1. Dick Grayson (1940-1983) graduated to become Nightwing.
2. Jason Todd (1983-88) either was murdered or graduated to become Redwing.
3. Tim Drake (1988-2011) graduated to become Red Robin.
4. Damien Wayne (2011-).
This gives fan artists a lot of subjects for their fantasies.
When I was a kid, you could get bubble gum cards with Robin being threatened in various ways.
More recent Robins aren't threatened quite as often.
But still, fan artists have been quite busy with depictions of Robin in bondage. There's a group on deviantart.com devoted to just pictures of Robin in Distress.
If you're going to show arousal or sexual activity, you have to make sure that Robin is over 18.
There are far fewer pictures of Batman himself being threatened, and those that exist tend to be humorous or bizarre, or both. Batman being basted?
I can't even speculate on why Robin is more popular as an object of bondage fantasy.
Even as an adult superhero.
DC counts Stephanie Brown, though I don't expect fan art of her because, you know, woman. There are also other Robins not in the main timeline, and one in the future, which means likely alternate timeline. (This is how Teen Titans Go! can have two Dick Graysons, one from 60s Batman and one from Teen Titans Go! But TTG Robin has the memories of 60s Robin, so just chalk it up to TTG having no continuity.)
ReplyDeleteMaking Robin a girl is an interesting way to eliminate the gay subtext in the relationship. Very few male superheroes have had female sidekicks. Captain America's Bucky got a sex change after World War II.
DeleteTrue. And in the "We Hate Green" Arrow TV series, they do the same with Speedy.
DeleteBy the way, New 52 Batgirl is bi. This is the same New 52 that lovingly renders Jason Todd's bulge. Actually, New 52 really upped the sexy for everyone.
Note that the top photo, ostensibly of Burt Ward as Robin from the 1960a TV series (where's he's on Joker's lethal whirling-blade mobile in "Pop Goes the Joker") is a fan-doctored image, enhanced with more ropes and a bigger bulge. It's not authentic.
ReplyDeleteAre you requesting that I remove the photo?
DeleteNo, not at all. I just thought you might want to know in the interests of accuracy: it's NOT an actual image from the TV series — but if you like it, by all means, keep it. Just realize it's not "real".
DeleteBTW the "Hook Up with Burt Ward on the "Batman" Set" article describes "an episode we filmed just before the 1967 summer hiatus, [where] Burt was tied up alone, spreadeagle on a table", which may well be "Pop Goes the Joker". It was almost the last episode of the season, the last occasion when Robin was alone in the cliffhanger trap. Differnces are that he was not spreadeagle, or on a "table". In truth, never in the series was he truly "spreadeagle", so we have to assume that bit wasn't accurate at any rate. The one other occasion of Robin alone that was close to the given timeframe was five weeks earlier in "The Joker's Last Laugh", when he was tied on something similar to a table, his arms down his sides. There really weren't any other occasions in the series when Robin was tied up alone in a horizontal position since the pilot episode (on one occasion a season ealier than 1967 he was strapped upside-down to the clapper of a large bell). Some other times when he was alone in a cliffhanger, he wasn't tied up. It's really got to be one of the two instances I mentioned, and "Pop Goes the Joker" was close to the end of the season as described.
In the first 2 seasons, Robin was tied up or immobilized in 5 cliff-hangers, and Batman and Robin together 35 times. In the 3rd season, they stopped doing cliff-hangers. Funny, I remember Robin being tied up a lot more than that.
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