Robin's Reckoning

Today I get to review a very special episode of Batman. Of course, all these episodes are special, but this one is especially special. We never got an official origin episode for Batman, but we did get a great two-parter origin for Robin. "Robin's Reckoning" was the 32nd and 33rd episodes produced, but sadly the 51st and 53rd episodes aired. To make matters worse, the poor kids of the day had to wait a whole week to see this story concluded — Part I came out on Feb. 7, 1993, and Part II was shown on Feb. 14. I don't know what kind of moron thought it would be OK to split up the Emmy-winning masterpiece.

Part I

The episode begin with the Batman-Robin relationship at its finest. The two of them are on a stakeout and a bored Robin asks Batman a bunch of questions, who only answers, "Uh-huh." We also get to see the difference in their fighting styles. While Batman is serious and works to intimidate the villains, Robin is downright giddy and openly mocks the bad guys with a "Come on, you can do it ..." line. One point awarded.

I'll bring the score up to a 7 for the flashbacks. Not only did we see a young Dick Grayson and his parents in the circus, but younger versions of Bruce, Jim Gordon, Harvey Bullock and Alfred (who pretty much looked exactly the same). I also liked how the whole circus was like a big family for Dick. He had a great relationship with the elephant and acquired the nickname "Boy Wonder" here, while developing amazing acrobatic skills that came in handy for fighting crime.

I'll add another point for the death of Dick's parents. The story goes that the animators wanted to make it a little more gruesome, but censors made them hold back. Later, producer Bruce Timm said he was glad that happened because the censorship forced him to make something even more effective. The result was classy, yet still tragic, by just showing the cut rope swinging back and forth and the reaction of the crowd, notably Dick and Bruce. This show also did a good job of addressing why Dick came in to live with Bruce, which many versions of this story really gloss over. Here, they explained that Dick was a material witness and needed to hide with Bruce for protection. They never did say if Bruce adopted him after that or what, but I don't think it really mattered here.

I'm always a sucker for seeing Batman do undercover work in disguise, so I have to add another point here. But more than that, I loved seeing how focused and angry Batman was with interrogating people to find the killer of Dick's parents. Bruce knows exactly what Dick is going through, and I think he was doing what he wished someone would have done for him when his parents were killed.

The score will come up to a perfect 10 for the wonderful use of Batman in the shadows and the similarities this episode had to the amazing comic book, Batman: Year One. That book set a new, awesome standard for Batman, and emulating that style in a cartoon is a real treat. It also works especially well with this younger version of Batman, who is perhaps a little more energetic than the version we normally see.

Final score: 10

Part II

I'll bump the score to 6 for seeing Dick act like a hero before he put on a costume and became Robin. While he was hunting down Zucco, he saw a woman in trouble and went out of his way to try to help her. I liked to see that Dick was naturally a heroic and kind-hearted boy who didn't need any special training in this, the most important area of being a superhero.

I loved seeing the fear of the Batman in Tony Zucco. He lived in a constant state of paranoia because of the Dark Knight and unloaded an entire machine gun clip into the ceiling because he thought he heard something. That is the effect Batman has on criminals. One more point awarded.

I'll add another point for the contrast of Robin's attitude from Part I. Instead of being happy and cheerful, he becomes angry, dark and almost evil. And it's actually kind of cool, as scary as it is. It's hard to say if I was more worried that Robin would try to kill Zucco or that he would ditch Batman and become Nightwing. Of course, he does do that much later, but this episode started sowing the seeds for that breakthrough.

The score will rise to a 9 for the final, emotional reconciliation between Batman and Robin. The two parts together make a deeply emotional journey, while still having an exciting adventure story. The first part, however, was more emotional and action-packed than the second part, which, for whatever reason, just wasn't quite on that same level. Maybe having Batman hurt his leg kept him out of too much action, or maybe they didn't make a big enough deal of him being hurt. Either way, Part II just wasn't quite enough to earn a perfect score from me. But it still was pretty amazing, though.

Final score: 9