A Batman Journal

Entry 501

With Stephanie brown becoming batgirl, it provides the perfect moment to look back at the so called "bat family" as Clark coined it.

When I decided to walk this path of darkness, I wanted to do so in the hope that nobody else would feel the need to do so. That was supposed to be the foundation. There was only the mission that mattered.

But a young boy losing his parents right in front of me made me take a decision, a decision I am still apprehensive about. I took in dick Grayson and I trained him to follow in my mission. But as I learned about him, he continued to surprise me. His natural acrobatic abilities gave him an easy entrance into the world of martial arts. More astonishingly, he never let the darkness consume him and kept being a beacon of hope in honour of his parents.

The first few times in the field, I was disappointed as his continuous chatter while fighting threw me off my balance. But I later realized that it was his method of dealing with what he is doing. Dick has always looked down upon the fact that I try to do things by striking the fear into the hearts of criminals, but I think over the years, he has come to understand my perspective.

While I have never admitted this out loud, dick being robin and us fighting together were some of my best days. I still remember the little talks about forensics and the reports after the mission. But as dick ventured out into the world with the titans, I knew it was time he had to leave the role of robin. The moment I fired dick and sent him on his way was one of the hardest things I ever had to do.

In the future when dick asked why I had to fire him in such a cruel manner, I simply said that I had to, and I believe that was my intention too. I never contemplated the idea of another robin. I never thought anybody would be able to replace dick.

But a young boy who made me laugh in crime alley of all places, made me change my mind. His name was Jason Todd. An orphan living on the streets. He had the gall to steal tires from the bat mobile. That fearless attitude of his resonated with me and I took him home. Part of me still wonders whether I made Jason robin to help him or ...to deal with the fact that I missed dick in the field.

As I trained him over the weeks, I knew dick had to be told. But I saw this an opportunity to test dick's current level and whether Jason was field ready. Clark had told me dick visited him and had took on a new name "Nightwing". The ensuing adventure the two robins went on assured me about the both.

Jason was different in the field. In some ways, he was more focused on the mission than dick, but he was much colder. He always felt like he had something to prove. At first, I was of the position that he could work it in his advantage. But as time went on, his brutal methods increased. It was then I first wondered whether I should get the boy psychological help to deal with the actual problems he had been facing. Instead I gave him outlets for an anger that he couldn't figure out.

Then when we finally learned about the possibility that his birth mother may be alive. I thought this could be the good news needed. The world's greatest detective, they call me, but I didn't have an inkling of the horror in store. The events that unfolded, his mother betraying him to the joker, the joker beating him to death and then blowing him up, finding his body in that rubble. It all seemed so fast to me. But to Jason as he later recollected, it went by slow, every beat, every moment. Till date, that is my greatest failure as batman.

The fact that I was unable to save the life of a boy that I was personally responsible for began to eat away at me.