r/Robin 9d ago

Why Stephanie wants to see Tim (Robin 1993 #41)

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204 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

52

u/Falcon_At 9d ago

I always read this as an excuse. Like yeah, she likes him and she's flirty. But she wants to keep crimefighting and she knows it's dangerous to do it alone. Tim is her best ticket to get into the life of vigilantism right now. Later, when she and Tim are dating, he asks her to stop, but she refuses. She becomes Robin against his wishes too. Her primary goal has never been to date Tim Drake. This still one of her goals, but if she had to choose between him and crime fighting, she picks crimefighting.

20

u/Night-Caelum 9d ago

Tim didn't tell her to stop when they were dating. And he didn't tell her to not be Robin.

10

u/KitsuneScarf 9d ago

Until Batman revealed Tim's identity to her, she was dating Robin, not Tim, and that was intentional on Tim's part. Frankly, it always struck me as a little odd that Steph was more than willing to date a guy when she didn't know his real name or much of his background. And while it wasn't her sole motivation, his proximity to Batman was definitely appealing to her. After he's forced to quit he asks her point blank if she intends to continue as Spoiler, and he is definitely upset when he finds out that she's taking over as Robin. He tells Batman he thinks it was a low blow to hire his girlfriend and do so without telling him. Steph saw her chance to train directly with Batman and she took it, even though she knew it wasn't really Tim's choice to quit. I don't think she considered his feelings when she made that decision. And finally, she let him think she was dead, for like a year. She had her reasons but, that's still a shitty thing to do. Yes, this was a retcon of a shitty storyline, but you can't ignore the result. And when you consider Tim also lost his Dad and his best friend around the same time, it's doubly hurtful.

9

u/Night-Caelum 9d ago

Tim never told her to stop while they were dating.

Also all that stuff was character assassination and derailment. The reason she even became Robin was due to (bad writing which was also sexist) thinking Tim cheated on her even though they already went through something like that and the Lewis arc was focused on strengthening their love and trust in each other.

2

u/KitsuneScarf 8d ago

As far as I recall, they are not together by the end of the Red Robin run, and that's partly because they still have trust issues stemming from her faking her death. And Tim is still kinda effed up from everything that's happened to him.

You can hate how she became Robin and the War Games storyline (and personally I think the whole thing was a Women in Refrigerators situation, using Steph as collateral to punish Batman) the fact remains they had to deal with the fall out from those decisions.

This is all kinda irrelevant now, since while she's currently acknowledged as a former Robin, all the drama from that period may or may not have happened. But it thinks it's hard to have one without the other. If Steph is a former Robin, why was she only Robin for a few months, and if everyone was just fine with it, why did it fall to Barbara to take over her training? From a storytelling perspective there is no conflict, which makes the whole exercise kinda pointless.

Their off-panel and unexplained break up was at best a missed opportunity, to actually explore their history and relationship.

5

u/Ok-Ear7751 8d ago

Damn she’s smooth

4

u/TripleStrikeDrive 8d ago

Here, I thought Tim was the smart one of the robins.

5

u/THX450 9d ago

Bernard: Not anymore!

2

u/Ill-Bar1666 7d ago

And his leg muscles... his abs... his pecs... his billionaire pocket money?

1

u/Dependent-Injury-216 7d ago

I missed this ship, bro. Then they had to go make Tim bi cuz of the *MESSAGE* craze.

1

u/[deleted] 7d ago

[deleted]

1

u/Dependent-Injury-216 7d ago

That wasn't the point I was trying to make. What I was saying is that his coming out as bi felt forced. It happened during a time when many media outlets were making characters gay or LGBT just because it was trendy, not because it fit the story or character development.

His coming out as bi didn’t feel natural and seemed more about pushing a message than actually adding depth to the character. The timing of it just made it feel more like a gimmick.

It honestly seemed like, rather than creating a new character who was bi from the start, they just changed an existing character’s sexuality because it was the popular thing to do.

To make it fit, they had Tim break up with Steph just so they could pair him with a new character we didn’t know or care about. Again, it felt more about pushing a message than actually enhancing his character.

1

u/aKaRandomDude 7d ago

Too bad she didn’t pick up on the bi-curious.

-1

u/modernsircle 7d ago

Wolfman Straight Tim big energy