Batman’s New Robin Will Reportedly Be African American
Batman's usual sidekick could be showing up as an African American.
This article is more than 2 years old
Batman news has been coming fast and furious of late with all kinds of projects, castings, rumors, and other tidbits hitting the wire seemingly every day. It’s almost too much to keep up with for both the character and the DC Universe (and all its iterations) as a whole. And now we have more news to add to this world with reports the newest version of Robin could be an African American Tim Drake.
Reports have it that a casting call has gone out for HBO Max’s Titans looking for an African American teenager to take up the role of Robin in the show. Whether this character will enter the fray under Batman’s tutelage or just as a solo character is unclear with the casting process still in the works.
Titans is entering its third season on HBO Max and we might get all iterations of Robin on the screen at once. The show already has Brenton Thwaites as Dick Grayson who began as Robin working under Batman but is now Nightwing on the show. He acts as the leader of the group.
Then there’s Curran Walters as Jason Todd who, in Season Three will take on the Red Hood persona. It’s unclear if the show will follow the original Jason Todd storyline or if, well, it turns out a bit better than Batman: A Death in the Family.
Titans Season Two finale saw the group go through a major shift in makeup and opened up the possibility of needing to add some new characters to the mix. These moves pave the way for Tim Drake to enter the picture as the third version of Robin.
According to the same rumor mill, the original casting call set out to find an Asian actor for the role, but that’s been switched over to cast an African American. It’s still a fluid situation and it appears while the network would like to go a certain direction, they are currently open to a number of possibilities.
This news comes on the heels of another recent casting decision in the Batman Universe. Recently, CW’s Batwoman began an overhaul after Ruby Rose announced she would be leaving the show. That led to Batwoman being cast with its first African American lead Javicia Leslie. This latest rumor only continues to expand on the universe’s diversity in its characters.
If you are having trouble keeping all of the DC Comic characters, storylines, movies, and platforms straight, you aren’t the only one. Besides just the movie franchise which is getting a new look with Robert Pattinson donning the cowl in Matt Reeves’ The Batman, there’s been plenty of other news recently as well. For example, Ben Affleck is set to reprise his role as the Dark Knight in an HBO Max series.
And the Arrowverse on CW continues to add new properties and characters to its already packed lineup. This is an exciting time for fans of the universe and does represent something of a bounce back after the original Justice League movies fell just a little short (outside of Wonder Woman).
Casting an African American in the role of Tim Drake would be, of course, divergent from the original comic books. And it’s awesome as we see more and more creative liberties taken with Batman canon characters. These television and movie universes are starting to feel infinite and that means they can go any number of cool directions.
