DC Cancels ‘Batgirls’ And Robin Book That Ran With Gay/Bisexual Tim Drake

JB Augustine |

Mar 29, 2023

Robin's bottle is empty — Tim Drake holds an empty bottle in Young Justice: Outsiders

The book that promoted Tim Drake as a young gay man in love with his best friend is coming to an end – Tim Drake: Robin’s tenth issue will be the last. Debuting last September and written by Meghan Fitzmartin, the book was held up as a momentous breakthrough for representation in comics, and DC put on a face of high hopes for it.

The problem we and most acknowledge is the publisher and Fitzmartin took an established character – again – with a history of girlfriends and completely retconned his sexuality based on what happened in an Elseworlds story that was non-canon. They did the same thing to Tim’s “boyfriend” Bernard and the Golden Age Green Lantern, Alan Scott, well before either of them.

The agenda that these comics push is widely known and fairly clear, but agenda or not, the shrinking skeleton crew at DC thought Tim Drake: Robin was going to net them more readers. They were wrong although some are calling it a “fan favorite” book while it draws closer to cancellation, which will come to pass in June.

Per DC’s monthly solicitations, the summer has a big “SERIES FINALE!” in store and that is the primary indicator Tim Drake: Robin is done as of issue #10. The other is Fitzmartin’s tweet of confirmation. “It has been an incredible privilege to tell Tim Drake’s story,” she posted in a long message that puts over her time revamping said story.

“But, more than anything, I hope Timothy Jackson Drake’s journey has inspired you to tell your own story,” she added on top of promising “there are some exciting things coming up” next in her career. For now, however, the one thing anyone could possibly be watching is Fitzmartin’s run on Robin winding down over the next two months.

Out June 23rd, Tim Drake: Robin #10 features art and a main cover by Nikola Čižmešija and words by Fitzmartin. There will be two variant covers offered – one by Gleb Melnikov and a DC Pride variant by Travis Moore. The terse synopsis reveals Batwoman makes a guest appearance to help Tim. It reads, “Robin and Batwoman are trapped in the lair of the Chaos Monsters!”

Batgirls, the book by Becky Cloonan and Michael Conrad that put Barbara Gordon in a mentor-mentee relationship with Cassandra Cain, is also reaching its end in June with issue #19. In their final confrontation with Gunbunny and Gunhawk, says the solicitation, Cassie and Barbara stand together and march with the people of the Hill to prove Gothamites overcome darkness when they have each other.