As we continue to mark off the days to Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (90 and counting), one of the big questions that remains unanswered is what role, if any, the Dark Knight’s sidekick, Robin, will play in Zack Snyder’s movie. There was a Robin tease at the end of Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, but with Ben Affleck’s Batman being an older version of the masked vigilante, how the Boy Wonder fits into the puzzle has been a much speculated on topic, though a new report may shed some light on the matter.
There are potential SPOILERS for Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. You’ve been warned.
In one of the earlier trailers for Dawn of Justice, we saw what appears to be something of a shrine to a fallen Robin. The empty suit has been vandalized with the inscription, "Ha Ha Ha, Jokes on you, Batman," leading us to assume the Joker killed Robin. In the comics, he kills Jason Todd, the second Robin. According to their sources, Latino Review now reports that Jason Todd is in fact the dead Robin in question. But they also add that Dick Grayson, the first person to take the Robin mantle, will get a "shoutout" in the movie.
What exactly that means remains to be seen, but if nothing else, fans of the comics and sticklers for the details will be pleased with the lip service and to know that Snyder and company are taking care with the backstory.
Robin’s presence, or lack thereof, has been a topic of much conversation almost as long as we’ve known about Batman v Superman. There were even reports that Jena Malone’s was going to play Carrie Kelly, the version of the character from Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight Returns, which Snyder has often cited as much of the inspiration for Dawn of Justice. It turned out, however, that she might instead play Barbara Gordon/Batgirl/Oracle.
However Robin does figure into the narrative, it doesn’t sound like he will actually physically appear in the movie. This is an older, grizzled version of the Batman, and we would hazard a guess that the death of Jason Todd and whatever drama transpired between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson serve more as motivation, as things that weigh heavy on the character, rather than foreground pieces of the story. We could be wrong; we’ll have to wait and see.
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice opens everywhere on March 25, 2016.
