mentorship, and they hash out the terms of their vigilante partnership early.

Tim was introduced to the comics as part of a deliberate attempt to back away from grimdark edginess, and for awhile, it worked. But over the years, that all crept back in. Bruce got more manipulative, judgmental, neglectful, and callously cruel.

I mean for fuck’s sake after Jack dies Tim spends over a year with no legal guardian despite Bruce knowing his uncle was fake. Whereas when both Jack & Janet were alive Bruce was concerned by how often they were gone and how hard it was for Tim to get in touch with them, and when Janet was dead and Jack in the hospital, Bruce fostered Tim, acting as a parent.

They didn’t have a rough start, with Bruce realizing over time that he saw Tim as family but failed to tell him so. No, they had a relatively decent start for the genre, and their relationship went downhill over time.

I can’t imagine nineties Tim pulling what he did with Captain Boomerang. But I also can’t imagine Bruce reacting the way he did in Red Robin. Nineties Bruce would have been concerned, and maybe expressed it badly, but he’d have tried. He’d have asked Tim why he did it, what his thought process was. Bruce would have been worried for Tim.

Their conversation might’ve been clunky and painful as they both struggled to find the right words, but it wouldn’t have ended where it did.