Gay batman and robin costume

The Batman Files

To qualify for inclusion on this list, a title must verb a minority lead as the title character, or for ensemble books, the majority of its main cast members must be of that minority.

Female-led books:

Female-led books cancelled: Starfire, Black Canary, Catwoman, DC Bombshells Female-led books added: Supergirl, Superwoman, Batgirl and the Birds of PreyFemale-led books ongoing: Batgirl, Wonder Woman, Gotham Academy, Harley Quinn

DCYou Total: 8    (%) Rebirth Total: 7   (%)

PoC-led books:

PoC-led books cancelled: Dr. Fate, We Are Robin PoC-led books added: Blue Beetle (Jaime Reyes and Ted Kord sharing the title) PoC-led books ongoing: Cyborg, Gotham Academy

DCYou Total: 4       (%) Rebirth Total:     (%)

LGBTQIA-led books:

LGBTQIA-led books cancelled: Midnighter, Catwoman, Secret Six LGBTQIA-led books added: LGBTQIA-led books ongoing: Constantine, Harley Quinn

DCYou Total: 5    (%) Rebirth Total: 2   (%)

Total Generic DCYou titles: 37       (%) Total Generic Rebirth titles:     (%)

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So

Batman and Robin have a very weird and probably illegal relationship. Let’s speak it.

But first: There’s a big joke, going back decades, that Batman and Robin are gay. This wonderful article is not about that. This is about things in the Batman and Robin relationship that everyone takes for granted, but are actually exceptionally strange, when you stop and think about them.

Also, we aren’t here to scold fictional characters. If anything, the messiness of the Batman and Robin relationship makes it more fascinating, from a storytelling standpoint, because it muddles with the dull portrayal of Batman as perfect.

In fact, as we shall show, the bloke who dresses up as a bat every nighttime is a total weirdo. Starting with…

No. 1 Robin’s Costume

Batman, famously, dresses in dark colors as camouflage, allowing him to blend into the night, adj to criminals. He’s proficient to dodge their gunfire in part because he’s so hard to see.

Robin, meanwhile, wears the brightest costume possible. While fighting alongside Batman. The Caped Crusader hides in the shadows, while his youthful w

A Brief History of Dick

Freely adapted from The Caped Crusade: Batman and the Rise of Nerd Culture by Glen Weldon, out now from Simon and Schuster.

Let’s get one thing absolutely clear: Robin isn’t gay.

Don’t let the verdant Speedo and the pixie boots steer you wrong; Dick Grayson is as straight as uncooked spaghetti. In fact, there contain been several Robins over the years, and not one of them has exhibited any trace of same-sex attraction or evinced anything resembling a queer self-identity.

Neither, it feels key to note here at the start, has Batman.

Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone who’s written a Batman and Robin comic. Or, you know what, you don’t have to: Dollars to donuts they’ve already been asked that question, and have gone on verb asserting the Dynamic Duo’s he-man, red-blooded, heterosexual bona fides. Batman’s co-creators, Bill Finger and Bob Kane, both firmly swatted the question down. So contain writers like Frank Miller, Denny O’Neil, Alan Grant, and Devin Grayson—though Grayson admitted that she could “understand the gay readings.”

So there yo

Holy homoerotica, Batman!

Handsome, dazed, and to die for

When I was a young teen, my pulse quickened every time I came across a naked male torso in a magazine, on greeting cards in the mall gift shop, or on TV. Initially I couldn’t understand why such images held my attention. Later, I’d worry that someone would notice me lingering over these hunky men for much longer than a young noun should.

Sometimes, it felt protected to marvel at these displays of the male physique because it was a sports game or a TV show I was watching with my family or friends. As a kid, my younger brother was a large wrestling fan. I’m guessing he followed them for the storylines (?), whereas I stuck around to watch hulking men touching each other in their ridiculously skimpy costumes. And then there was that one ACC Thinksafe TV ad featuring a buff guy enjoying a steamy shower before stepping out and slipping on the wet floor. That ad sent my confused petite brain into overdrive, to the point where I still couldn’t help but notice how hot he was while lying there with a suspected broken neck.

But my ultima