Pointless Indulgence

Man, nothing like a season premiere of The Shield to get you in the mood to post.

First off, relating to my earlier post about Robin, I forgot to mention I do like that Willingham has tried to give Robin some enemies of his own. Sure Johnny Warlock, the Rising Sun Archer, and the Dark Rider won't be challenging Flash's Rouges anytime soon (not if they value their health anyway), but as Robin establishes his own identity, he needs a few villains of his own. That being said, the title is 'Pointless Indulgence', so these were just a couple of ideas I'd have like to have seen explored, had the characters involved not, you know, died.

1) Jack Drake does not die in Identity Crisis, and Tim is back being Robin. How do they interact? Does father try to limit Tim's crimefighting (no crimefighting on Sunday night, so he's rested for school?) Does Jack try to spend more time with Tim, either in an attempt to draw him away from Batman's siren song of vigilantism, or because he's figures Tim is on borrowed Tim, so better go to the ballgame with him while he can. What about Tim's stepmom, Dana? Tim clearly has no problem keeping her in the dark, but can Jack do that to the woman he goes to bed with every night, especially when he told her he was sure Tim was involved in something dangerous? If he thinks he is going to tell her, what does Tim (or Batman) do?

2) Stephanie Brown survives 'War Games'. When Batman fired her as Robin, he told her to drop the vigilante stuff entirely. She ignored him then, just like she did the Birds of Prey and her father, the Cluemaster. But in the event the gang war actually occurred, maybe she gets herself and her mother out of Gotham, and follows Tim to Bludhaven. Tim is going to know she's still being Spoiler. If she doesn't outright tell him so, then he'll notice some injury she'll got from being out there one night. Does he tell Batman? Does Batman try to get Tim to make her stop. . . again? If he does, would Tim go along with it, or ignore Batman and just try to work with Stephanie, improving her chances of survival? In fact, why couldn't Tim or Batgirl train Stephanie, assuming Cass would also move to Bludhaven? Tim could teach her (and Cassandra for that matter) some of the more detective-related aspects of the job, while Cassandra works on Steph's fighting technique (Tim could benefit from that teaching as well). I'm not saying Batgirl, Robin, and Spoiler would all being appearing in Robin and Batgirl each month, but training together or comparing information on something large every few months shouldn't be out of the question. This is the first time any of them have tried to handle an entire city without the Bat's guiding presence, so a little teamwork wouldn't be a bad idea.

Steph can also serve as a morale booster for Tim if he gets depressed, like she did when he was out of sorts because he believed he killed Johnny Warlock. With Spoiler, the problem has never been a lack of determination, rather it's been a lack of skill, or a matter of being overeager, too gung-ho to prove herself. With people who regard her as a friend, and not a pupil/novice, that wouldn't be as much of a problem, so she'd be less likely to repeat old mistakes of throwing herself into situations too quickly. And as the girlfriend, Stephanie would get Tim out there on dates, forcing him to get out in public and interact with people as Tim Drake, not just spend all his time as Robin, which I think is a vital part of the character as a whole.

Clearly, I think there's more ground to be covered if Steph were still alive than Jack, but really having either character (or at least giving Tim some new people to interact with) would probably have helped Willingham out, if he had thought along these lines. Oh well, it's all moot now, but I feel better for having put this out there.