Cover to Moon Knight No. 29

Batman #497

I've posted the moment of handover from the first Dick Grayson passes the Robin mantle on to Jason Todd v1 (also a former circus acrobat remember) more than a few times...

And I have no regrets! :)

But I forget the next sequence of pages from Batman #368 are also fascinating, as writer Doug Moench and artists Don Newton and Alfred Alcala have Jason and Bruce seriously discuss what becoming Robin might mean.

It's hard to remember over 40 years, and a half dozen Robin's later, how unprecedented and significant a move Jason becoming Robin was.

At the time it was utterly unheard of for an established character to change identities, still less Dick Grayson, the first kid sidekick, and one of the best know costumed superheroes in pop culture thanks to the 1966 TV series being on reruns around the world, to give up their identity.

Jason has just realised what is happening here, REALLY happening here and is having a slight panic as it sinks in that HE is now the legendary "Robin, the Boy Wonder".

Bruce acknowledges this, and his reply is intense, but not inhumanly so. He knows he's talking to a kid (and his new ward/son) here and adjusts accordingly. Note how specific he is to not dismiss the work of Jason and his parents as circus performers.