#because with steph being batgirl + cass being forced to give up batgirl... the angst... cass/tim both being on the outs with steph in a way

[casscainmainly]

Hi Hi! Um, I'm wondering if Tim and Cass are actually close in canon? I know they're both close to Steph (and Kon I guess), but I don't even really remember the two of them interacting very much, especially not one on one. Is there a comic where they're close or do people just headcanon them being closer because of Steph?

Hi!!! Tim & Cass are maybe not as close in canon as some fanon makes out, but it's definitely not a fanon-only thing!! Tim is inarguably the brother Cass is closest to (with Duke a runner-up). I made a post here about what Tim means to Cass which includes quite a lot of their one-on-one interactions, but for convenience here are some Tim-Cass essentials!!

Batgirl (2000) #18: Besides some interactions in NML, this is the start of their relationship and it's really nice! We get the iconic 'I grew' and the end sees them deciding to become friends :). This is before Cass + Steph have their first meaningful interaction so it's interesting for that reason too.

Batgirl (2000) #31-2: This is not actually important to Tim-Cass because, as you point out, they're not one-on-one here, but it is a fun crossover and you get Connor and Steph!! There's one moment where Steph calls Cass weird and Tim goes "Spoiler!" that I find really adorable so worth checking out.

Robin/Batgirl: Fresh Blood: The Tim-Cass comic of all time. These four issues are probably what most people imagine when they think of Tim and Cass, and for good reason! It's a great encapsulation of how much they respect each other and how fundamentally different they are. Also shows how Steph is an important part of their relationship to each other, even when she's not around.

Batman Allies: Secrets & Origins #1: An epilogue to Fresh Blood that has some really important insights into Tim & Cass' diverging views on Bruce. Once again we see that they care about each other, but the spectre of Stephanie (and Bruce honestly) continues to haunt their relationship. Actually chef's kiss really interesting this one is HIGHLY recommended!

Red Robin #17, 25: Besides Fresh Blood, #17 the most important issue in the Tim-Cass experience. At a time when Cass was shunted off to Hong Kong and Tim was isolating himself, it's lovely they kept a connection to each other. Tim giving Cass the Black Bat outfit + Cass accepting is highly meaningful, and this is definitely the highlight of the Black Bat era. Except for...

Gates of Gotham #1-5: This comic!!! AGH!!! Though it focuses more on Cass-Damian, this comic has lovely lovely Tim-Cass moments as well, and you can really see that Tim is the person Cass feels closest to in this moment.

I think that's all for pre-52 besides Batgirl (2008) where Tim defends Cass from Dick (don't really recommend it as a story in itself, but it's got some moments)! In Rebirth we also have Tynion's Detective Comics (2016), though Tim-Cass is really not a focus. Any one of these comics shows the strength of the Tim-Cass relationship - they aren't as close as Cass' relationships to Babs, Steph, Bruce/Tim's relationship to Dick, but they are definitely important to each other!

[thattimdrakeguy]

I liked Alan Grant’s work with Tim (specifically Batman 457, it’s still one of my favourite Tim stories) but yeah Dixon’s early stories (especially his 1st miniseries) were some of the best Tim writing. Lewis had a few good Tim moments, mostly with his relationships with Dana and Steph, but I felt like Lewis preferred Steph’s character over his, since she had a lot of focus in his run. I can’t remember much of Willingham’s run (also according to him, Tim kept journals of his time as Robin? 1/2

I can’t remember the journals appearing beforehand) I felt like Beechon made Tim more angry than he’d normally be, but he was a relief after the last 2 writers. His stories (evil Cass who?) were decent. Brandon Thomas wrote one issue (167) and it was a bit angsty, but not too overbearing and it had a hopeful ending (Jack wasn’t a good dad tho). Dixon’s second run was disappointing (I think he called Ives Martin?). Fab Nic’s was a mess. Yost was not bad, but his Tim could be OOC at times 2/2+

+ I wish Yost stayed on as Red Robin’s main writer tho. Bringing back Cass, RR 16 (I think(?) where Anarky tries to find out RR’s ID) and the Teen Titans crossover were the only positive things about Nic’s run. Funny how TT!Tim was more broody than solo!Tim and RR!RR is more broody than TT!RR. I knew Tim as RR first, so reading backwards, his earlier stuff were definitely more well written. It’s why I love your blog, since early Tim is the best Tim and your analysis is spot on +

I think Alan Grant’s work is very undervalued, because alongside Marv Wolfman and Chuck Dixon, he’s another writer that brought us a fully fleshed out Tim Drake during his first year of existence. He helped bring us a lot of good Tim moments too, and honestly some of his better ones from his pre-Robin days as well, and after he was Robin too of course.

Dixon in his early work did amazing work and taking all that we learned about Tim and putting his character to the test in so many fun and interesting stories. At least until his decline where he comes off as too self-obsessed and became known as the jerkface we think of today, cause with the internet coming in--he's more bigoted views came out. And makes some hindsight stuff even more obvious.

John Lewis though I don’t honestly like. The most I can say for him is that he had good Tim moments where he understood Tim’s dorky nature, but overall he wrote him to be a pretentious, judgmental, boy genius, that just seemed so off the mark for the meek-ish, insecure, but super clever, and slowly forming confidence Tim that we saw just before. He made Tim kind of a jerk, like all of Tim’s worst moments, but except if Tim was always like that and not just in the moment when he’s having a difficult time or put on the spot. So I really can’t like his run because of that. His stuff with Steph too, was just really forced, and simply continued all the forced stuff Dixon did with her. Lewis besides some good moments has a lot of the worst stuff Dixon did with the romances, plus his own weirdness and lack of understanding.

Late Lewis and Willingham though, is were you really get the sense that editorial (namely Didio as this was when he gained more power in the company. And the storyline where Batman put Tim through a test that gave him paranoia came from) wanted to make Tim tougher, and edgier, because he was too soft before. He had “war journals” even though I don’t believe Tim ever spoke about having any, nor thought in a way that would have him calling them “war journals” suit him. They made him more conventionally cool, and rebellious (this was also happening in Teen Titans at the time). He had a motorcycle over a mildly dorky, tiny sized car (like pretty much only Tim can fit in the Redbird comfortably). He was becoming more Batman-esque, and there was angst about how that was happening. It was just all about changing Tim into something he’s not simply because people with power didn’t like him as he was.

Beechon I think did really good though with Tim, because he wrote Tim after Tim’s months of having people he loved die. So I think being angrier made sense. Although I remember it being more frustration and desperation. But he also wrote him in a way that showed an idealistic spirit in him, and a heart that pushed on that kept it feeling like Tim. It felt like Tim dealing with his loses, much more than Geoff Johns’s over the top melodrama. Evil Cass though--can’t deny that’s Beechon, ain’t gonna, but at least he attempted to make it up by writing a Batgirl mini too mixed reception.

Dixon’s second run really showed just how bad Dixon got. Like you’d think a break might have him get his head back into it. But it was all just about bringing Steph back and shoving her in, because he became borderline obsessed with his OC like that. He just wrote things with no regard to how other things were. Wrote Zoe, who was a very sweet, but awkward, understanding, independent, and unsure kind of girl, exactly how he wrote Ariana, just a romantic plot device to be frustrated at Tim to give Tim boy-angst, instead of like she’s a real person with her own issues like how Zoe actually was. COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER SEBASTIAN IVE’S NAME. And sometimes wrote Tim more like he was in the mind zone of writing Dick versus actual Tim. It was a trainwreck that at one point I loved cause of rose tinted glasses, but now, it’s entirely obvious how far he had fallen. Everything going sour towards the end of his original run times 10. Awful stuff.

FabNic though. I just really don’t like FabNic’s run. He made Tim a cold, caluclating, somewhat apathetic-ish (not fully, but in ways), angsty, edge lord. He didn’t resemble Tim to me. But sort of represented the final position of Johns’s and Didio’s, and others transformation of Tim into something not recongnizable through contrived deaths and situations, that wouldn’t have happened under writers who could write a competent story.

Yost was okay though, but still pretty mixed for me. I recognized Tim more in him, but there’s still a lot of moments where it just didn’t feel like Tim at all. Like I can’t picture Tim punching Damian in the face, I can’t picture Dick just giving away Robin when he knows more about Tim than anyone, and I can’t picture Damian just acting like a stereotypical bratty kid, he’s a total jerk, but not how he wrote it, he just wrote a random kid, not Damian. But there’s more moments of genuine Tim-ness then there was with FabNic. I’m not an honest fan of Yost’s run, but comparatively, it was superior. And while a lot of his writing for it was awful in spots, his story was at least one that was interesting and worth reading just for premise, but shouldn’t be held highly on characterization.

That’s my feelings on it anyways. I’m really glad to hear you enjoy my blog, and I appreciate your compassion about it too. I needed another smile today. it genuinely means a ton to me.

[secretlystephaniebrown]

In the batgirl 10th anniversary interview Miller said that if the comic had continued it would have been terribly angsty what do you think would have happened? Do you think DC ever utilised some of those ideas for new 52/ rebirth considering Steph has not been having a fun time?

I haven’t seen the interview around, but I do remember reading that the Black Mercy series were, in fact, meant to be storylines that had been considered. 

I personally think there was a great deal of angst potential in the Batgirls team up that we see hinted at:

although of course that would require the person writing the event to understand why Cassandra Cain would be upset by someone else, even or perhaps especially Steph, being Batgirl, which I have no faith that Miller would, given how he wrote Cass off immediately, and erased her from Steph’s history of the Bat Family. But! It’s still a fascinating idea!

On Steph’s end, we could explore a lot of her insecurities very directly, with her finding herself lacking when compared to original!Babs!Batgirl (not Babs!Girl of the Nu52, to be clear, I think Batgirl Steph would measure up okay on that front), and then Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl? Yeah, we could get some fun stuff out of that. 

Meanwhile Babs! She’s looking out at this legacy she’s created, but they won’t tell her what happens to her, and she’s completely out of place, possibly feeling supplanted, because she never made this to be a legacy, but here they are, her successors, and she doesn’t even know them. 

There’s a lot of angst potential not from Black Mercy that I can think of, but then again, that’s kind of my specialty! 

The Black Mask is a loose end which could be fascinating to play with

Steph’s trauma from War Games, which we were teased at once and never saw again

a storyline where one of Steph’s college friends gets pregnant and she’s forced to take on the same role that Tim played for her, while re-examining her own choices (and possibly giving the pregnancy storyline some more nuance)

exploration of Steph’s secret identity being exposed in War Games (yes, I’ve written this, but C’MON)

a Bruce and Steph team up where they end up having to confront Steph’s legacy as Robin

a Cass and Steph team up storyline where they have to reconcile their friendship

a Steph fighting the Joker storyline, with Babs and Steph talking about their respective traumas, and Steph teaming up with Harley Quinn

A Steph and Damian team up where Steph and Damian work together to get a friend of his from school out of an abusive household

Miller, as much as I enjoyed his Batgirl run, does not really seem to enjoy examining Steph’s anger and trauma in a meaningful way, and so, knowing comics, the main angst sources I can think of involve fridging Steph’s friends and possibly even her mother and isolating her from the Bat family again for some contrived reason. Is that a bit harsh? maybe. But I have learned to never raise my expectations too high when it comes to comics. 

As for for if I think DC ever utilized the ideas… not really? Tynion, while building off the characterization that Miller set up, mostly doesn’t actually engage much in Miller’s actual storylines.