Post by Bannanachair on Nov 15, 2016 9:49:19 GMT -4
I did a lot of research, but I think I arrived at a fairly decent conclusion about Batman chronology. I will be giving this first part based on his age rather than the year that it happened, and I'll explain that in the second part of this post. This is just my own interpretation of what "standard" batman chronology is, it ought to be obvious to anyone who has ever read a comic that this stuff really isn't taken very seriously by the writers.
First, when did Batman's parents die? I've often seen the age of eight years old be thrown around, though I forget where I first saw that. In the television show Gotham, however, the shootings are portrayed as having occurred in the presence of a twelve year old Batman. Either way it can be more or less taken for granted that Bruce was rather young.
The obvious next question is to figure out when Batman became Batman, and this is where things start getting more complicated. I have no definitive sources, but I think that Gotham will end by around season 10 like what Smallville did, which would make Batman 22 in the Gothamverse. To the contrary, the comic series Batman: Year One portrays Batman as being 25 during his first year as Batman, and in Christopher Nolan's godawful movie series that everyone seems to love for some reason he appears to be more akin to 30. Because this timeline will get very crowded very soon I will opt to stick with the first answer of 22.
The third question to ask is when the hell did Dick Grayson join Batman as Robin? Well, first I'll attempt to deduce Robin's age at the time and then I'll go for Bruce's age. If you look at the cover of detective comics #38, the first appearance of Robin, he looks to be a well-muscled child, but his age is relatively uncertain. He appears to be somewhere at or around the age of twelve, though, in my own personal opinion. However, that's not the only source I can think of. The television series Young Justice mentioned several times that Dick was nine years old when he became Robin. Many more recent interpretations of the Batman/Robin story have Batman having adopted Dick Grayson (technically making him Dick Wayne, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely). Let's take the younger age of 9 for Dick as well because that would make the timeline more compact and assume that Dick was 9 when he became Robin. That would mean that, in order for things to not be really awkward, Batman would have to be at least 18 years older than Robin. What's more, the DCAU explicitly shows that Batman was Batman for a while before acquiring a sidekick in Robin, and so, assuming that Robin is a mere 18 years younger than Batman at the age of nine we arrive at the conclusion that Batman was 27 when he adopted Robin, meaning that he was Batmanning for five years by that stage.
I can't find any consistent source on when Barbara Gordon (Jim's daughter, not Jim's psychopathic ex-girlfriend from the show Gotham) became Batgirl in relation to when Dick Grayson became Robin, mostly because comic writers know how long this timeline gets, but the general consensus seems to be that she's about the same age as Dick and became Batgirl within a year of him, so that's what I'll go with.
The next two questions are once again about Dick Grayson (I will be writing a lot about Dick Grayson here). When did he leave his father to join/form the Teen Titans? When did he become Nightwing? Clearly he left Batman before becoming Nightwing, but I'm not sure how long by. The whole concept of Batman and Robin went on for a while in the real world, and Dick becoming Robin at the age of nine (as we're going with) leaves a fair amount of room in teenagerhood for Robin to have done the whole Teen Titans thing. The two main sources for this would both be cartoons - namely, Teen Titans and Young Justice. Teen Titans seems to portray Robin as being rather older than Young Justice does, with him being a bit more mature, and being old enough to drive a motorbike (meaning at least 16). Young Justice, on the other hand, portrays him as being more akin to 14. I'll average these two numbers to get the age of 15 for Robin leaving Batman to join the Teen Titans, meaning that Batman (18 years older) would be 33 at the time.
Now for when Dick became Nightwing. I'm inclined to take the easy way out and say that he became Nightwing as soon as he became an adult and so that's what I'll do because if you're still reading this by this stage you probably care more about the answer than I do. That means that in the comics the Teen TItans would have existed for three years, Robin became Nightwing at his age of 18 and Batman was 36 when this happened. You may be thinking that Batman's not that old so I didn't need to go with the smallest number possible, but do keep in mind that there are still three more Robins to go through (if you ignore that more recent stuff where Robin became a street gang or whatever which I will because it's bullshit).
Before I go onto the issue of Jason Todd, I do believe that there is one thing that I should mention, and that is the character of Helena Wayne, also known as Huntress. Some of you may already know this, but in the silver age comics, earth 2 batman and catwoman had a daughter named Helena. I will not add this to my timeline. My reasoning is simple and intuitive - I am only counting the "main batman", whoever he was at the time. I took Batman of earth 2 into account when discussing stories released in the Golden Age, but in the Silver Age this batman was no longer the "main" batman and so Helena was the daughter of that other batman, not the daughter of the Batman. Helena was a great character and having her as Batman's cannonical daughter in the main universe would have been awesome (maybe for DC's next multiverse reboot?), but for now I will not include her in the timeline.
Now for the issue of figuring out when Jason Todd became Robin. Jason Todd likely became Robin at a young age, like Dick Grayson, in all likelihood sometime prior to hitting puberty. If you're wondering how I know that, I can deduce this from his costume design on the cover of Batman issue 368 - you'll notice that you see absolutely nothing despite the pants that he's wearing. The average age for males to hit puberty is 12, with a range between 9 and 14 being normal. Due to the fact that Jason is white and different ethnic groups have some minor biological differences (height, etc.) I suppose I could have done a bit more research but I do not want to be put on a watchlist so we'll go with 12 as being the maximum age that Jason could have been at this time. That doesn't resolve the issue of how old Batman was when he was joined by Jason. Up until recently there was never a period in time where there were two robins from earth 1, so Jason was robin after Dick became nightwing. At the time that Bruce adopted Jason he was, in the comics, estranged from Dick for quite a few years, though that means nothing given the amount of time that Dick spent in the Teen Titans. The easiest answer would be to say that Jason became Robin within a year of Dick becoming Nightwing to stop criminals from thinking "where did Robin go?" and preserve the idea of there being only one robin, but I really can't easily find anything on this topic. We'll go with Jason being 12 and Bruce being 37, making Bruce 25 years older than Jason and Dick 7 years older than Jason - a bit farther apart than what most brotherly relationships are like.
Final timeline (in relation to Batman's age):
Age 8: Murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne
Age 22: First appearance of Batman after 14 years of training
Age 27: Batman adopts Dick Grayson
Age 27: Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl
Age 33: Dick leaves Batman to join the Teen Titans
Age 36: Dick becomes Nightwing
Age 37: Jason Todd becomes Robin
I will leave this where it is for now and edit it to add more later. My to-do list for now (if anyone wants to add some sources please do so):
1) Batgirl becoming Oracle and a continued history of the Robins
2) A history of Batman's more significant romantic relationships (Selina Kyle, Talia Al'Ghul and Vicki Vale, plus maybe one or two more).
3) An attempt at deducing Alfred's age and when he ought to be dead in the comics
4) Information on how Batman trained to become Batman
5) A history of Batman's interactions with other superheroes, including a history of his role in the JLA
First, when did Batman's parents die? I've often seen the age of eight years old be thrown around, though I forget where I first saw that. In the television show Gotham, however, the shootings are portrayed as having occurred in the presence of a twelve year old Batman. Either way it can be more or less taken for granted that Bruce was rather young.
The obvious next question is to figure out when Batman became Batman, and this is where things start getting more complicated. I have no definitive sources, but I think that Gotham will end by around season 10 like what Smallville did, which would make Batman 22 in the Gothamverse. To the contrary, the comic series Batman: Year One portrays Batman as being 25 during his first year as Batman, and in Christopher Nolan's godawful movie series that everyone seems to love for some reason he appears to be more akin to 30. Because this timeline will get very crowded very soon I will opt to stick with the first answer of 22.
The third question to ask is when the hell did Dick Grayson join Batman as Robin? Well, first I'll attempt to deduce Robin's age at the time and then I'll go for Bruce's age. If you look at the cover of detective comics #38, the first appearance of Robin, he looks to be a well-muscled child, but his age is relatively uncertain. He appears to be somewhere at or around the age of twelve, though, in my own personal opinion. However, that's not the only source I can think of. The television series Young Justice mentioned several times that Dick was nine years old when he became Robin. Many more recent interpretations of the Batman/Robin story have Batman having adopted Dick Grayson (technically making him Dick Wayne, but that doesn't roll off the tongue quite as nicely). Let's take the younger age of 9 for Dick as well because that would make the timeline more compact and assume that Dick was 9 when he became Robin. That would mean that, in order for things to not be really awkward, Batman would have to be at least 18 years older than Robin. What's more, the DCAU explicitly shows that Batman was Batman for a while before acquiring a sidekick in Robin, and so, assuming that Robin is a mere 18 years younger than Batman at the age of nine we arrive at the conclusion that Batman was 27 when he adopted Robin, meaning that he was Batmanning for five years by that stage.
I can't find any consistent source on when Barbara Gordon (Jim's daughter, not Jim's psychopathic ex-girlfriend from the show Gotham) became Batgirl in relation to when Dick Grayson became Robin, mostly because comic writers know how long this timeline gets, but the general consensus seems to be that she's about the same age as Dick and became Batgirl within a year of him, so that's what I'll go with.
The next two questions are once again about Dick Grayson (I will be writing a lot about Dick Grayson here). When did he leave his father to join/form the Teen Titans? When did he become Nightwing? Clearly he left Batman before becoming Nightwing, but I'm not sure how long by. The whole concept of Batman and Robin went on for a while in the real world, and Dick becoming Robin at the age of nine (as we're going with) leaves a fair amount of room in teenagerhood for Robin to have done the whole Teen Titans thing. The two main sources for this would both be cartoons - namely, Teen Titans and Young Justice. Teen Titans seems to portray Robin as being rather older than Young Justice does, with him being a bit more mature, and being old enough to drive a motorbike (meaning at least 16). Young Justice, on the other hand, portrays him as being more akin to 14. I'll average these two numbers to get the age of 15 for Robin leaving Batman to join the Teen Titans, meaning that Batman (18 years older) would be 33 at the time.
Now for when Dick became Nightwing. I'm inclined to take the easy way out and say that he became Nightwing as soon as he became an adult and so that's what I'll do because if you're still reading this by this stage you probably care more about the answer than I do. That means that in the comics the Teen TItans would have existed for three years, Robin became Nightwing at his age of 18 and Batman was 36 when this happened. You may be thinking that Batman's not that old so I didn't need to go with the smallest number possible, but do keep in mind that there are still three more Robins to go through (if you ignore that more recent stuff where Robin became a street gang or whatever which I will because it's bullshit).
Before I go onto the issue of Jason Todd, I do believe that there is one thing that I should mention, and that is the character of Helena Wayne, also known as Huntress. Some of you may already know this, but in the silver age comics, earth 2 batman and catwoman had a daughter named Helena. I will not add this to my timeline. My reasoning is simple and intuitive - I am only counting the "main batman", whoever he was at the time. I took Batman of earth 2 into account when discussing stories released in the Golden Age, but in the Silver Age this batman was no longer the "main" batman and so Helena was the daughter of that other batman, not the daughter of the Batman. Helena was a great character and having her as Batman's cannonical daughter in the main universe would have been awesome (maybe for DC's next multiverse reboot?), but for now I will not include her in the timeline.
Now for the issue of figuring out when Jason Todd became Robin. Jason Todd likely became Robin at a young age, like Dick Grayson, in all likelihood sometime prior to hitting puberty. If you're wondering how I know that, I can deduce this from his costume design on the cover of Batman issue 368 - you'll notice that you see absolutely nothing despite the pants that he's wearing. The average age for males to hit puberty is 12, with a range between 9 and 14 being normal. Due to the fact that Jason is white and different ethnic groups have some minor biological differences (height, etc.) I suppose I could have done a bit more research but I do not want to be put on a watchlist so we'll go with 12 as being the maximum age that Jason could have been at this time. That doesn't resolve the issue of how old Batman was when he was joined by Jason. Up until recently there was never a period in time where there were two robins from earth 1, so Jason was robin after Dick became nightwing. At the time that Bruce adopted Jason he was, in the comics, estranged from Dick for quite a few years, though that means nothing given the amount of time that Dick spent in the Teen Titans. The easiest answer would be to say that Jason became Robin within a year of Dick becoming Nightwing to stop criminals from thinking "where did Robin go?" and preserve the idea of there being only one robin, but I really can't easily find anything on this topic. We'll go with Jason being 12 and Bruce being 37, making Bruce 25 years older than Jason and Dick 7 years older than Jason - a bit farther apart than what most brotherly relationships are like.
Final timeline (in relation to Batman's age):
Age 8: Murder of Thomas and Martha Wayne
Age 22: First appearance of Batman after 14 years of training
Age 27: Batman adopts Dick Grayson
Age 27: Barbara Gordon becomes Batgirl
Age 33: Dick leaves Batman to join the Teen Titans
Age 36: Dick becomes Nightwing
Age 37: Jason Todd becomes Robin
I will leave this where it is for now and edit it to add more later. My to-do list for now (if anyone wants to add some sources please do so):
1) Batgirl becoming Oracle and a continued history of the Robins
2) A history of Batman's more significant romantic relationships (Selina Kyle, Talia Al'Ghul and Vicki Vale, plus maybe one or two more).
3) An attempt at deducing Alfred's age and when he ought to be dead in the comics
4) Information on how Batman trained to become Batman
5) A history of Batman's interactions with other superheroes, including a history of his role in the JLA
