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shaky doodle due to tremors but i couldn't focus on anything till i made this . karina you've been my favorite drawfer since you joined the show & i'll be very sad to see you go , but i know whatever you do next will be awesome

thanks for so many amazing years you've given the drawfee audience . i can't wait to see what you have in store !

amorkuku

#he's just a lil guy :((((((#babian #also the person in the tags that said they're going to play together you are so right #dc

melodyatlas

love the idea of brudick having a 9 year age gap specifically so bruce and others can be like "im/hes a decade older than you" and dick reflexively going "9 years" "its only 9 years" "we're not a decade apart" "hes not that much older than me" "its not a decade"

melodyatlas

this also applies to dicktim by the way. they also have a 9 year age gap that tim keeps reminding people isn't a decade

arrowsandbats

Tim’s Complicated School History

So I’ve noticed there seems to be a fair bit of confusion on where Tim went to high school, whether he dropped out or not, if he went to private or public school, etc., so I thought I’d create a general chronology of (Pre-Flashpoint) Tim’s tumultuous high school career. The confusion about this is deserved, as Tim has literally gone to no less than FIVE high schools and also homeschooled for a bit, so it’s a LOT to keep track of. Tim has attended both private schools and public schools, and has gone to school in Gotham and Bludhaven (and almost Keystone!), ultimately ending his school days when he dropped out of Gotham City High School during his senior year to go search for Bruce after the events of Final Crisis.

Here’s the breakdown:

Pre-High School: Tim attended private boarding schools until he was about 13-14 years old. To my knowledge these schools are never specifically named, but 13-yr-old Tim mentions in Batman #441 that he attends a boarding school just outside Gotham. In Robin III #4 Tim angrily tells his dad that him and Janet “shipped [Tim] from one boarding school to another and nobody paid any attention as long as [his] grades stayed high.” This seems to imply that Tim attended a number of different boarding schools, when there’s really no reason for him to have attended more than two (an elementary and middle school), and even then a number of private boarding schools are actually K-8 (if not K-12) so I don’t know why he attended so many schools?? Nevertheless, from K-8 Tim attended private boarding schools, primarily in the Gotham area presumably.

Tim was probably still in middle school in his earliest appearances (Batman: A Lonely Place of Dying, Batman: Rite of Passage, etc), but he starts high school right around the time he finishes his Robin training (around the time of the first Robin miniseries).

High School #1—Gotham Heights High School: The first reference to Tim being in high school comes from the 1991 Robin II miniseries. Tim has recently started at Gotham Heights High School as a ninth grader. This comic takes place after Tim’s parents were kidnapped and poisoned, and so while Jack is in the hospital Bruce is acting as a guardian of sorts for Tim. It’s at Gotham Heights that Tim befriends Sebastian Ives, as well as his friends Hudson and Callie Evans. When Ives asks Tim about the fact that he seems too rich for public school, Tim explains that he used to go to private school but that Bruce had him transferred into public school because he thought it would be “more broadening.” Even after Jack gets out of the hospital he allows Tim to stay at Gotham Heights HS, although Jack clearly has a low opinion of public schools. Tim presumably started at Gotham Heights HS at the beginning of the ninth grade and attended for about a year and a half.

Interlude—Keystone: After the events of Cataclysm, Tim’s family moves to Keystone to avoid the chaos going on in Gotham. (They only end up staying a few weeks at the most, but they moved with the intention of living there permanently, meaning that Tim was transferred out of Gotham Heights HS.) In Robin #63 Jack mentions trying to get Tim into Keystone Academy, but that it’s tough in the middle of the school year and that he was working on getting him a tutor in the interim. Tim was supposed to meet his new tutor the same day that he went back to Gotham to be with Steph while she had her baby. He left without telling his dad, and so Jack and Dana come back to Gotham to get him and they all decide to stay in Gotham after all. It’s unclear if Tim returns to Gotham Heights HS briefly or if he just doesn’t return to school until he’s enrolled at Brentwood.

High School #2—Brentwood Academy: After the events of No Man’s Land, Tim is enrolled in Brentwood Academy, a boarding school in Bristol Township (a wealthy suburb directly to the north of Gotham, where the Drakes and the Waynes both live). After missing so much school, Jack forces Tim to go to a boarding school so that his grades will hopefully come up. (I think the reasoning here is that if Tim lives at school then he’ll have no good excuse for missing class?) In Robin #75 Tim refers to himself as a “new sophomore,” and he transferred to the school some time after sophomore year started (almost definitely after winter break, but I can’t find an issue that confirms this?) but before spring break. Tim’s main friends at Brentwood are his first roommate Ali, his second roommate Wesley, and his classmates Buzz, Kip, and Danny. Tim isn’t at Brentwood for very long though. After only a few months (maybe even less) of Tim being at Brentwood, Jack finds out he’s lost a good portion of the Drake family fortune in bad investments. He’s forced to withdraw Tim from school as he can’t afford the tuition anymore, and the Drakes sell their home in Bristol Township and move into their townhouse in inner-city Gotham.

Interlude—Rest of Sophomore Year: When Tim left Brentwood it was rather late in the year, and it was apparently too late to re-enroll him in public school, so he took the rest of the school year off. That summer he has to take a placement test that will keep him from having to repeat the 10th grade. He passes, so when he re-enters public school he does so as a junior.

High School #3—Louis E. Grieve Memorial High School: Tim starts his junior year at Louis E. Grieve Memorial HS, where he quickly befriends Bernard Dowd and Darla Aquista. He doesn’t attend school here very long, probably for about 3-4 months (he’s only been at Grieve Memorial HS for a few weeks when he’s forced to quit being Robin, Steph takes over for about 2 months, and then it’s only another couple weeks until the events of War Games). During War Games, Tim’s friend Darla is targeted by several mobs (because her father is an Italian mob boss) and mobsters take over his school and end up killing several students, Darla included. Darla’s funeral is one of three that Tim has to attend in as many days, his dad being killed during Identity Crisis and Steph “dying” at the end of War Games.

High School #4—John Wayne High School, Bludhaven: After War Games and Identity Crisis, Tim moves to Bludhaven to try for a fresh start. He picked Bludhaven specifically for an in-patient facility that will help his stepmom, Dana, process her grief over Jack’s death. Tim moves to be close to her and starts attending John Wayne High School. He probably only attends for about two weeks though, before he has his (fake) Uncle Eddie withdraw him from the school to start homeschooling. Tim withdraws with the intention of homeschooling until he can test out of school early. But it isn’t long (maybe another month or so) until Infinite Crisis, and then Tim and Dick go on a nearly year-long training journey with Bruce.

Interlude—OYL: During the missing year* between Infinite Crisis and One Year Later, Tim isn’t in school at all, as he and Dick and Bruce are travelling the world and training.

(*Also, with the nightmare that is comics continuity and the passage of time, Tim really couldn’t have been gone for more than like,,,,6-8 months, as it was late winter/early spring when Infinite Crisis happened—at least according to the Robin series—and it’s summer when he returns to Gotham. He’s still 17 early in the Red Robin series so it couldn’t have been a year and a half that he was gone, therefore he could only have been gone for like half a year.)

High School #5—Gotham City High School: After the OYL time jump, Tim starts attending Gotham City High School. He starts during the “summer session” (presumably to make up for the semester he missed during OYL?) before his senior year. His main friends here are Zoanne Wilkins (who he starts dating), Jared Walton, Craig Pulaski, and then both Ives and Steph transfer to GCHS during Tim’s senior year (altho Steph is usually a year older than Tim in Pre-52 canon, so it really makes no sense for her to be there??). This is the high school Tim is attending when he drops out of school in his senior year to travel the world looking for Bruce. In Red Robin #17, Tim and Ives meet for lunch (after Bruce has returned and Tim has moved back to Gotham) and Ives mentions Tim not finishing senior year. Tim asks Ives how senior year is going—implying that the events of the first arc of Red Robin only take a few months—and catches up on how Ives and Zoanne are doing.

Some general Tim school stuff: Tim is a very smart kid, but not a very good student. In the Robin III miniseries both Jack and Tim’s school counselor make reference to the fact that before high school Tim had always been a straight A student, but that his grades and attendance have slipped considerably. He is routinely too tired to pay attention in class, he’s constantly missing weeks of school, he fails to complete homework assignments bc of Robin missions, etc. Several times he even references in his inner monologue that he thinks he might fail a specific class. And honestly, Tim just doesn’t care about school. He often makes irritable inner-monologue comments about preferring practical application over learning things in a school setting, he tries to get himself out of school permanently when he lives in Bludhaven, etc. That being said, he’s never been noted to actually fail a class and even with all the school he’s missed he’s never had to be held back, so presumably he’s still earning like Cs in most classes.

ladyscorpio-phantom

DAMIAN DRAWN BY TRAVIS G MOORE FOR ALL YOUR DAMIAN DRAWN BY TRAVIS G MOORE NEEDS

#very good very powerful

residentwordsofaffirmationdealer

my (unfinished) compilation of (silver&bronze age writers') commentary&panels regarding talia's age (& her age difference with bruce):

"and although ra's al ghul is something like 400 years old, i'm pretty sure that talia is still a young woman--young by our standards, not just her father's." from "the talia al ghul I know… and the sister I don’t" by dennis o'neil

in talia's introduction story, she tells bruce studies medicine at the "university of cairo"--it's unclear if she actually is or if this is just a cover but this issue was published just one year after dick grayson leaves gotham for new york's hudson university (putting them in a similar age range) also i don't know how true this is but apparently in the usa, most med students tend to be ~24-26 and for egypt it is apparently ~18-24 (? -- i'm not a med student so please correct me if i'm wrong) detective comics (1937) #411

bruce refers to talia as "the girl" and "[ra's] girl-child" and to her and dick as "the kids"--dick would be in his freshman year of college (a large conflict that comes up is his dislike of bruce addressing him as/like a kid, so i'm inferring its more symbolic) batman (1940) #232

bruce is referred to being at a "perpetual 33" and in his "early 30s" by dennis o'neil this interview with dennis o'neil // dennis o'neil's batbible (1989)

before knowing her identity, bruce refers to talia as "lady", but when learning it was talia, to gordon he calls her "girl", and when he's yelling at her in he calls her "lady" (this irritated me so badly that it inspired me to track all these numbers down to make a post i think i have like 3 drafts about it also). to add on, most everyone also calls her "girl" as well, including jack ryder in #445 and jim gordon in #444--this is not at all uncommon detective comics (1937) #444, 444, 448

bruce is surprised by her age when she says she is "not yet thirty", since he assumed she was older ("a hundred years? two? more?"), which directly rejects wolfman's retelling of talia of over "150 years" old in batman #334--also keep note that birth of the demon is written by talia's creator, dennis o'neil birth of the demon (1992) // batman (1940) #334

in birth of the demon, it is said she was conceived at woodstock (which happened in august of 1969), meaning her birthday would be around may of 1970--birth of the demon was released in 1992, meaning she would be ~22 at that point; if you want to compare it to the new 52, batman inc establishes the concert ra's and melisande met as the 1985 live aid benefit concert (or at least i'm inferring that the fake continent guitar thing is a reference to live aid's design's version with africa), making talia ~24 in the new 52, and bruce is explicitly stated to the 32 (if you're wondering how that works out with damian, new 52 damian was grown in a test tube & was "artificially aged") birth of the demon (1992) // batman inc (2010) #2 // batman (2011) #37

sorry if none of this makes sense its like 4 am i will revisit this and probably delete it tmrw anyway so yayyy also more of my thoughts below:

also more nuance is that o'neil apparently dissuaded everyone from considering son of the demon canon (i'm assuming due to his beliefs about not wanting to age batman (and talia) or provide bruce with a taste of that domesticity for real? which i feel like he discusses a lotttt & also his preference for them as a tragedy (like detective comics annual #1 & such)) ALSO which makes me wonder what his view of later stories like silencer & death and the maidens (stories where talia uses the pit (willingly or not)) vs stories like the chalice where she refuses to and what his thoughts on that would be.... hmmmmmm

also currently i am trying to compile more stuff that references her new52 age & post-rebirth age but i am less interested in that (and those eras . nor do i exactly want to reread new52 stuff) so i don't know how long that will take (i also want to chart out all relevant batman family ages but we'll see . i have most everything plotted out separately but i need to put it together & ofc double check citations)...

also i see the rhetoric "talia was closer to dick's age than bruce's" quite frequently which i just want to say appears to be true if we consider dick to be 18 in 1969 (by batman (1940) #217)) & 20 in 1987 (in secret origins (1986) #13) & he ages slowly up to 25/6 in 2009 (and 21 in the new52) even without specific dates that would put them in a much closer range than bruce at least . much to think about here… (also unrelated but i really want to do a parallel chart of silver/bronze age dick-to-talia babs-to-bruce teamups i feel like that has a LOT of potential and i have so many connections in my head already + i need to add more to my already existing ra's-to-bruce & talia-to-dick parallel charts)

and maybe this is a hot take but as much as i care for batman: the knight (2022) as a story and important part of batman mythos (and that it will become very central and be built off of more in the future) i do really think that that talia being somewhat substantially younger than bruce is important to her character (and also her growth later as she becomes more independent and also all of her more obsessive actions fit the archetype of young woman in love more imo) & also from a barr interview i believe he says something about how bruce&talia are a very compelling romance in part to how new she is (at the time of the interview) to the mythos and how that adds to the intensity of their relationship and imo that ties to a o'neil&barr joint interview where they discuss this and how it contrasts against bruce&selina's relationship--like overall that them knowing each other before bruce was batman/or any variation of training together is kind of is damaging if that makes sense . idk my hot take #myhottake