After thinking about sidekicks for my last column, I came up with some additional views. Because I go on so long, there will be seperate sections for Bats, Supes and Wondy. This is Batman’s.

So, I realized I forgot to say something about sidekicks last column. Specifically, how some mentors have different relationships with their sidekicks, with different levels of attatchment.

The Big Three might make an interesting case study when it comes to sidekick relationships, especially considering the man who interacts with and is the most attatched to his sidekicks is ostensibly, the “grim loner.”

Now, Batman goes through sidekicks faster than you or I go through dirty laundry, and nobody besides Dick Grayson seems to has escaped his custody with their sanity and good health intact.  (And even Dick seems to have been screwed up a little). This is because, as someone on scans_daily once pointed out, Dick was raised by Pre-Crisis Bats, who was actually a decent father, throwing the kid in the path of bullets aside. But writers today can’t seem to reconcile Batman their GRIMDARKANGRY with Batman the caretaker. And Batman is a Dad at heart. No one attracts a gaggle of teenage sidekicks, and maintains such close relationships with them, looking after them, training them,  tending their wounds, if they aren’t a Dad. Batman, no matter how hard they push DarkLonerBats, naturally builds up a surrogate family around him. A really dysfunctional one, too. Because Batman is a CARETAKER. He is a caretaker for Gotham, and he is a caretaker for every odd orphan kid he picks up.

This isn’t something to deny, this is INTERESTING. And it’s an integral part of Bruce’s character, and impossible for even the most determined writer to get rid of. Batman may not like it, but yeah, he is a people person. Just in his own special way.

So, stop having Bruce cut off his sidekicks. Stop having him ruin their lives, screw with their heads, and get them killed. Let him be a good Dad. A tough dad, a bit of an asshole, a crazy Dad, but a GOOD DAD. The DCAU did a decent job of that.  Because if he isn’t, he’s utterly irredeemableble for screwing up these kids. Batman likes his sidekicks. He cares about him, he worries about them, he protects them. Let them be a happy Bat-Family.

…But you don’t have to make Bruce smile like that, it’s creepy.

Now that my plea is done, let’s talk about Batmans relationship with his individual sidekicks. They fall into two categories: Robins, and Batgirls. Dick Grayson came out of it all fairly sane, and is now his own hero as Nightwing. But he is Batman’s #1, most trusted, and they are always there for each other when it counts.

Jason Todd was very angry, and died. Batman moped about it forever, and was always going on about how much he loved him, and when Jason came back, he pretty much got a free ride to decapitate people because Bruce felt so guilty about letting him die in the first place. He was even give a “last chance” recently by Tim at Bruce’s (ded) behest to redeem himself, after all he’s done.

Tim entered being Robin a cheerful geek and is now an unrecognizable wreck of greif and stuff. When Batman isn’t in dick mode, he realizes this and sort of tries to patch Tim up and shows concern and comfort and all that. He adopted Tim into his household, Tim knew from the start who Bruce was, having figured it out and was privy to all secrets after. He’s always at Bruce’s side.

Steph, meanwhile, was told to go home forever, until Batman decided to hire her very suddenly, fire her (with no reason given), and then rehire her as Robin. It was strongly implied part of his reason to do so was mad scheme to manipulate Tim, so he USED her. And um, fired her again. Then she died. There was no constant moping like Jason, no mention at all really. She was never privy to any of Bruce’s secrets, and Bruce never gaver her the trust and dignity he gave his boys.

When she came back, Bruce yanked the stick out of his ass and welcomed her back  with a free ride, like he did Jason. And revealed his identity to her. WOW! Then he “died”, charging her with a mad plan to manipulate Tim again, and really screwing with both their heads and treating Steph like a footsoldier once more.

Notice the disparity here. The Robins who have horrible things happen to them are the even numbered Robins oddly enough. But Steph, the girl, seems to get the most detatched and manipulative treatment from Bruce. She’s given the least value as a sidekick.

Babs Gordon Batgirl was more of an independent agent than Batman’s “kid”. She was never as close to Bruce as Dick was. However, he liked, respected, and (post crisis) trained her and when she was shot, Batman reacted with as much rage and grief as had she been his daughter. It’s among his worse memories whenever you do the flashbacks. But, he had no problem driving her out of the city as Oracle, and she operated entirely independent of the Bat-Verse in Metropolis for years. Because, y’know, girls are expendable. Now she comes back to Gotham, Batman’s “dead”. Unlike Dicks tryst with Ra’s, or Tim’s hardcore denial, or Alfred’s tears, we haven’t gotten any reaction from her to Batman’s “death” so far. Nor have we gotten one from Steph and Cass, it should be noted.

Cass is tricky. While Batman treated her with the protectiveness and controllingness he does his “kids” in her solo series- he beat the crap out of her “real” dad for screwing her up in a very Papa Bear way, always kept a paranoid eye on her and all that- he also royally screwed her up even more than Tim. She had to find out his secret identity on her own, he didn’t tell her. He fired her once for messing up and broke her heart.

But most egregiously is the fact he let her go missing for a year without bothering to look for her, instead taking the boys on a trip around the world, let her get drugged up and evil, and has NO REACTION WHATSOEVER and did NOTHING to help her when she turned up evil and screwed up. Though he made noises of apology in the recent (terrible) Batman mini and FINALLY adopted her, it was a bit too little, too late there. (Especially since after adopting her, he promptly went and “died”). Imagine them letting Bruce neglect one of the boys like that, willfully.

I’m not saying Bruce is a mysogynist, he treats Babs with a level of respect (probably cuz she has silver age cred), but the treatment of girls in the Bat books makes it look like he cares about his boys a helluva lot more than his girls. And thats wrong. Especially the fact Bruce took Tim and Dick for super speshul training and a trip around the world to bond, but will probably never have such a trip with Steph, Babs and Cass (okay, Babs is in wheelchair and Cass doesn’t need it, but I’m sure they’d appreciate the GESTURE?) And whenever we have the Special Warm Fuzzy Bat Family Moments like at the end of Ressurection of Ra’s, or in like, Nightwing, the girls are never involved. Stop with the Bat Boys Club! Include the girls in the Batfamily a little more, DC, you’re making Bruce and his ilk look bad when you dont. (Also, including Cass helps with the whole “only white people with blue eyes over here!” feel. But wait, she’s not going to be in the Bat Family any more, is she? Great.)

So, those are our screwed up Batman sidekicks, and their relationships with Bruce. Though ten levels of weird and complete with much dickery from Bruce, you’ll notice most of them are very intimate. Why is it less so with Supes and Wondy? We’ll see.