Batman not often reveals his age, nor does he present indicators of growing older in most important DC Comics continuity. However Nightwing appears nervous about Bruce’s rising years.
Spoiler warning for Detective Comics #1062
Despite the fact that Nightwing doesn’t have the facility to see the longer term, he does know the one factor that can definitely kill Batman: outdated age. Regardless of saving Gotham Metropolis for over 80 years, Batman not often reveals his age, and he by no means present indicators of growing older in the primary DC continuity. However Nightwing appears nervous about Bruce’s rising years, and for good motive.
Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson—in any other case referred to as Batman and Nightwing—have been working alongside one another virtually since Batman’s debut as a personality. Dick Grayson initially served as the primary Robin, making his first look in 1940. Dick has been drastically aged up over time, as have a lot of Batman’s child sidekicks have. Whereas Dick started his Robin profession across the age of eight, he is now working as Nightwing, someplace in his mid- to late-twenties. The precise ages of those iconic characters are much less vital than how, regardless of his sidekicks being recurrently launched after which progressively aged up, Bruce Wayne himself has appeared to hover someplace in his mid-thirties for many years.
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Batman’s historic age is effectively over 80, nevertheless, and that tidbit is humorously addressed in Detective Comics #1062 (by Ram V, Simon Spurrier, and Rafael Albuquerque). When Nightwing calls Batman, who’s in the course of a sequence of medical assessments. Bruce is nervous that one thing is unsuitable with him after making a couple of errors in a current battle. Dick begins to ask his mentor to think about “the truth that you is likely to be getting too outdated for—” earlier than Bruce cuts him off with a smirk and a dismissal of Nightwing’s concern over Batman’s rising age and, presumably, a lower in his skills.
It is a enjoyable alternate that emphasizes Bruce and Dick’s shut relationship, particularly after a long time of working collectively on the web page. Bruce treats Dick’s concern as a joke, however in actuality, Nightwing has some extent about Batman. Because the Batman supporting characters proceed to age—whether or not that be Nightwing himself or the most recent Robin, Damian Wayne, who has aged 4 years whereas characters round him stay the identical age—Batman hasn’t been growing older. This raises an fascinating metatextual query: At what level does Batman start growing older, and when does it turn into an issue throughout the narrative? When will Bruce Wayne must retire from Batman in most important DC continuity?
The reply to all these questions is clearly “by no means,” or else DC must retire one in every of their most well-known characters. However that is nonetheless an fascinating downside for a medium like superhero comics. Time and age work otherwise in serial tales like people who characteristic each Batman and Nightwing. However as Nightwing—Bruce Wayne’s first ward and sidekick—continues to get older, followers and writers alike have to ask the query: is Batman lastly getting too outdated to be Batman?
Detective Comics #1062, is out there now from DC Comics.