Tim Drake’s Bisexuality Has Been Teased By DC For Years
Tim Drake’s Robin coming out as a queer in Batman: Urban Legends #6 builds off of years of comics history that already alluded to this fact.
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Tim Drake’s Robin made waves this week amongst fans of DC Comics and beyond after a story in Batman: Urban Legends #6 ended with Tim agreeing to go on a date with his friend, Bernard.
A third installment in the story, “The Sum of Our Parts” by Meghan Fitzmartin, Belén Ortega, Alejandro Sanchez, and Pat Brosseau, followed Tim as he struggled to find the courage to self-reflect on his life and what he actually wants. Because Tim has had romantic relationships with women in the past, most notably with Spoiler (Stephanie Brown), a former Robin and Batgirl, the third chapter of “The Sum of Our Parts” seemed to confirm that the third Robin is bisexual. While writer Meghan Fitzmartin has stated that Tim does not yet have a label for his sexuality, the news that one of the Robins was officially queer came as a shock to some fans.
That said, much like the other stories in Batman: Urban Legends, “The Sum of Our Parts” builds off of years of comics history for Tim Drake. While his most high-profile relationship has been with Stephanie Brown, Tim has also had a very close friendship with Conner Kent’s Superboy, laying the groundwork for him coming out as queer in Batman: Urban Legends #6. The exact nature of Tim and Conner’s relationship has long been speculated by fans, and creators themselves have confirmed both on the page and online that Robin’s love for Superboy went beyond the realm of friendship.
What is important to recognize here is that “The Sum of Our Parts” depicts Tim wrestling with the fact that his emotional self-reflection will lead to some time of change. That is, he has left his feelings relatively unexplored in the past because of the ramifications that openly acknowledging them might bring. This speaks to Tim coming to terms with his romantic feelings towards Bernard and his history with Conner Kent. If anything, him going on a date with Bernard is important because it reorients how he has expressed his feelings in the past. In this regard, Tim Drake’s characterization in Batman: Urban Legends #6 is consistent with decades of his publication history.
Tim’s best friend has almost always been Conner Kent, a clone of Superman and Lex Luthor, and the specifics of their relationship point to the fact that he had already been queer long before Urban Legends #6 officially confirmed it. While the two never explicitly said that they loved each other, Tim’s actions and the situations in which both characters were placed contributed to this implication. In a scene from 2003’s Titans/Young Justice: Graduation Day #2, Tim and Conner were inexplicably shown in a closet together, where Tim chastises Conner for nearly getting himself killed after he impulsively attacked Indigo. Answering a fan’s question about why the two characters were in a closet, writer Judd Winick tweeted, “I saw this as an opportunity for them to both come out of the closet. #liveyourbestlife.” This was in 2018.
In looking at Tim’s history with Conner, it is also necessary to acknowledge the limitations that may have been placed on writers from an editorial standpoint, leading to several incidents where the bond between Conner and Tim is gestured to, but not outright stated. Later on, in Teen Titans #34, after the death of Superboy, Tim went as far as to secretly try to create another clone of Conner from the DNA of Lex Luthor and Superman. He tried ninety-nine times but was ultimately unsuccessful in bringing Conner back.
Enraged when his last trial failed, Tim smashed up his lab, punching an image of Conner so hard that the screen cracked. When Wonder Girl (Cassie Sandsmark), Conner’s girlfriend, discovered the commotion, she said, “You were pretending all this time that you’d moved on. But you haven’t.” This keeps up with the pattern of Tim directly hiding his feelings, one that Urban Legends #6 finally resolves with him deciding to be open about his romantic feelings for Bernard.
Likewise, in Teen Titans #92, after Conner returns to find that Tim is no longer Robin, but Red Robin, he remarks that he refuses to call Damian Wayne by Tim’s old codename. Conner says, “I don’t care what costume you or him wears. As far as I’m concerned, you’re my Robin. Always will be.” In response, Tim turns around to look at Conner and says, “And you’ll always be my clone boy.”
Once Conner was removed from the main DC continuity, his presence in Tim’s life was still alluded to in Detective Comics #967. In talking about an alternate, older version of himself that he had met, Tim said, “He talked about a friend that I should have… someone named Conner… and I feel that name tugging on my heart, but I don’t know why.” Clearly, after all of this time, Conner still has a special presence over Tim’s life and is someone he still feels love for, even if he doesn’t remember who he is. While any one of these instances could be read as the result of a particularly strong friendship, the cumulative effect makes it clear that one or both of them has romantic feelings for the other.
Tim Drake having romantic feelings for men in addition to women may come as a surprise to some fans, but nearly two decades of comics have, with varying degrees of subtlety, alluded to this fact. Thus, Tim officially coming out as queer is not a fundamental change to his character, but rather an ultimate expression of it. Because he had already had these feelings with Conner Kent, his going on a date with Bernard allows him to pursue a romantic avenue that he had previously been unable to. This not only signifies a positive change for LGBTQ+ representation in DC Comics and beyond, but also for Tim Drake’s Robin himself, as a young person discovering his identity.
Link Source : https://screenrant.com/robin-bisexual-tim-drake-clues-superboy-conner/