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I am the night!

Marginalized fans know all about Representation Calculus: Is this “good” representation, or the kind of thin stereotype the majority has learned to tolerate?

Who is Tim Drake and why have I not heard of him?

Image: Tom Grummett, Scott Hanna/DC Comics

Actually, it’s entirely possible that you have.

Of putting aspects of myself in a separate box and locking it away.”

Kevin Conroy passed away on November 10th, 2022 at age 66. By 2009, the writer had been cultivating the origin story of Damian Wayne — the grandchild of Ra’s al Ghul and the son Batman never knew he had — for three years, through various miniseries and crossovers.

Jason Todd is the Robin Who Died, and he came back as the Red Hood. It was a sweet story, delivered without a drop of fanfare from DC Comics — a story that gave me, a queer reader and enormous fan of Robin, the singularly euphoric experience of seeing queer subtext actually and unexpectedly become text. Your children will learn to see criminals as unempathetic monsters while cheering a psychotic leather daddy bringing state-sponsored violence upon them and keeping them safe from sex!

Yeah, all moral panics are patently absurd when thought about for more than a few seconds.

While there is some validity to the edgelord take of Batman being a sadistic embodiment of capitalism, beating up poor and mentally ill people with billions of dollars in inherited wealth, Conroy saw what makes Batman a hero.

During this time, Batgirl Barbra Gordon got a glow-up that found her back in college. His story Finding Batman is a moving autobiographical tale about how his identity helped him identify with the dual life of most superheroes.

“I often marveled at how appropriate it was that I should land this role.” Conroy wrote.

It’s an enviable trajectory for any character—especially one born out of prudish fears.

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She would be joined by GCPD detective Rene Montoya, another character created for the animated series that would be brought into the comics.

Dick Grayson is the Robin Who Came First and became Nightwing.

Kate Kane would later begin a relationship with Maggie Sawyer, a police captain, because I guess Batwoman has a thing for cops.

But since her return, Batwoman has been given a prominent role in the DC universe. But before I could enjoy it, my online discourse-poisoned brain handed me an urgent assignment, and I figuratively sat down at a school desk to do my “Representation Calculus” homework. Chip Zdarsky told me as much when I reached out to him about his upcoming run on Batman, for which he picked Tim — not Damian, Dick, or Jason — as the Dark Knight’s featured partner.

gay batman comics

That is just… wow.

Looking past the tasteless jokes about Bruce spending all of his time with an old British man and a speedo-clad boy he kept in a cave, there has always been a homoerotic subtext to Batman. We have a word for expecting a single character or creator to shoulder all the weight of normalizing the underrepresented: It’s tokenism.