Remember When Dick Jumped Off A Building And Tried To Commit Altruistic Suicide, And Clark Snatched Him

The Many Post-Crisis Christmases of Tim Drake

Yes, everyone gets a few Holiday issues over the years, but Tim’s got his own special levels of trauma associated with the holiday.

A round up of every time Tim appears in comics about Christmas, sorted by year:

1990: Identity Crisis - Batman #455-457 aka Janet Drake’s funeral. Janet is buried on Christmas Eve. Jack’s still in a coma. Tim is living with Bruce at this point. Tim spends a lot of this storyline having nightmares and worrying by Jason’s memorial case. At the very end, Bruce and Alfred give Tim his personal Robin costume and Tim goes out officially as Robin for the first time.

1996: Holiday Bash I – “Just Another Night” it’s just a small mention here, but given future events it’s worth noting. Tim leaves a Christmas card for Alfred, and Jack takes Tim to the Caribbean for the holidays. Very in line with Tim’s behaviour during this period, where he’s noted for giving Babs thank you notes.

1998: Holiday Bash III – “Alone for the Holidays” aka the single point in canon that supports Neglected Sad Boi Tim Drake. Tim is, as the title implies, alone for the holidays and moping about it. Jack and Dana are trapped in Chicago because the airport is closed due to snow (Why Jack and Dana are in Chicago is left to the reader). Babs and Dick call Tim over to the Clock Tower for a Loners Christmas Party. It will never not be funny to me that Alfred and Harold are at this Loners Party, but Bruce isn’t. Only a TRUE committed loner misses the family loners Christmas party.

1999: Endgame, No Man’s Land (LotDK #126, Batman #574, ‘Tec #741). If you are unfamiliar with this classic story, Joker kidnaps 36 babies on Christmas Eve in No Man’s Land and threatens to blow them all up. Tim gets called away from Christmas dinner with Jack (as a note, Tim’s outside NML at the dinner, then immediately dives inside for this. Never bother trying to make sense of how often Tim got in and out of Gotham during NML) and is helping track down the babies. It’s…traumatic for everyone involved.

2001: Young Justice #40. The Night Before Doomsday. This is the story where Santa dies and Young Justice find themselves having to deliver all the presents on his behalf.

2006: Slayride, ‘Tec #826. Tim is running away from a group of drug dealers and is offered a ride by a passing car. The car is driven by Joker. Tim gets tied up with Christmas lights and eventually distracts him via an argument with Joker about the Marx Brothers.

2008: “It’s a Wonderful Night” and “The Night Before Christmas”, DCU Holiday Special #1 2008. Two reminders that Tim has a hard time at Christmas in one!

“It’s a Wonderful Night” is a tear jerker where Dick goes looking for Tim to deliver a Christmas present. He finds him at a cinema watching a showing of It’s a Wonderful Life. Captain Boomerang Jnr is also there. Tim and Owen bond over their dead dads both liking the movie (which…given their dads killed each other, is a thing) and Dick gives Tim his old Robin costume. You WILL cry.

“The Night Before Christmas” is a Titans story, particularly notable as far as Tim goes in that Tim and Cassie talk about how the holidays remind Tim of the people he’s lost (and look, for perfectly good reasons, given the above).

Need to talk about the Brad Meltzer’s and Rags Morales’ commentary at the end of identity crisis because holyyy shit

More under the cut!!

If I was Batman I would accidentally leave the eyes shadow on allll the time :(

SCREAM that 1 panel of dick on a fire escape sleeping under newspaper but instead it’s the page of side effects that comes w hormonal birth control

forget “this meeting could’ve been an email” this four-way stop could’ve been a traffic light

i don’t think people who don’t read comics/mostly read wfa understand how much of a dweeb tim drake actually is because he was supposed to be a Good Role Model For Tween Boys in the 90s. one time he found out his roommate at boarding school was an alcoholic so he poured all his alcohol down the drain instead of just ignoring it like a normal person. his girlfriend wanted to have sex with him and instead of just saying “i’m not ready” he launched into a monologue about how “making love is like opening a door” and he “isn’t ready to open that door yet” because they “might have adult feelings for each other, but [they’re] still just kids.” 90s tim was the type of kid to remind the teacher to assign homework. he somehow got mad bitches even though everyone highkey thought he was weird. in one panel of one issue he randomly said he had to be “vewwy quiet” and never spoke like that again. he canonically plays dungeons and dragons (or the fictional dc equivalent). the money his dad left him after he died wasn’t even a lot because his dad went bankrupt shortly before his death. like it was a substantial amount but not enough to make him rich. i cannot stress enough that tim was SUCH a Regular Guy TM and constantly worried about not standing out. he purposefully did bad at sports and pretended to be winded in gym class so people wouldn’t suspect anything. like he wouldn’t even try and be average, he would purposefully almost fail. he is not a cool rich skater kid guys he’s such a dork

And after everything that happened back in Gotham, I figured it was time I got out of the dark and tried my luck in the light.

Dick Grayson and Clark Kent in Nightwing: Year One

little sketches to just get the idea out.

theyre such annoying little assholes to each other. peak brotherhood

clark kent with his superior smell not smelling a drip of alcohol coming from brucie waynes breath and wondering why hes dancing in his boxers acting drunk in the middle of the gala