Computer Meets Chaos: Tim Drake's Coming Out Story
Batman: Urban Legends was an anthology series where each issue contained stories about various members of the Bat-Family. Today I want to look at one of the stories that was told in 3 chapters across issues 4-6, Tim Drake: Sum of Our Parts.
This is the story of Tim Drake, Batman’s third Robin, having the realization that he’s bisexual. It’s a story of identity, and how much of a struggle it can be to understand what it is that you want when it is something that doesn’t fit with how you previously defined yourself.
*Notes: I’m going to swap between calling him Tim and Robin, usually based on if he is in costume. And any bold words in quotes are to maintain how it was written in the comic, not bolded for my own emphasis.
Who is Tim These Days?
The very first line we read has Oracle (Barbara Gordon), calling Robin and saying, “Oracle to… which code name are you going by now? Are you Red Robin? Just Robin? I’m not calling you Drake.”
And if it isn’t clear enough from that opener that Robin is struggling with his identity, we get the same idea come from his own thoughts at the bottom of the same page.
Oracle has called him while he’s investigating a case where teens are disappearing in Gotham. Robin thinks about how there is nothing concrete to connect any of them other than the fact that they are teenagers who are “still figuring things out.” Notably it’s in a panel with two men holding hands that Robin adds, “like me.”
This story is spread out across 3 issues, but it’s only 30 pages total – which is about only about 1/3 longer than an average single issue. Because of the short length, it hits the ground running, making it very clear what this story is immediately.
The first page lays out that “what” of the story – both what the story is about on a literal level (solve the missing teens case), and the thematic level (figure out who Robin is these days). It’s on the next two pages that we get the “how” to both.
Robin talks to two teens and manages to get his first lead, the name “the Chaos Monster”, while Oracle explains what the reason she called him:
Oracle: “I’ve been rebooting the bat-computer systems to make sure the software is all up to date – it’s been a while since either of us has run a diagnostics test. But since I’ve updated, they’re running slower than usual. To the point where it’s faster to just ask you where you are than locate you on the grid. I’d normally expect that from a standard system, but not a Tim Drake Original.”
Robin: “Do me a favor, Oracle, open the kernel.”
Oracle: “Kernel is open.”
Robin: “Type in identity.”
Oracle: “That’s it?”
Robin: “No, but once you get to the root of the identity program, you’ll be able to work through the rest of the systems.”
This exchange ultimately describes what Tim will go through across the three chapters while searching for the Chaos Monster: being reset, opening the kernel (the core of the operating system), and looking into identity.
So, let’s look at this chapter by chapter.
Chapter 1 – Reset
When the conversation with Oracle is over, Tim abandons his costume to go to meet up with Bernard Dowd. Bernard is Tim’s friend from his pre-Robin days who was last seen in comics in 2005 (these issues of Batman: Urban Legends were coming out in 2021).
This is the moment that I think is very relatable as a kind of reset. Reconnecting with a friend you haven’t seen in years. It’s a chance to check back in with who you were in a way.
But we’re going even more literal with this idea.
While Tim and Bernard are out for dinner, Chaos Monster attacks the restaurant. Tim tries to fight them off, but he’s too slow (like the bat-computer…), and gets knocked out by chloroform powder. While he’s knocked out, his thought bubbles read: "System check offline. Come on. Come on. Reboot. Gotta get up.”
Tim is literally thinking of himself as a computer, and being knocked out was his version of a reset.
Unfortunately, while Tim is out cold, Bernard is kidnapped by the Chaos Monster.
Chapter 2 – The Kernel
Chapter 2 starts with Tim tied to a chair. We learn through flashbacks that this was all part of his plan after he learned that the people responsible for the Chaos Monster are members of a cult known as the Children of Dionysus. A cult focused on chaos.
This cult is targeting teens who are looking for answers. They claim “pain has a way of helping us speak our deep desires.” Between this quote from a cult member – after beating Tim with a chain – and Tim’s flashback investigation having him learn that Bernard was seen with welts on his arms and legs recently, it’s clear that Bernard had already been spending some time with this cult.
Tim is untied and sent to the roof for what is called the last part of his interview. While he is up there, he thinks back to one night ago when he stood on this same roof as he came up with this plan. Last night he was Robin, now he’s just Tim.
While he waits up there, he thinks:
“The thing is -- what scares me most-- I'm always Robin. Ever since Batman gave me the cowl, I… That's who I see myself to be. That's who I've been for all the important moments in my life. But in that room…It felt good. To let go. To embrace the pain. […] Because, hidden under all of this is the real question-- Who am I if I'm not a Robin? […] I need to figure out… what it is I want. […] No matter my questions, no matter if I'm trying to figure out who I am in this world, I'm still Tim Drake. I fight the dragons. I win the war. I save the people. I'm damn good at it."
As messed up as the Children of Dionysus’s pain therapy is, it does have an effect on Tim. It stripped him to his core, his software kernel. And with this, he’s starting to figure himself out.
And at the same time, he realizes why he wasn’t able to pin down the Chaos Monster’s MO. They were never just one person; the Children of Dionysus are all their own individual rendition of a Chaos Monster.
Chapter 3 – Identity
This final chapter is mostly the climactic fight between Robin and the various Chaos Monsters.
The cult is about to sacrifice Bernard, and Robin decides that the best way to help him is to ask himself, “WWBD? What would Batman Do?”
Robin goes so far into this line of thinking that he even uses Batman’s batarangs instead of his own projectiles to disarm a Chaos Monster. When he unties his companion, Bernard comments, “I can’t believe it’s you. I was… obsessed with you, but… You seem different. Like you’re trying to be like Batman.”
But even as Tim experiments with this other identity, his thoughts are confused and contradictory. Near the start of the fight he is thinking, “I’ve only ever been confident about one thing. Batman needs a Robin.” Moments later, as he’s trying to get Bernard to run to safety, he thinks, “Batman… me. We’re all alone. That’s what it means to be a hero. Right?”
In this moment we’re seeing how the truth is butting up against his ingrained perception of himself. He is confident about one fact, but that fact can’t fit with who he has been trying to be. He’s getting to the root of this identity problem.
But then, Bernard asks Robin to deliver a message if he doesn’t make it out of this. He wants Robin to find Tim Drake tell him, “I wish we could have finished our date.”
This moment changes everything for Tim, he even calls it a “lightbulb moment”. He fights back the Chaos Monsters with Bernard by his side, and they kick ass.
Afterward, Robin tries to explain it to himself thinking, “It's like something changed in… in a program I didn't even know was running. Or maybe it didn't change. Maybe it was always there. Waiting for someone to start the program." In this final chapter we’re brought back to the analogy of Tim as a computer.
In the final page, Tim goes to Bernard’s house. Bernard asks him out, and Tim says, “yeah… Yeah, I think I want that.”
After going through all the same steps that the bat-computer needed to update and get running again, Tim is able to figure out what it is he wants.
Fighting Chaos
With the analogy of Tim as a computer, it makes sense that he would be fighting against chaos. It’s pure analytical logic, versus its opposite.
Chaos is also a good metaphor for the feelings that Tim is dealing with in this story. He thought of himself as one way, but there are these other feelings coming up that he can’t make sense of. And what’s fun is that this chaos isn’t entirely a bad thing in this story.
The Children of Dionysus are sacrificing teens who are trying to figure themselves out. That’s bad. But it’s also through them breaking Tim down that he’s able to figure out who he is. It’s like saying a little of this chaos was a necessary part of growth, but too much would have him lose himself – literally.
Now I wouldn’t take this as advice that if you’re struggling to find yourself, just let yourself get beaten up by a cult for a while. But on the level of needing to give in to the chaos even when it (emotionally) doesn’t feel great, there can be some truth in that.
And then there is the reveal of multiple Chaos Monsters, which Tim realizes is why he could never pin down exactly what they were doing. We can see this parallel in his conflicting feelings about Batman. He was so focused on putting each of those identities into a single box, that he didn’t leave room for the possibility that they could contain multitudes. Much like a man putting his sexuality into a single box, when opening up to new possibilities could be more in line with the attraction you feel.
Conclusion
Tim Drake was a character first introduced in Batman #436 in 1989. For the first 32 years of the character’s history, he’s considered to be straight. And I think it’s the 32 real life years that make this story especially impactful.
There is not a single set timeline in which a person of any queer identity realizes this kind of truth about themselves. Some people might start to figure it out when they are incredibly young, others are much later in life. And any kind of multi-sexual identity has the added difficulty of heteronormativity creating doubt in your mind. If you’re into the opposite gender, is your attraction to people of the same gender real? Is this just how everyone feels? Maybe I just want to be their friend.
In being a teen character but also a character with 32 years of history, Tim Drake evokes both a character coming out at a time when a lot of people are discovering themselves, and a character coming out later in life. And in that, I think this analogy works really well. Maybe this is projecting, but I feel like the older you are when making these kinds of self-discoveries, the more it can feel like your software is trying to fight off the chaos of change.
If you enjoyed this and want to have future posts emailed to you, please subscribe to the Unsupervised Nerds Substack