Aiii! My Eyes!
OK, I'm gonna go all Geek/Nerd on y'all here for a minute, and confess a social sin.
I used to collect comics. I'd probably still be doing it, but where Dallas had a comics shop around every corner, Houston's got a grand total of three, all located at the ass end of creation. So, I quit adding to my stash about 2 years ago. I had left most of the Spandex superhero crap behind long ago in favor of the more film-noir style stuff, and a smattering of fantasy and reality titles. There was one hero comic I never stopped collecting, though, and that was the Batman comics series.
Way back when, I received as a birthday gift a hardcover omnibus edition of Batman comics, reprinting a good overview of the Batman titles from the origin, to the murky pre-Comics Code tales from the '40s, the schlock of the 50's, the gritty "New Reality" of the '60s and '70s. I must have reread that thing 250 times. I was hooked on the mythos. I had also received a similar edition of the Superman comics, but that one gathered dust. There's only so much you can do with the overgrown Boy Scout, plot-wise. Batman could mine a wide swath of territory for story materials, ranging from psychological issues to moral issues in a way Superman never could.
But I'm not here to talk about Batman. Nope, the topic of today is... Robin. Y'see, I saw something the other day that really creeped me out. More on that in a minute.
OK, the Robin thing. There are several distinct points of view on the reason the character of Dick Grayson/Robin entered the Batman storyline. Conventional wisdom, and the one I find most logical is that Robin was added to give the primary consumer of the comic books (pre-teen & teen boys) a character to identify with. Comics are all about wish fulfillment and hero worship. What better way to suck a kid into the weekly buying cycle than to give them a character close to their own age they can relate to?
Along come the revisionist historians, though, and suddenly the simple explanation is just too pat to be believable. Nope, giving boys a role model and a hero to idolize is just too simple a solution. There's got to be something scurrilous underneath it all!
Lo, the theory of the Pedophile Batman begins. Dick Grayson/Robin's not some random boy beset by violence that a wealthy man takes under his wing to raise and train to fight evil! Oh, no! After all, can't you see that Bruce Wayne has deep psychological issues! He *attacks* people! He's acting as judge, jury and executioner! He hides behind a mask, fer goshsakes! What else is he hiding??
Well, to the revisionist, obviously he's hiding his homosexuality and taste for pederasty. Of course, they gloss over the 'millionaire playboy' aspect of the Wayne character. Their reasoning is that the women dating Bruce Wayne who pop in and out of the storylines are just "beards" put there to misdirect you from the real truth, the truth that Bruce & Dick (And their names are a dead giveaway, don't ya know!) are just having a decades-long sausage party at Wayne Mansion.
OK, it's another theory for Robin's inclusion in the comics. I don't buy it, but nevertheless, it's been out there for some time. Robin's not the only young sidekick to get added into an existing comic, though. Green Arrow had Speedy, Captain America had Bucky, Aquaman had Aqualad, and even Wonder Woman had the Holliday Girls. Hell, they all can't be pedophiles!
Anyway, what started all this was a pic I ran across the other day. I could have gone my whole life without seeing this:
I'll give the guy props for a well-inked tattoo, but the subject matter just creeped me out more than a little.
So, what theory holds the most water? Your comments are welcome!
I used to collect comics. I'd probably still be doing it, but where Dallas had a comics shop around every corner, Houston's got a grand total of three, all located at the ass end of creation. So, I quit adding to my stash about 2 years ago. I had left most of the Spandex superhero crap behind long ago in favor of the more film-noir style stuff, and a smattering of fantasy and reality titles. There was one hero comic I never stopped collecting, though, and that was the Batman comics series.
Way back when, I received as a birthday gift a hardcover omnibus edition of Batman comics, reprinting a good overview of the Batman titles from the origin, to the murky pre-Comics Code tales from the '40s, the schlock of the 50's, the gritty "New Reality" of the '60s and '70s. I must have reread that thing 250 times. I was hooked on the mythos. I had also received a similar edition of the Superman comics, but that one gathered dust. There's only so much you can do with the overgrown Boy Scout, plot-wise. Batman could mine a wide swath of territory for story materials, ranging from psychological issues to moral issues in a way Superman never could.
But I'm not here to talk about Batman. Nope, the topic of today is... Robin. Y'see, I saw something the other day that really creeped me out. More on that in a minute.
OK, the Robin thing. There are several distinct points of view on the reason the character of Dick Grayson/Robin entered the Batman storyline. Conventional wisdom, and the one I find most logical is that Robin was added to give the primary consumer of the comic books (pre-teen & teen boys) a character to identify with. Comics are all about wish fulfillment and hero worship. What better way to suck a kid into the weekly buying cycle than to give them a character close to their own age they can relate to?
Along come the revisionist historians, though, and suddenly the simple explanation is just too pat to be believable. Nope, giving boys a role model and a hero to idolize is just too simple a solution. There's got to be something scurrilous underneath it all!
Lo, the theory of the Pedophile Batman begins. Dick Grayson/Robin's not some random boy beset by violence that a wealthy man takes under his wing to raise and train to fight evil! Oh, no! After all, can't you see that Bruce Wayne has deep psychological issues! He *attacks* people! He's acting as judge, jury and executioner! He hides behind a mask, fer goshsakes! What else is he hiding??
Well, to the revisionist, obviously he's hiding his homosexuality and taste for pederasty. Of course, they gloss over the 'millionaire playboy' aspect of the Wayne character. Their reasoning is that the women dating Bruce Wayne who pop in and out of the storylines are just "beards" put there to misdirect you from the real truth, the truth that Bruce & Dick (And their names are a dead giveaway, don't ya know!) are just having a decades-long sausage party at Wayne Mansion.
OK, it's another theory for Robin's inclusion in the comics. I don't buy it, but nevertheless, it's been out there for some time. Robin's not the only young sidekick to get added into an existing comic, though. Green Arrow had Speedy, Captain America had Bucky, Aquaman had Aqualad, and even Wonder Woman had the Holliday Girls. Hell, they all can't be pedophiles!
Anyway, what started all this was a pic I ran across the other day. I could have gone my whole life without seeing this:
I'll give the guy props for a well-inked tattoo, but the subject matter just creeped me out more than a little.
So, what theory holds the most water? Your comments are welcome!
posted by El Capitan | 11:26 AM
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