You wouldn’t know this from about 70 % of the flicks about him, however for almost all of his existence, Batman has by no means been a loner. Invoice Finger and Bob Kane created Batman in 1939’s Detective Comics #27, and within the 80-plus years we’ve gotten Batman tales, he was solely actually alone for one; by 1940’s Detective Comics #38, Robin was born. Eleven comedian books: That’s what number of have been revealed earlier than Batman’s creators determined to offer him a sidekick.

Whereas there have been many comedian books that featured the Dark Knight flying solo, each one among them did so with a quickly rising forged of caped heroes becoming a member of Batman’s campaign within the background, both in comics or Saturday morning cartoons. After a sure level, it appears like these motion pictures are much less Bruce Wayne and extra Drake, hiding a baby. The kid is Robin. All of them.

If there’s a serious flaw to The Batman, it’s that it’s largely a remix of the acquainted. It’s an extremely trendy and excellent reconsideration of what got here earlier than, however it’s a rehash nonetheless. The explanation for that is easy: Many of the concepts about Batman nonetheless unexplored on-screen solely come into play while you encompass him with different characters: A Robin (any Robin), Batgirl (any Batgirl), Batwoman, Batwing, Nightwing, the Huntress, the Sign, Red Hood, Azrael, and in a single excellent Detective Comics run written by James Tynion IV, Clayface. It’s frankly weird {that a} main film studio, in a Hollywood setting greatest described as “the tulip craze, however for IP,” is leaving a lot franchise gold on the desk as a result of unusual, ahistorical assertion that Batman is a solo act.

A part of it is a holdover from a extra insecure period the place comics evangelists felt the necessity to relentlessly advocate that the medium was not only for kids anymore. The Eighties performed host to some genuinely revolutionary comics, and the expansion of a fan notion of Batman as a extra “actual world” hero because of his lack of conventional superpowers. Batman grew to become the avatar for the Pondering Man’s (emphasis on Man) superhero. It’s price remembering, nevertheless, that exterior of comedian fandom, the common particular person’s touchstone for Batman was nonetheless Adam West. Batman has all the time contained multitudes.

Trendy Film Batman, nevertheless, has not, and that is arguably because of filmmakers’ reticence to deliver on the Bat-family past Joel Schumacher casting Chris O’Donnell in Batman Eternally and Batman & Robin (The latter additionally featured Alicia Silvestone as Batgirl). Very similar to post-Adam West Batman comics, post-Schumacher Batman is most clearly outlined by a want to maneuver away from a blockbuster Batman deemed too toyetic and infantile, and, paradoxically, it’s achieved by related means: excising Robin, the scapegoat for kiddie Batman, as a result of he’s typically portrayed as a baby. (For extra on the cyclical nature of Batman fandom, try Glen Weldon’s glorious e-book The Caped Campaign.)

Picture: Chuck Dixon, Tom Grummett/DC Comics

That is slim pondering. Robin — and your complete Bat-family — is the reply to all these ponderous questions that crop up round Bat-films about whether or not or not Batman’s campaign is efficient or worthwhile or reaching something. The Bat-family is how Bruce Wayne’s singular mission can tackle a extra advanced, human form, with characters which can be raised underneath it and push in opposition to it and interpret it in another way.

Batgirl and Batwoman begin off as impartial actors impressed by Batman’s campaign, every with their very own motivations and subtly totally different ethical traces. The varied younger males who’ve been Robin are all fixed litmus assessments for whether or not or not the concept of Batman is working: Has he made Gotham a secure sufficient place to ship this younger man out after him? Has bringing one other of Gotham’s misplaced kids underneath his wing made their lives higher than his? Typically, the reply is sure — and Batman’s best tragedies are sometimes when the reply isn’t any.

There’s additionally an odd facet impact to the Bat-family’s absence in movie: It makes Batman’s solely counterpoints villains, wealthy folks, cops, and his personal workers, direct representations of the failed establishments that necessitate Batman’s existence or, like Lucius Fox, folks paid to maintain him flush with toys. With out different bat-people round him, Batman frankly appears deranged, and the world should warp round him to prop up the assertion that he’s not being ridiculous.

Picture: Warner Bros. Photos

On some degree, fashionable Bat-films perceive this. Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy finally grew to become about Harvey Dent as a lot because it was about Batman, a symbolic drive for good that would clear up Gotham throughout the system with out the necessity for masked justice — and ended with a extra optimistic “Robin” in place to imagine the cowl if wanted. Ben Affleck’s late-career Batman is haunted by the lack of an unseen Robin, and his arc throughout two crossover movies is one the place he realizes that loss has turned him bitter, and he wants others to maintain him targeted on hope.

A lot of recent Batman cinema is devoted to promoting audiences on the fiction that the character sells to criminals: That he’s a bizarre creature of the evening, a boogeyman you don’t need to ever actually see. Maybe for this reason tiresome arguments persist about why doesn’t Bruce Wayne simply give cash to charity as an alternative, or put his appreciable sources in the direction of one thing aside from customized bat-themed ninja gear. There’s a want for a richer world the place being Batman does one thing to Gotham Metropolis aside from encourage an allergic rash of carnival-themed madmen — a renewable useful resource that can by no means run dry, as a result of Batman is a personality that exists to battle such madmen.

That is irritating as a result of the reply to “does Batman make a distinction” is there, and has all the time been there from the beginning, for anybody who cares to look. Regardless of the lack of his household, Batman turns into courageous sufficient to construct a brand new one. Then that household builds a greater Batman: One which isn’t restricted to only one man, or the tales informed about him.