My Timeline for Batman's Age (and why it's probably wrong!)

[Lorendiac]

[Some of this may look very familiar to you - this post has been compiled from bits and pieces that I previously posted in other people's threads, with some rewriting and new material added just now.]

One of the arguments that never seems to go out of style on comic book forums is the one that starts with questions such as these:

How old is Batman?

How long has Bruce been wearing the Batman costume, anyway?

How old is Dick Grayson? How long has he been in the costumed crimefighter business?

I've participated in several such threads, on various forums. A few months ago I finally got around to quickly typing an approximate timeline of the answers that I personally favor; then I'll turn around and explain why you don't have to believe any of it if you don't want to! :)

***** TIMELINE BEGINS *****

I'm numbering key years, but not necessarily referring to the events that have been published under the titles "Year One," "Year Two," and "Year Three." "Year Two" was written by Mike Barr and is way outside of continuity these days. "Year Three" was written by Marv Wolfman but I don't think it ever got much respect from any other writer, either - and it seemed like half of it was set in the present day, with only the other half being flashbacks to the days when Bruce first met Dick and started training him.

Year One: Bruce is 25. He invents the persona of Batman.

Year Three: Bruce is 27. He takes Dick Grayson under his wing and Dick becomes the first Robin after some training. Dick is 13 when he is orphaned. For the next five years they are the Dynamic Duo of Gotham; meanwhile, Dick co-founds the Teen Titans with other costumed characters in his own age group.

Year Eight: Bruce is 32. Dick is 18. Dick goes off to college, but initially keeps the identity of "Robin," sometimes operating alone, sometimes working with Batman again when feasible. Shortly after that, Batman meets Talia, and then her daddy, Ra's al Ghul, for the first time, as shown in reprinted stories in "Tales of the Demon."

Year Nine: Bruce is 33. Dick is 19. Dick gives up the Robin identity and becomes Nightwing. Jason Todd becomes Robin. Jason is about 13 at the time.

Year Ten: Bruce is 34, Dick is 20, Jason is probably 14; Jason dies in "A Death in the Family." Within a few months, Tim Drake pops up out of thin air and ends up in training to be the next Robin. ("A Lonely Place of Dying.") Tim is 13.

Year Eleven: A timeline published in the last issue of the "Zero Hour" miniseries in 1994 states that Batman and Superman both began their superhero careers "Ten Years Ago." Zero Hour happened immediately after the Bat-titles had just spent more than a year telling us all the stories that were part of Knightfall, Knightquest, and Knightsend. (Although I think all of that happened in just a few months from the point of view of the characters.) Bruce Wayne is 35, Dick is 21, Tim is 14.

Year Thirteen (give or take a year): "Today." Bruce is at least 37. Dick is 23 or 24. I heard that Tim - fairly recently - had his 16th Birthday Party, so he's 16.

***** TIMELINE ENDS *****

[Lorendiac]

I admit, looking back on it, that my timeline gets a little crowded toward the end when you consider the way DC hit us over the head, again and again, with the idea that No Man's Land lasted for a solid year. And personally I have no problem with the idea that Bruce could well be at least 38 by now after all he's been through, instead of 37 as my old timeline suggests.

Now for a bit of humility: The above timeline is a summary of what I personally "feel comfortable with" when I look at Bruce, Dick, or Tim in my comics and try to estimate their ages, whether in something published this year or in something I'm rereading from a previous decade. But you may wonder: Am I saying that I think I could "prove" to the satisfaction of any intelligent and open-minded person that my Timeline "must be" correct, or at least with a margin of error no greater than one year at any given point on it? Absolutely not! :)

I personally think Bruce must be at least 37 or 38 after all he's gone through (particularly considering how much Dick Grayson has aged since he was orphaned). However, I don't try to hold a gun to other people's heads to force them to accept my figures as being the only possible way to interpret the "evidence."

For one thing, I cannot recall ever reading a Batman comic book that was set in the present day, in "modern continuity," that had anything so simple and straightforward as Bruce saying, "You know, Alfred - I don't heal from bullet wounds and broken bones as fast as I did ten years ago, when I was starting out at the age of 25." And I'm certain I've never seen a "modern continuity" story where Batman's friends throw him a birthday party to celebrate when he turns 35 - or any other age "right here and now." (Contrary to what several of the modern crop of DC writers would have you believe, there have been times in Bruce's life when he was entitled to call many other superheroes his "friends"; not just allies of convenience who tolerated his grim-and-gritty attitude for the sake of his superb detective skills.) DC apparently works very hard to leave Batman's exact age up in the air. The editors may actually be happy when one writer contradicts another writer on the details, because that emphasizes the idea that pinning Batman down to an unambiguous exact age at any given time is an exercise in futility!

A while back, in another thread (not the same one I first wrote the above timeline for), I put it this way:

For a long, long time I have been absolutely positively unshakeably certain that Batman is thirtysomething years old.

If we try to pin it down closer than being in that decade of his life, then we run into all sorts of contradictions and other problems.

For instance, Frank Miller in "Year One" made it clear that Bruce was 25 when he first created the Batman identity. Considering how much Dick has aged since he met Bruce, it seems that Batman must be at least in his late 30s - around 38 or 39. (I favor 38, for various reasons, but that is not set in stone.)

On the other hand, in his recent "Death and the Maidens" Greg Rucka stated in dialogue that Batman's parents died twenty-five years ago. If he was only 8 at the time (which is generally accepted as the correct age when he was orphaned) then he could still be only 33 today. He would have had to start his Batman career quite a bit sooner than Miller stated, of course.

Somewhere in Ed Brubaker's run on "Batman," I believe he had a character refer to the deaths of Thomas and Martha Wayne as "over twenty years ago." Isn't that beautifully vague? :) For instance, 21 years ago is "over twenty." So is 29. (So is 500, for that matter - it is a larger number than 20, therefore it is "over twenty." Most people would not phrase it that way, but if I said "over twenty" when I meant "five hundred" I would not actually be lying. Misleading, perhaps, but not untruthful.)

Some Post-Crisis writers have stated or implied that Dick was about 13 when he became Robin, but in "Gotham Knights" - I think toward the end of her run on it? - Devin Grayson had an old Gypsy show up at Wayne Manor claiming to be Dick's long-lost grandfather (he wasn't), and at one point, when he suggested perhaps Dick had only moved into Bruce's house to case the joint before taking off with lots of money and valuables, Dick laughed in honest surprise and said something like, "I've known Bruce since I was EIGHT - how bad a thief would I have to be?"

If you want to take that reference to being 8 "more seriously" than the suggestions that he was actually 13 when he moved into the Manor, and if you decide Dick must be at least 25 by now (and you could probably make a case for that too if you tried), then you could take this as "proof" that it's been a full 17 years since Bruce first met Dick and started training him, and "therefore" Bruce must have created the Batman identity at least 18 or 19 years ago. You may not find many people to agree with you, but you could say with a straight face that your figures were based on "evidence" in comic books that appeared to be "in continuity," couldn't you? :)

(Incidentally, I believe that for a long time, eight years old was the well-established Pre-Crisis Version of how old Dick Grayson was when he was orphaned and moved into Wayne Manor to start training as Batman's junior partner. But I can see why some writers have retconned that in their Post-Crisis stories. In this more politically correct age, the idea of deliberately taking an eight-year-old child into harm's way is harder to swallow even though intellectually we all know it's "escape literature" anyway, instead of being meant to seriously encourage us to put our own eight-year-olds in costume and send them out to fight muggers twice their size in the real world.)

During and after No Man's Land, for a few years there DC was proudly trying to sell us the idea that Batman and his supporting cast were growing older at the same rate we were - in "realtime," as some call it. Each year for us was a year for them. I think that lasted at least two and a half years, maybe longer, before someone came to his senses and the whole idea quietly faded away . . . and I am not sure it ever had much effect on the thinking of the writers and editors on other DCU titles, such as Green Lantern or Wonder Woman. I strongly suspect that if you had asked those other guys, back around the start of 2001, "Have your superheroes aged a full two years in the last 24 monthly issues of their respective titles, the same way Batman allegedly has?" then you would have gotten your answer in the form of watching those editors and writers laughing their heads off at such a silly idea. (I admit I could be wrong - I wasn't buying Diana's title or Kyle's title at the time, but I sure haven't heard anybody talking about the idea that they were supposed to be aging at the exact same rate as their faithful readers during that period!)

One way to work out Batman's "current age" would go like this:

Decide how old he was when he first became Batman. (Frank Miller said 25, but not everybody agrees with him.) Add two years to that, because it seems to be generally conceded that he had been Batman for approximately two years when he first met Dick. Decide how old you think Dick was at the time his parents were killed. Decide how old you think Dick is right now. Subtract Dick's "orphaned age" from his "current age" to get how many years you think it's been since he first met Batman, and then add the result to how old you think Batman already was when he met Dick. Or, to put it a bit more elegantly as a formula:

Batman's Age in "Year One" + 2 + (Dick's age today — Dick's age when he was orphaned) = Batman's Age today.

(Give or take several months as a margin of error.)

The only problem is that three different variables are in that short formula, and unless we can all agree on exactly what values ought to be plugged into the equation for each of those three variables, then we're stuck with a wide range of disagreement. (What are the chances of getting a bunch of Batman and Nightwing fans to specifically agree on anything at all? ;))

I could go on and on. There's no single, official, absolutely consistent answer that all Batman writers have agreed to respect. There's no single answer that Batman editors have consistently forced the writers to respect throughout the entire Post-Crisis era. Instead, you can pick almost any age you want to believe Batman is, and dig around until you find some evidence that seems to support what you had already decided the "correct" answer was, and then you just ignore any other evidence that contradicts what you want to believe!

So I play it safe by saying that he usually comes across as being "thirtysomething" years old, and leave it at that! DC has heroes who are definitely "thirtysomething" (most of the early members of the Silver Age JLA, for instance), "twentysomething" (most of the people who were Teen Titans in the 60s, 70s, or the early 80s when Marv Wolfman and George Perez did their classic run on the group), and then it has its "teenagers" (characters who were in Young Justice until it got cancelled, for instance). I can usually feel certain that I know which decade of his life a particular character is supposed to be in; but trying to narrow it down any further than that gets problematic, either because DC wants it to be confusing or just because editors don't try very hard to make writers be consistent on the subject.

[mohammedali]

***** TIMELINE BEGINS *****

Year One: Bruce is 25. He invents the persona of Batman.

Year Three: Bruce is 27. He takes Dick Grayson under his wing and Dick becomes the first Robin after some training. Dick is 13 when he is orphaned. For the next five years they are the Dynamic Duo of Gotham; meanwhile, Dick co-founds the Teen Titans with other costumed characters in his own age group.

Year Eight: Bruce is 32. Dick is 18. Dick goes off to college, but initially keeps the identity of "Robin," sometimes operating alone, sometimes working with Batman again when feasible. Shortly after that, Batman meets Talia, and then her daddy, Ra's al Ghul, for the first time, as shown in reprinted stories in "Tales of the Demon."

Year Nine: Bruce is 33. Dick is 19. Dick gives up the Robin identity and becomes Nightwing. Jason Todd becomes Robin. Jason is about 13 at the time.

Year Ten: Bruce is 34, Dick is 20, Jason is probably 14; Jason dies in "A Death in the Family." Within a few months, Tim Drake pops up out of thin air and ends up in training to be the next Robin. ("A Lonely Place of Dying.") Tim is 13.

Year Eleven: A timeline published in the last issue of the "Zero Hour" miniseries in 1994 states that Batman and Superman both began their superhero careers "Ten Years Ago." Zero Hour happened immediately after the Bat-titles had just spent more than a year telling us all the stories that were part of Knightfall, Knightquest, and Knightsend. (Although I think all of that happened in just a few months from the point of view of the characters.) Bruce Wayne is 35, Dick is 21, Tim is 14.

Year Thirteen (give or take a year): "Today." Bruce is at least 37. Dick is 23 or 24. I heard that Tim - fairly recently - had his 16th Birthday Party, so he's 16.

***** TIMELINE ENDS *****
I don't really know much about the Batman timeline, but one of the point's I noticed you missed there is when Batman met Todd. Bruce had been Bats for exactly 6 years when he met Todd, this was shortly after Grayson fell off the building when fighting the Joker. Don't know if that helps at all.

Mohammed Ali

[Charagon]

That timeline sounds perfectly reasonable to me.

[Lord Grog]

I see no huge, glaring issues with it. I thought that Batman was supposed to be out for about 13-15 years now, the only thing possibly in dispute would be his age at first appearance, but it seems reasonable to me. Good work!

[Lorendiac]

I don't really know much about the Batman timeline, but one of the point's I noticed you missed there is when Batman met Todd. Bruce had been Bats for exactly 6 years when he met Todd, this was shortly after Grayson fell off the building when fighting the Joker. Don't know if that helps at all.

Mohammed Ali

It's been a long time since I read whatever issue of Batman it was that, in the late 80s, gave us the "new" Post-Crisis version of how Dick quit being Robin. I can't remember the exact dialogue - is that the story that gave you the "six years" figure?

[trickster]

It's been a long time since I read whatever issue of Batman it was that, in the late 80s, gave us the "new" Post-Crisis version of how Dick quit being Robin. I can't remember the exact dialogue - is that the story that gave you the "six years" figure?

It is pretty accurate... only it isn't :D
Consider that Dick Grayson was banging Starfire in the late 80s and she sure didn't look 12 at the time :p. And today she's still in her twenties I assume,
although she should be in her thirties.
But then again Jason Todd had blond hair back then. (In some issue of the Teen Titans, don't know which one).
And Donna Troy was old enough to marry (I think she was in her mid twenties.)

I actually envy these bastards. Time flows so much slower for them.

Anyway, my point is trying to determine a superhero's age in comic books is an exercise in futility. They're as old as the editors need them to be.

[mohammedali]

It's been a long time since I read whatever issue of Batman it was that, in the late 80s, gave us the "new" Post-Crisis version of how Dick quit being Robin. I can't remember the exact dialogue - is that the story that gave you the "six years" figure?
Yeah, I think that's the one. It was Issue 408 (just after Millars Year 1 ended). Batman was patrolling Crime Alley on the anniversity of his parents death. It was had been 6 years since he became the Batman if I remember correctly. If you need I can check it again.

Mohammed Ali

[Lorendiac]

It is pretty accurate... only it isn't :D
Consider that Dick Grayson was banging Starfire in the late 80s and she sure didn't look 12 at the time :p. And today she's still in her twenties I assume,
although she should be in her thirties.

I don't follow you. Why should Koriand'r be in her thirties? Dick Grayson only became Nightwing around "Year 9" on my timeline, and I suggested it's only "Year 13" today - though I could be talked into "Year 14." So it's only been about 4, maybe 5, years of continuity-time (the way I look at it) since the Titans issues around late '83 or early '84 where Dick started calling himself Nightwing. If he and Kori were 19 or 20 at the time, they'd be no more than 24 or 25 today.

Or are you thinking it would make more sense if heroes aged at the same rate we do? I guess I've come to take it for granted that almost no regular reader even expects it to happen that way?

But then again Jason Todd had blond hair back then. (In some issue of the Teen Titans, don't know which one).

Pre-Crisis Jason Todd had hair I'd call "strawberry blond." When he started wearing a Robin costume regularly, he started dyeing it black so he'd look the way people in Gotham expected the Boy Wonder to look. That probably lasted about three years (our time, not his time!) before the Post-Crisis continuity went into effect and the character was drastically changed. It was only for about a year and a half, maybe close to two years, in the late 80s, that there was a Post-Crisis Jason Todd whom we knew was naturally black-haired.

And Donna Troy was old enough to marry (I think she was in her mid twenties.)

Actually, I think she was only 19 in 1982, based on something she said at Cyborg's birthday party ("So you're 19. Join the crowd!") so she was probably still 19 or possibly 20 when she finally married Terry Long a few years later. I believe the book still had the phrase "Teen Titans" in the title when she married, which would also tend to suggest she and her peers were still Teens or else just barely past their teenage years and hadn't gotten around to changing the name of their social club yet to reflect that very recent development :)

Anyway, my point is trying to determine a superhero's age in comic books is an exercise in futility. They're as old as the editors need them to be.

Didn't I make a similar point in my own post? After all, right there in the title I warned people I was "probably wrong" in my efforts to work out a coherent timeline for Batman's age :)

[ouiyahtsiouiyah]

it doesn't matter anyway, Batman has been in the Lazarous pit, his back was "magically healed" in knightquest, so his body is prolly still younger than Batman actually is, pluys with his uber training Im sure that helps,

getting hurt all the time doesn't help though

[grendel824]

Interesting that this comes up around the same time as Erik Larsen's latest column about aging characters. I think Larsen's ideas are right - even the contradictory ones. In comics, I can't see why we can't all get what we want - strict continuity and loose, characters that age and characters that remain timeless. Until someone actually hashes out all of it and seperates it into universes though, I still prefer to just say "Hypertime" and sit back and enjoy whatever looks good.

Good theory, by the way - seems sound to me.

[nepenthes]

YEAR ONE – Bruce Wayne aged 25
Batman Year One

YEAR TWO - age 26
The Man Who Laughs / Full Moon Rising / LotdK stories begin
Riddler, Ivy, Catwoman, Freeze appear

YEAR THREE - age 27
The Long Halloween / Dark Victory begins
Two Face Year One, Gordon begins to form his MCU

YEAR FOUR - 28
Dark Victory ends / LotDK stories end
Robin: Year One (if Dick is 14 this makes him 28 now)
JLA: Year One, Scarecrow: Year One

YEAR FIVE - 29
Goofy Dick Sprang 1950’s era begins
Teen Titans: Year One

YEAR SIX - 30
Weird 1960’s Black Casebook era, space medicine
Batgirl: Year One

YEAR SEVEN - 31
O'Neil Adams early 1970’s / Five Way Revenge / Tales of the Demon, Ra’s Al Ghul
Man-Bat appears

YEAR EIGHT - 32
Dick Grayson goes to college (18), Bruce has midlife crisis, moves to city penthouse
Talia, Son of the Demon (this makes Damian 10 years now)
Englehart Rogers era, Strange Apparitions, Silver St. Cloud, mid to late 1970's

YEAR NINE - 33
Gerry Conway Doug Moench early 1980’s / Batman finds Jason Todd (17) in Crime alley
Killer Croc and Black Mask / Nightwing: Year One (age 19) / New Teen Titans begins

YEAR TEN - 34
Crisis on Infinite Earths / Starlin Wolfman Milligan late 80’s / The Cult

YEAR ELEVEN – 35
A Death in the Family (Jason Todd 19) / The Killing Joke/ The Last Arkham
A Lonely Place of Dying (Tim begins at 15 making him 21 now)
Wagner Grant Brefyogle early 90’s, Scarface, Venquilotrist, Zsasz

YEAR TWELVE – 36
Knightfall/Quest/End/Prodigal mid 90’s

YEAR THIRTEEN - 37
Contagion/Legacy/Cataclysm/Road to NML late 90’s
NML begins

YEAR FOURTEEN - 38
NML ends
New Gotham/Officer Down/Murderer/Fugitive early 2000’s

YEAR FIFTEEN -39
Hush, War Games, Infinite Crisis/ Under the Hood (Jason age 21)

YEAR SIXTEEN - 40
Face-the-Face / Detective / Death & the City / Private Casebook
Batman & Son / Black Glove / RIP / Final Crisis

YEAR SEVENTEEN - Bruce is 41 years of age
Battle for the Cowl / Batman Reborn
Dick Grayson is Batman 28, Tim Drake is Red Robin at 21, Damian is youngest ever Robin at 10, Jason is 23


This is a timeline I’ve figured out using a template Sn4tch recently posted. As Lorendiac pointed out a while go it's useless to hold to most of the dates and ages given through out the books themselves. They'll almost always contradict each other.

The main things I've used to map this out are 1) Bruce's age in Year One, which i'll continue to use as the template for modern Batman, 2) the major creative eras, 3) the markers involving Dick, Jason and Tim throughout and 4) the major events or crossovers in continuity.

Most of all I think it's critical that each of the main creative eras get a little section to themselves, and that you can match up the ages of Bruce and the Robins to this framework of events and it will make somehow make sense from beginning to end. For instance this is why you cannot have Dick Grayson starting as Robin at age 8, as originally established, because he'd be going to college sometime during No Mans Land. And I don’t think ten years is enough to allow for the all the eras and events that occur between Dark Victory and NML.

Back in 1994 it was easy to say after Zero Hour that Batman had only been around for 11 years, but as you add more work to the canon it's obvious you not only have to add years to the characters, you also need to compress the history itself.

What changes, additions or errors would anyone suggest.

Year Ten seems a bit weird to me, Eleven is too cramped and it's also missing Doug Moench and Kelly Jones inbetween Knightfall and NML so i think i need to add a year somewhere

[Duy]

Good job, guys. Unfortunately, timelines don't really work in DC continuity. I remember the "official Starman timeline" being put out in Starman Secret Files and the official DCU timeline, I think being put out in another Secret Files, and there's no way at all that they meshed. Just gets too unwieldy the moment you start considering the outside forces.

A for effort though.

[Doug Side]

A great timeline


Good stuff.

Anyway you look at it though, Bruce has to be pushing 38 - 40 at least.

Now, I don't get the argument saying that makes him too old to do his thing.. his thing is impossible to begin with..

[nepenthes]

Anyway you look at it though, Bruce has to be pushing 38 - 40 at least.

agreed, even without looking at any little timelines or comparisons, Batman just feels over 40 to me. there's so many younger characters around him he needs that distance in age. of course he's still fitter than a 19 year old olympian, that's a given


Unfortunately, timelines don't really work in DC continuity.

this is what i've always believed as well, that timelines are pointless. but of all the characters from any company Batman has one of the easiest to draw continuitys and as i begun looking at this framework it occured to me that it may actually be possible to firm it up into individual years and even character ages
it will never be perfectly concrete of course, but I'm kinda surprised at how well you can make it all fit. and it is of course completly ignoring outside continuity, if that's what you mean by outside forces

[numberONE]

Good job on these timelines. The following is the Batman timeline, accourding to this (http://dcu.smartmemes.com) website:

Year One: Batman debuts (age 26); Superman meets Batman; Catwoman debuts (age 19); Jim Gordon promoted to Captain; Joker debuts.

Year Two: Disck Grayson’s parents killed; Justice League of America forms; Barbara Gordon orphaned; Two-Face debuts.

Year Three: Robin debuts; Batman joins the JLA.

Year Four: Batgirl debuts (age 16); Jim Gordon promoted to GCPD Commissioner.

Year Seven: Batman encounters Rā’s al Ghūl.

Year Eight: Barbara Gordon elected to Congress.

Year Nine: Dr. Light "mindwiped", Batman severs partnership with Robin.

Year Ten: Batman leaves JLA, forms Outsiders.

Year 11: Jason Todd becomes Robin, Dick Grayson becomes Nightwing; The Anti-Matter Crisis occurs.

Year 12: The Joker cripples Barbara Gordon; The Joker kills Jason Todd.

Year 13: Huntress debuts (age 20); Barbara Gordon becomes Oracle; Tim Drake becomes Robin (age 13).

Year 14: Bane breaks Batman; Bruce Wayne returns as Batman.

Year 15: "Contagion" afflicts Gotham; Gotham devastated by earthquake.

Year 16: Gotham declared “No Man’s Land”; “Tower of Babel”; Jim Gordon shot.

Year 17: The Joker’s “Last Laugh”.

Year 18: Bruce Wayne framed for murder.

Year 19: Batman faces the new villain Hush; Tim Drake resigns as Robin; Stephanie Brown serves briefly as Robin; “War Games” wrack Gotham; Tim returns.

Year 20: "Infinite Crisis";

Year 21:Jason Todd returns; Bruce meets his son, Damian; the resurrection of Rā’s al Ghūl;

Year 22: "Heart of Hush"; Batman disappears while fighting the Black Glove; "Final Crisis"; Dick Grayson becomes Batman and Damian Wayne becomes Robin.

Bruce Waye's current age is 46! (Notes from site: Bruce was 25 when he returned to Gotham in January of “Year One” [Batman #404 <2.87>; see 1989/Yr1]. Note, however, that he was regenerated by a Lazarus Pit c. 1999/Yr11 (when he was 36), mystically healed of all injuries in 2002/Yr14 (“KnightsEnd”), and restored by the “Fountain of Life” in 2009/Yr21, so his biological fitness belies his calendar age. The precise birthday is based on pre-Crisis sources; see 1963.)

[Crimson]

Stephanie Brown is in university (college) so Tim Drake must be 18 now... or like a month or two of it.

[Lorendiac]

I posted my Timeline, along with the explanation of why there was a huge margin of error in any such calculations, right around the time the "Infinite Crisis" miniseries was starting, and well before the jump forward to "One Year Later" in the DCU's core titles. I see it got some responses in the first few days afterwards, and then just faded away into limbo.

It feels very odd to see this thread making a comeback after four solid years of inactivity. How did that happen? :confused:

(I'm not complaining! I'm just very surprised to see it coming back from the dead at such a late date!)

[Sn4tcH]

As best as I can tell, I posted the timeline I've been using for story placement in the "what I love about Morrisons Batman" thread, because Morrison stated that Bruce was 19 when he became Batman.

I can't remember who posted that original timeline, but it was very good, and nepenthes went on to edit it and make it even better. So, I imagine that this thread was the most recent and most appropriate thread for nepenthes to post that timeline in.

[Tequilamokinbrd]

I base my timeline on things we know to be true as they were in books still considered canon


Bruce was 25 when he became Batman

Dick in the current bat-books has made (I'm paraphrasing) comments like "When I was your age I would have killed for a flying Batmobile" Meaning he was Robin at the same age as Damian. Dick has said on panel that Damian's 10.

Bruce year one: 25 Dick Grayson 9(still member of Flying Graysons) Tim Drake 3(witnesses Flying Graysons on TV)


Bruce 26, Dick 10(Becomes Robin)


Bruce 30, Dick 14(Teen Titan) Batman & Talia conceive Damian(more on that later)

Bruce 33, Dick 17, Barbara 20(college grad when she became Batgirl, finished early

Bruce 34 Dick 18, Dick Becomes Nightwing, Jason Todd 15 new Robin, Barbara 21, Tim Drake 12


Bruce 35, Barbara 22(shot & paralyzed), Dick 19(Leading Titans), Tim Drake 13


Bruce 36, Dick 20, Jason 17(Dies early in the year, and shortly after death crawls out of grave because of Superboy Prime's punches), Barbara 23, Dick 20, Tim Drake 14(Robin by the end of the year)

Identity Crisis has Tim Drake as 16, so that makes Bruce 38, Barbara 25, Dick 22, Jason Todd 19(and at this point is finishing up his two years of traveling the globe & training to come back to gotham, debuts as red hood shortly thereafter)

Tim was still 16 at the start of Infinite Crisis, therefore One Year Later he was 17, Bruce was 39, Barbara 26, Dick 23, Jason Todd 20


Because of the amount of time that must have elapsed between the time of Infinite Crisis & Final Crisis (Batman R.I.P., Resurrection of Ra's, and other stories that had specific implications that there were at least months between some of these events), I put Bruce at the time of his "Death" at 40, Dick 24, Tim 18, Barbara 27, Jason 21, Damian 10(He's been stated on panel to be 10 around the time Batman dies, so if Bruce is 40, he was 30 when he had Damian.)


Current

Bruce 40

Barbara 27

Dick 24

Helena 24-25( A pure guess based on her relationships with Roy Harper & Dick, I'm guessing she's in their ballpark)

Jason 21

Tim 18

Stephanie 18(was always portrayed to be the same age as Tim)

Cassandra Cain 17-18(See my explaination for Helena & Steph, She dated Superboy & was always portrayed as a teenager and not 19 turning 20 or anything like that)

Damian 10

[Tequilamokinbrd]

Oh, and just one note about Bruce being 40 and some people not liking him being that old & still holding it together, lest we forget that Diana not only used the Purple healing Ray on him which is pretty much a cureall, not to mention during the obsidian age his body was entirely rebuilt from scratch. And I haven't even mentioned his magic healing from Shondra yet. He's not your average 40 year old.

[dreyga2000]

I heard that Tim - fairly recently - had his 16th Birthday Party, so he's 16.





Tim's 16th birthday was before OYL.... He is a minimum 17...According a recent Robin Story, one eighty something, he's not yet 18 ... He became Robin at 13... Which means he's been Robin for 4-5 years...

Zero Hour (Ten Years Batman Year: One) takes place shortly after he becomes Robin...

So Batman's currently on his 14-15 year of his career...

[RonnieThunderbolts]

Cassandra Cain was 17 when she first appeared and Tim wasn't yet 16. Also, Tim had only recently turned 16 when Cassandra and Bruce celebrated Jason Todd's 18th birthday. So, both Cassandra and Jason are somewhere within 2 years older than Tim. Jason is more than a year, but not 2 years older than Tim, and Cassandra is somewhere more than a year, at least, possibly 2.

[durty dee]

I always thought of Bruce to be in his early-forties. Thats not really old. Plenty of holloywood actors have great bodies at that age.

[Jorriss]

I always thought of Bruce to be in his early-forties. Thats not really old. Plenty of holloywood actors have great bodies at that age.
For a high end athlete, that's like a normal person being in their 80's.

[DLH1970]

For a high end athlete, that's like a normal person being in their 80's.
Tell that to Brett Favre.

[Jorriss]

Tell that to Brett Favre.
Or Randy couture. Point stands, 40's is pretty damn old for an elite athlete.

[DLH1970]

Not by comic book logic.

[Jorriss]

Not by comic book logic.
The person I was responding to mentioned hollywood so I was countering comic logic. And even in the comic world, 40's is presented as past one's prime generally.

[Tequilamokinbrd]

The person I was responding to mentioned hollywood so I was countering comic logic. And even in the comic world, 40's is presented as past one's prime generally.


Tell that to Ted Grant.


And before you say it, I know about his "nine lives" and how they've preserved him to an extent. But I always took it to be that they de-aged him to be in his late 40's early 50's instead of being in his 80's or older like he Jay and Alan should be considering how long WWII was ago.....



So even with the Nine lives, he shouldn't be anywhere near as effective as he is if 40 is over the hill.



If Batman is supposed to be better than any pro athlete ever, then him being awesome at 40 isn't a stretch at all for me, esp. when you think about real-life guys like Favre, Couture, George Foreman, Ray Lewis, Randy Johnson, etc

[Jorriss]

Tell that to Ted Grant.
He's actually the one I was thinking of when stating even in comics 40 is old but I wasn't sure of his age.


If Batman is supposed to be better than any pro athlete ever, then him being awesome at 40 isn't a stretch at all for me, esp. when you think about real-life guys like Favre, Couture, George Foreman, Ray Lewis, Randy Johnson, etc
I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just stating for an athlete 40 is still old.

[Lorendiac]

I'm not saying it's impossible, I'm just stating for an athlete 40 is still old.

Sure, but that's for pro athletes in the real world, who only get to use the tools of modern medicine whenever they are injured. Batman lives in a whole different world! As Tequilamokinbrd pointed out earlier, Batman got brought back from the dead, body rebuilt from scratch, in "The Obsidian Age." Tequilamokinbrd also said Batman got a dose of the Purple Healing Ray once. I don't remember that one, offhand, but I'm willing to believe it happened -- and I do remember that in the graphic novel "Birth of the Demon" (which I believe I didn't own at the time I launched this thread) Batman suffered a lethal wound, fell into a Lazarus Pit, and bounced right back to the pink of health!

Since regular baths in the Lazarus Pits have been keeping Ra's al Ghul going for centuries, it is not ridiculous to speculate that Batman's single dip in a Pit effectively reduced his "physiological age" a bit so that he was actually "younger" and "healthier" than he had been before he suffered that nasty wound in the first place! (For one thing -- if I understand how the Pits work, that dip should have "restored to perfect condition" any muscle, tendon, piece of cartilage, etc., which was starting to show signs of wear and tear after several years of strenuous exertion and the occasional severe injury -- gunshot wounds and so forth. Even if the chest wound which had happened to Batman two minutes earlier hadn't touched that particular muscle (or tendon, or whatever) at all!)

Although I still don't agree that Batman is as old as 40 in DCU time. I admit that with all the retcons which DC tosses around at the drop of a hat these days, it's very hard to figure out just how long it's supposed to have been since this, that, or the other thing happened in the "latest version of continuity." And how old a character was when he "started his career," for that matter. For instance! Back in 2006, Grant Morrison said in an interview that as far as he was concerned, Bruce had actually put on the pointy-eared costume for the first time when he was just 19 years old! Which would make him six years younger today than he would be if we accepted Frank Miller's statement in "Year One" that Bruce was 25 before he decided he'd done as much training as he needed, and now it was time to head home to Gotham and start putting theory into practice!

But even if we found out that Bruce Wayne, according to his birth certificate, was born "forty years ago," that still wouldn't have much bearing on the questions of "what is the effective age of his body, right here and now, after all the miracle cures he's experienced over the years? How long can he keep up this pace before his aging body finally forces him to slow down and take it easy?" :biggrin:

[Jared]

Morrisson's "19 years" strikes me as a too young for Bruce to be starting. For one thing, Bruce would pretend to drink alcohol in public when he came to Gotham, even right in front of police officers.

I would like him to be younger than 25, however. I my mind, the current Batman is perpetually in his late 30s. He's right around the point that he worries about age starting to catch up with him, but it hasn't yet in any major way.

[Lew Moxon]

Morrisson's "19 years" strikes me as a too young for Bruce to be starting. For one thing, Bruce would pretend to drink alcohol in public when he came to Gotham, even right in front of police officers.

I would like him to be younger than 25, however. I my mind, the current Batman is perpetually in his late 30s. He's right around the point that he worries about age starting to catch up with him, but it hasn't yet in any major way.

I imagine him being between 22-27 when he started out. I know, it's a wide range, but I think it works. He'd have to be at least 21 for the reasons you mentioned. It's actually not the fight training I have the problem with. I can imagine Bruce taking boxing lessons and the sort from a very early age, perhaps as quickly as his parents murder. I can even see Bruce taking gymnastics and the like. I think one could argue that a young Bruce was rather active, either he came up with the idea of being Batman or something like it on the spot, or he simply didn't want to have any time to dwell on the event. Add the 2 1/2 months Morrison mentions, and we've probably got ourselves quiet an fighter by age 19. This of course assumes that Bruce works with "ninja shadow masters" at age 17. Which strains the suspension of disbelief a little bit, but I'll let that past. A man could be trained into becoming quiet a fighter at that age. But even from the beginning, Bruce had to be at least a competent detective. At that's why he has to be a bit older than nineteen in my opinion. He needs time to learn how to be a detective. (I assume the ninja shadow masters" teach him how to use his weapons.) I'm also assuming Bruce's knowledge of the esoteric shown in Morrison's run is a product of who he fights, and that Bruce continued to study up on such things after he first put on the cowl.

With all that in mind, I can see his age being reduced 22-23 but no more than that. Which actually still works with what Morrison indicates. In that interview if I remember correctly, he imagines Bruce as having been fighting for 15 years, which makes him between 37-38, which fits with the "over thirty" statement by Jezebel Jet.

[Lew Moxon]

Morrisson's "19 years" strikes me as a too young for Bruce to be starting. For one thing, Bruce would pretend to drink alcohol in public when he came to Gotham, even right in front of police officers.

I would like him to be younger than 25, however. I my mind, the current Batman is perpetually in his late 30s. He's right around the point that he worries about age starting to catch up with him, but it hasn't yet in any major way.

I imagine him being between 22-27 when he started out. I know, it's a wide range, but I think it works. He'd have to be at least 21 for the reasons you mentioned. It's actually not the fight training I have the problem with. I can imagine Bruce taking boxing lessons and the sort from a very early age, perhaps as quickly as his parents murder. I can even see Bruce taking gymnastics and the like. I think one could argue that a young Bruce was rather active, either he came up with the idea of being Batman or something like it on the spot, or he simply didn't want to have any time to dwell on the event. Add the 2 1/2 months Morrison mentions, and we've probably got ourselves quiet an fighter by age 19. This of course assumes that Bruce works with "ninja shadow masters" at age 17. Which strains the suspension of disbelief a little bit, but I'll let that past. A man could be trained into becoming quiet a fighter at that age. But even from the beginning, Bruce had to be at least a competent detective. At that's why he has to be a bit older than nineteen in my opinion. He needs time to learn how to be a detective. (I assume the ninja shadow masters" teach him how to use his weapons.) I'm also assuming Bruce's knowledge of the esoteric shown in Morrison's run is a product of who he fights, and that Bruce continued to study up on such things after he first put on the cowl.

With all that in mind, I can see his age being reduced 22-23 but no more than that. Which actually still works with what Morrison indicates. In that interview if I remember correctly, he imagines Bruce as having been fighting for 15 years, which makes him between 37-38, which fits with the "over thirty" statement by Jezebel Jet.

[DetectiveDupin]

Morrisson's "19 years" strikes me as a too young for Bruce to be starting. For one thing, Bruce would pretend to drink alcohol in public when he came to Gotham, even right in front of police officers.

I would like him to be younger than 25, however. I my mind, the current Batman is perpetually in his late 30s. He's right around the point that he worries about age starting to catch up with him, but it hasn't yet in any major way.

Keep in mind that we don't know the drinking age in the DCU, it may even be 18, and Bruce Wayne is a celebrity. You honestly think cops will tell him anything? Celebrities that are underage here go to clubs and drink without any problems, so I don't see why he would have any.

[Jared]

Keep in mind that we don't know the drinking age in the DCU, it may even be 18, and Bruce Wayne is a celebrity. You honestly think cops will tell him anything? Celebrities that are underage here go to clubs and drink without any problems, so I don't see why he would have any.

Is there any reason to suspect that the drinking age in the U.S. isn't the same as the real world? I always figure most laws and customs are the same, except where specifically stated to be otherwise.

And Bruce offered Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen champagne in Year One. They declined, being on duty. But I can't imagine he'd try that if he were 19. I can actually see Jim coming down on him for being such a brazen punk.

But it's not even the drinking that's the issue with me. While 19 means adulthood legally, it doesn't culturally. In my mind, Bruce should be fully into his manhood when he becomes Batman. He has to be old enough that when he meets other heroes, he is instantly seen as a contemporary, not a kid.

I assume Bruce at the very least wrestled in high school and college. Though boxing and karate lessons are quite possible as well. I've never bought that he learned *everything* he knows in just that 7-10 years abroad.

[Lorendiac]

Is there any reason to suspect that the drinking age in the U.S. isn't the same as the real world? I always figure most laws and customs are the same, except where specifically stated to be otherwise.

And Bruce offered Jim Gordon and Sarah Essen champagne in Year One. They declined, being on duty. But I can't imagine he'd try that if he were 19. I can actually see Jim coming down on him for being such a brazen punk.

Even in the USA, the rules on "drinking age" vary from state to state. And DC generally works hard to not tell us which state Gotham is in. Therefore, Bruce might live in a state where it is perfectly legal for a 19-year-old to sip from a glass of champagne.

Anyway, if Morrison is gleefully ignoring the way "Year One" explicitly told us Bruce was 25 when he came home to Gotham to start some serious crimefighting, then he is equally capable of retconning the bit where Bruce offers champagne to Gordon and Essen in that story arc!

[Lew Moxon]

My question is this. Most of what I've heard about Bruce's training has more or less concerned how he learned how to fight. But the Dark Knight's detective skills are equally important for creating the Batman persona.

I am completely revealing my ignorance on the subject, but how does one study to become a detective, and how many years would such a study take?

As I said, I could almost buy Bruce being a great fighter at nineteen, it's the detective skills where things get iffy for me.

[dupersuper]

My question is this. Most of what I've heard about Bruce's training has more or less concerned how he learned how to fight. But the Dark Knight's detective skills are equally important for creating the Batman persona.

I am completely revealing my ignorance on the subject, but how does one study to become a detective, and how many years would such a study take?

As I said, I could almost buy Bruce being a great fighter at nineteen, it's the detective skills where things get iffy for me.

It has been said he trained with trackers and P.I.'s, and of course read a lot.

[Jorriss]

My question is this. Most of what I've heard about Bruce's training has more or less concerned how he learned how to fight. But the Dark Knight's detective skills are equally important for creating the Batman persona.

I am completely revealing my ignorance on the subject, but how does one study to become a detective, and how many years would such a study take?

As I said, I could almost buy Bruce being a great fighter at nineteen, it's the detective skills where things get iffy for me.
Given they gave him a brain with a power on par of William Siddis, being a good enough fighter and athlete probably would be the bigger challenge.

[Chris S.]

Even in the USA, the rules on "drinking age" vary from state to state. And DC generally works hard to not tell us which state Gotham is in. Therefore, Bruce might live in a state where it is perfectly legal for a 19-year-old to sip from a glass of champagne.

It does not vary in the USA. It is 21 across the board.

[Jared]

It has been said he trained with trackers and P.I.'s, and of course read a lot.

Ducard was a major teacher in that area. Also, if it hasn't been retconned, he studied relevant fields at Princeton, with an eye toward joining the F.B.I.

One semester we took Criminology for Christ's sake, what the f**k were we trying to be, Batman?"

[Lorendiac]

It does not vary in the USA. It is 21 across the board.

Nope! As a rule of thumb, it would be a crime (apparently) for Bruce Wayne to dig into his own pocket and purchase an alcoholic beverage in the USA before he turned 21. That doesn't mean every state in the Union has laws to prevent him from drinking something alcoholic!

Although I didn't bother to mention it earlier -- before I typed my comment about legal drinking ages varying across the map of the USA, I took the trouble to glance at what Wikipedia had to say on the subject. I vaguely remembered having read, somewhere, sometime, that not all states set the bar (no pun intended) in the exact same place where youthful drinking is concerned. But I wanted to verify that before committing myself.

(Since I never drink alcohol myself, I've never felt the overwhelming need to take the time to study and memorize the relevant laws for each of the 50 states.)

On its page about Legal Drinking Age (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_drinking_age#Americas), in the section about the USA, Wikipedia says the following (I've added boldface to a few key bits):

The National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984 states that revenue will be withheld from states that allow the purchase of alcohol by anyone under the age of 21. Prior to the effective date of that Act, the drinking age varied from state to state. Some states do not allow those under the legal drinking age to be present in liquor stores or in bars (usually, the difference between a bar and a restaurant is whether food is being served). Contrary to popular belief, since the National Minimum Drinking Age Act of 1984, few states specifically prohibit minors' and young adults' consumption of alcohol in private settings. As of January 1, 2007, 14 states and the District of Columbia ban underage consumption outright, 19 states do not specifically ban underage consumption, and an additional 17 states have family member and/or location exceptions to their underage consumption laws.

So it seems to me that it's perfectly possible for the following situation to occur, depending on which state Gotham is in:

1. Bruce Wayne, age 19, is sitting at home in Wayne Manor.

2. Alfred Pennyworth, who is definitely old enough to purchase alcohol anywhere in the USA, serves "Master Bruce" a glass of champagne.

3. Alfred either bought the champagne himself, or else is uncorking a bottle which was bought by Thomas Wayne a long time ago for the Manor's wine cellar. (In that latter case, the bottle would now belong to Bruce as his legal property -- but without his ever lifting a finger to purchase it!)

4. Bruce drinks the champage.

5. Everything in this picture is legal. In which case: If Jim Gordon, a career cop, is sitting in the same room watching, he will know there's no point in trying to tell Bruce he "can't do that!" Because Bruce is perfectly within his rights!

[myme]

Maybe add the possibility, that the Waynes own a vineyard.

[Lorendiac]

Maybe add the possibility, that the Waynes own a vineyard.

Interesting point! I admit I didn't think of that.

If 19-year-old Bruce owned a vineyard somewhere, and if the ancient custom was that it sent 10 cases of each new vintage of champagne to its owner at Wayne Manor, year after year, as part of his share of the profits from the ongoing operations of the vineyard, then that wouldn't be a case of Bruce "purchasing" the stuff from anybody else, no more than it was when he inherited the Manor's existing wine cellar!

[nepenthes]

Revised timeline. The ages of Bruce, Dick, Tim etc still align and the sequence of events makes a little more sense


Year One: Bruce Wayne is 25
Batman, Catwoman (19), Joker appear
Superman meets Batman: Jim Gordon promoted to Captain
Batman:Year One

Year Two: Bruce Wayne is 26
Two Face, Poison Ivy appears
Disck Grayson’s parents killed; Justice League of America forms; Barbara Gordon orphaned: Jim Gordon forms his MCU
The Man Who Laughs / Four of a Kind / The Long Halloween / Full Moon Rising / Prey / Two Face:Year One

Year Three: Bruce Wayne is 27
Robin appears (14)
Batman joins the JLA
Dark Victory / All Star Batman & Robin / Batman:Year Three

Year Four: 28
Batgirl (19), Scarecrow appear
Jim Gordon promoted to GCPD Commissioner
Batgirl: Year One / Scarecrow:Year One

Year Five: 29
Goofy 1950’s Dick Sprang era
Batman Chronicles 3, 4

Year Six: 30
Weird 1960’s Black Casebook era
The Black Casebook / Batman RIP / Teen Titans: Year One

Year Seven: 31
Batman returns to the shadows, Joker resumes killing
Ra’s Al Ghul, Man Bat appear
Tales of the Demon / Neal Adams Collections / Jokers Five Way Revenge (Greatest Joker Stories)

Year Eight: 32
Talia appears : Damian is born : Silver St. Cloud, Deadshot, Rupert Thorne appear
Dick Grayson goes to college (19): Bruce moves to Penthouse : Barbara Gordon elected to Congress (23)
Strange Apparitions / Son of the Demon

Year Nine: 33
Batman severs partnership with Robin: finds Jason Todd (17) in Crime alley:
Batman leaves JLA, forms Outsiders
Nocturna, Nightslayer, Black Mask, Killer Croc appear
Gerry Conway Doug Moench early 1980’s era

Year Ten: 34
Deacon Blackfire holds seige to Gotham: The Joker cripples Barbara Gordon; The Joker kills Jason Todd (19)
The Cult / A Death in the Family / The Killing Joke

Year Eleven: 35
Tim Drake appears (age 15), Barbara Gordon becomes Oracle, Huntress appears (age 20), Scarface, Venquilotrist, Zsasz appear
Batman becomes heavily depressed : Batman is imprisoned in Arkham Asylum:
The Last Arkham / A Lonely Place of Dying

Year Twelve: 36
Bane appears, Azrael appears:
Batman is crippled; Jean Paul Valley takes over : Bruce Wayne heals and returns
Knightfall / KnightRise / KnightsEnd

Year Thirteen: 37
"Contagion" afflicts Gotham; Gotham devastated by earthquake
Contagion / Legacy / Road to NML / Cataclysm

Year Fourteen: 38
Gotham declared “No Man’s Land”; Batmans protocols disable the JLA ; Jim Gordon shot.
No Mans Land / Tower of Babel / Gotham Central Vol.2

Year Fifteen Fifteen: 39
Bruce Wayne bids against Joker death sentence: Bruce Wayne framed for murder and arrested
Last Laugh / Bruce Wayne :Murderer / Bruce Wayne :Fugitive

Year Sixteen: 40
B Hush appears, Harold killed, Stephanie Brown killed,
Riddler manipulates multiple villains against Batman: Spoiler briefly serves a Robin: Gang war rocks Gotham: Max Lord hijacks Batman’s Brother Eye and kills thousands
Hush / War Crimes / Infinite Crisis

Year Seventeen: 41
Jason Todd returns; Batwoman appears : Bruce meets Damian; Michael Lane appears : Rā’s al Ghūl returns
Under The Hood / Batman & Son / The Black Glove / Ressurection of Ra’s Al Ghul

Year Eighteen: 42
Dr. Hurt appears : Michael Lane becomes Azrael
Batman of Zur En Rah counterattacks the Black Glove ; Darkseid kills Bruce with Omega Sanction ; Dick Grayson becomes Batman; Damian Wayne becomes Robin : Tim Drake leaves Gotham as Red Robin
Batman RIP : Final Crisis : Whatver Happened to the Caped Crusdaer : Battle of the Cowl : Batman Reborn


Bruce Wayne is 42, Dick Grayson 29, Jason Todd 22, Tim Drake 22, Damian Wayne is 10

and as mentioned Bruce should actually have the body of a younger man due to various events in his past

.

[Captain Jim]

Revised timeline. The ages of Bruce, Dick, Tim etc still align and the sequence of events makes a little more sense



Year Nine: 33
Batman severs partnership with Robin: finds Jason Todd (17) in Crime alley:
Batman leaves JLA, forms Outsiders
Nocturna, Nightslayer, Black Mask, Killer Croc appear
Gerry Conway Doug Moench early 1980’s era


Bruce Wayne is 42, Dick Grayson 29, Jason Todd 22, Tim Drake 22, Damian Wayne is 10

and as mentioned Bruce should actually have the body of a younger man due to various events in his past

.

If Jason was 17 in year 9, he should be 26 now, not 22. And though Stephanie Brown has just started college, the last I heard, Tim is still in high school. How can he be 22 and in high school (and the last time I heard in comics, he was 17).

[RonnieThunderbolts]

If Jason was 17 in year 9, he should be 26 now, not 22. And though Stephanie Brown has just started college, the last I heard, Tim is still in high school. How can he be 22 and in high school (and the last time I heard in comics, he was 17).

His author has Tim as 17 still, with Tim and his best friend/peer Conner still high school aged. Also, Tim is between 1 and 2 years younger than Jason. The difference in age between Tim and Dick is correct, they're just five years younger. Tim was introduced as 13 year old also, not 15.

[nepenthes]

If Jason was 17 in year 9, he should be 26 now, not 22. And though Stephanie Brown has just started college, the last I heard, Tim is still in high school. How can he be 22 and in high school (and the last time I heard in comics, he was 17).

I'm not really up to speed on Tim and high school so I didn't consider that - though I should have of course. But I honestly thought school was in his past.

Also I'm disregarding alot of the ages they give in comics - it's all just different writers making a guess without thought to the bigger picture. Look at the events between Lonely Place of Dying and Batman Reborn. How on earth does that all fit into two years? It doesn't. What i'm trying to do is make a timeline that fits all the major periods and events, and aligns with the characters ages relative to each other.

Jason - ok i figured he stopped again when he died. we know he spent some time with Talia before returning to Gotham but we also saw him reading clippings about NML in Under the Hood, meaning he was likely still dead when that happened. Who knows what effect death and a reality punch has on aging. I also just like the idea of him being the same age as Tim so I figure he came back to life age 19 in Year Fifteen, grazy and weird in the Lazarus pits, missing NML, spends a year with Talia while Hush occurs in Year Sixteen, confronts Bruce in Year Seventeen.

His author has Tim as 17 still, with Tim and his best friend/peer Conner still high school aged. Also, Tim is between 1 and 2 years younger than Jason. The difference in age between Tim and Dick is correct, they're just five years younger. Tim was introduced as 13 year old also, not 15.

Which author?

Tim was introduced as 13 year old also, not 15.

And Dick was 8, not 14.

This is a perfect example of why I'm ignoring the ages given in comics and prioritising the publishing history instead. There's no internal consistency with supplied ages so they simply don't matter. One day Batman is 26 then he another day he's 19. If Tim and Dick are truly five years apart that makes Dick 23. Really?

Ages in comics are good for framing the story at hand but they have to be flexible over time I believe.

[Captain Jim]

Jason - ok i figured he stopped again when he died. we know he spent some time with Talia before returning to Gotham but we also saw him reading clippings about NML in Under the Hood, meaning he was likely still dead when that happened. Who knows what effect death and a reality punch has on aging. I also just like the idea of him being the same age as Tim so I figure he came back to life age 19 in Year Fifteen, grazy and weird in the Lazarus pits, missing NML, spends a year with Talia while Hush occurs in Year Sixteen, confronts Bruce in Year Seventeen.

Duh! I wasn't even thinking about him being dead. (For that matter, I'm not clear in my mind how long he was actually dead before being resurrected.) I don't know; I pictured Jason as closer to Dick in age than Tim, but again, I wasn't taking into account the time he was dead. I sure didn't think he looked 17 in that tire theft story though. IIRC, he looked a lot younger.

[Werehunter]

Year Eight: 32
Talia appears : Damian is born : Silver St. Cloud, Deadshot, Rupert Thorne appear
Dick Grayson goes to college (19): Bruce moves to Penthouse : Barbara Gordon elected to Congress (23)
Strange Apparitions / Son of the Demon



Not to be a pain but I'm assuming this is the US Congress. Minimum age for the House is 25, at least in the real world maybe the DCU is different.

[hippie_hunter]

Before OYL Jason Todd was specifically mentioned to be 18 years old in War Drums and Dick Grayson was 26 in Nightwing: Year One.

Add in the year to account for OYL plus about another one comic book time and you have a 20 year old Jason Todd and a 28 year old Dick Grayson. And with Azrael stating that it's been 8 months since Batman has died we got Jason approaching 21 and Dick approaching 29 if they haven't already reached those ages.

[hippie_hunter]

And Dick was 8, not 14.

They retconned it so that Dick was quite a bit older when he became Robin. His parents have been dead for at least 12 or 13 years making him up to 15 years old when he became Robin. Some stories like All-Star Batman and Robin having him being 12 years old.

[RonnieThunderbolts]

Which author?

His current one, Chris Yost, has said he is currently 17. The beginning of his current series has him missing school during his senior year, and as I said earlier, his best friend and peer close to him in age, Conner, is also still in school.

And Dick was 8, not 14.

Dick was 12 in some versions of the origin told Post-Crisis, not always 8 (he was originally, pre-Crisis, but sometime it was listed as 12 later).

This is a perfect example of why I'm ignoring the ages given in comics and prioritising the publishing history instead. There's no internal consistency with supplied ages so they simply don't matter. One day Batman is 26 then he another day he's 19. If Tim and Dick are truly five years apart that makes Dick 23. Really?

Ages in comics are good for framing the story at hand but they have to be flexible over time I believe.

Firstly, I didn't mean they are five years apart in age, I just meant that your ages for Tim and Dick seemed the correct age apart (7), but that they were five years off. Based on A Lonely Place of Dying I believe that Tim and Dick are 7 or so years apart, and that based on Tim being 17, that Dick is probably around 24 or 25. With Grant Morrison having said that Batman has been active for 15 years or so when he was interviewed during RIP, and having begun his career at 19 or 20, that would place Bruce at 34 or 35 during RIP, and with the gaps following that story, somewhere close to a year has gone by, making Bruce's age 35 or 36 currently.

I don't disagree with you at all that time should be flexible, I'm just taking a few landmarks like age differences established on panel, like those age differences between Tim Drake and Jason Todd, or Tim and Dick Grayson, and applying them to the current status quo defined by the authors writing the characters. If Morrison and Yost have said that Batman is 35 or 36, and that Tim Drake is about 17, I take them at their word. The current continuity isn't one whose history has been laid out before us. While most of the Post-Crisis elements and stories are intact, there have been massive changes to the continuities of many DC characters, and if the architects of the current DCU have Batman and Tim Drake a certain age, I don't feel like I can argue.

None of your logic or reasoning is wrong, I was just offering my reasoning for my opinions about their time line and ages. Your time line works with an internal logic and works fine, I just can't ignore in story elements like a character being a teenager in high school, but I also don't expect you to conform to that view at all, sorry if I came across as dismissive before, I was typing in a hurry.

[nepenthes]

Not to be a pain but I'm assuming this is the US Congress. Minimum age for the House is 25, at least in the real world maybe the DCU is different.

heh, and I'd already bumped up her given age to make it seem more realistic. Wasn't aware 25 was the minimum. Not a problem will consider that next revision



Before OYL Jason Todd was specifically mentioned to be 18 years old in War Drums and Dick Grayson was 26 in Nightwing: Year One.

Add in the year to account for OYL plus about another one comic book time and you have a 20 year old Jason Todd and a 28 year old Dick Grayson. And with Azrael stating that it's been 8 months since Batman has died we got Jason approaching 21 and Dick approaching 29 if they haven't already reached those ages.

Try and make a timeline that gives room to all the events and eras of Batman lore while maintaining cosistency between the main characters ages. You'll end up with something very similair to what I posted. But you have to throw those ages out- all contradict each other anyway

The alternative is to have some characters experiencing time differentlly to others - with aging slowing or speeding up at different intervals. Now I know its comics but that just makes no sense at all

[hippie_hunter]

Where did Morrison say that Batman's been around for 15 years? It sounds about right because War Games happened three years after the Earthquake that destroyed Gotham which I think happened in Year Ten.

But did he also think that Batman appeared when Bruce was 20? Because that would give Bruce, a man who's approaching his 40's, a major de-aging.

[hippie_hunter]

Try and make a timeline that gives room to all the events and eras of Batman lore while maintaining cosistency between the main characters ages. You'll end up with something very similair to what I posted. But you have to throw those ages out- all contradict each other anyway

The alternative is to have some characters experiencing time differentlly to others - with aging slowing or speeding up at different intervals. Now I know its comics but that just makes no sense at all

Actually if I made a timeline it would be quite a bit condensed to 15 year career for the Bat-family with a Batman approaching 40 instead of actually being 40+.

Also you can't just throw away ages that have been specifically mentioned like Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. Along with the fact that Dick's parents have been dead for about 12-13 years.

[nepenthes]

His current one, Chris Yost, has said he is currently 17. The beginning of his current series has him missing school during his senior year, and as I said earlier, his best friend and peer close to him in age, Conner, is also still in school.

damn. that makes it hard then

Firstly, I didn't mean they are five years apart in age, I just meant that your ages for Tim and Dick seemed the correct age apart (7), but that they were five years off. Based on A Lonely Place of Dying I believe that Tim and Dick are 7 or so years apart, and that based on Tim being 17, that Dick is probably around 24 or 25. With Grant Morrison having said that Batman has been active for 15 years or so when he was interviewed during RIP, and having begun his career at 19 or 20, that would place Bruce at 34 or 35 during RIP, and with the gaps following that story, somewhere close to a year has gone by, making Bruce's age 35 or 36 currently.

I don't disagree with you at all that time should be flexible, I'm just taking a few landmarks like age differences established on panel, like those age differences between Tim Drake and Jason Todd, or Tim and Dick Grayson, and applying them to the current status quo defined by the authors writing the characters. If Morrison and Yost have said that Batman is 35 or 36, and that Tim Drake is about 17, I take them at their word. The current continuity isn't one whose history has been laid out before us. While most of the Post-Crisis elements and stories are intact, there have been massive changes to the continuities of many DC characters, and if the architects of the current DCU have Batman and Tim Drake a certain age, I don't feel like I can argue.

None of your logic or reasoning is wrong, I was just offering my reasoning for my opinions about their time line and ages. Your time line works with an internal logic and works fine, I just can't ignore in story elements like a character being a teenager in high school, but I also don't expect you to conform to that view at all, sorry if I came across as dismissive before, I was typing in a hurry.

well all of that makes perfect sense. that's what makes it annoying ha

Miller had his idea of Batman starting at 26, which allows us to create a timeline according to that. But I agree the contemporary writers framing should probably take predominance if you're an active reader of current comics. What's unfolding is shaped by their interpretation of time. Also that's a good point about the current New Earth continuity.

What I posted is only one version of a timeline, I'll call it the pre-morrison version. The biggest difference would be that instead of starting at 26 it's now 19. I Guess Tim has always been a highscool student. Which honestly is pretty stupid imo. Again how does Knightfall-NML-Fugitive-Hush-WarCrimes-OYL- RIP happen in only two years.

[nepenthes]

Actually if I made a timeline it would be quite a bit condensed to 15 year career for the Bat-family with a Batman approaching 40 instead of actually being 40+.

Also you can't just throw away ages that have been specifically mentioned like Dick Grayson and Jason Todd. Along with the fact that Dick's parents have been dead for about 12-13 years.

the first timeline i posted was 18 years ending with Bruce 40 years old. i actually like that one better.

the second line is me trying to fit it with what the guy over at http://dcu.smartmemes.com/ has worked up. he's probably spent more time on this stuff than anybody, it's all meticulously referenced and made to fit, so i figured what I'd try work off that and see what comes up.

You can just throw away ages, that's what i've been saying. The writers do it all the time

[hippie_hunter]

I refuse to accept Yost's views of Tim being 16/17. Stephanie is pretty much the same age as Tim and she's now starting college. I picture Tim being 17/18.

Especially since he was 16 before OYL.

[Lorendiac]

Year Eight: 32
Talia appears : Damian is born : Silver St. Cloud, Deadshot, Rupert Thorne appear
Dick Grayson goes to college (19): Bruce moves to Penthouse : Barbara Gordon elected to Congress (23)
Strange Apparitions / Son of the Demon.

Not to be a pain but I'm assuming this is the US Congress. Minimum age for the House is 25, at least in the real world maybe the DCU is different.

I somehow had the impression that Barbara's time in the House of Representatives had been retconned away into oblivion a couple of decades ago. Along with the idea of "she already had a Ph.D. in Library Science -- therefore, was probably in her mid-20s, at least -- by the time she first put on a Batgirl suit for a costume party and then found herself playing that role for real!" (As depicted in her Silver Age origin story.)

Offhand, I'm not remembering any story from the 1990s or 2000s which ever had anyone say, in dialogue, "Hello, Ms. Gordon -- I remember voting for you when you ran for Congress!" Nor -- to the best of my knowledge and recollection -- any other specific acknowledgment of her brief "political career."

[myme]

IIRC, the story The Chaotic Code in BoP #47-49 links her for the first time after CoIE with politics. Now Senator Fitzgerald is a good friend of the Gordon family, he said Babs is like a daughter to him. It seems, Babs has not had any political career after CoIE at all.

[Tequilamokinbrd]

Tequilamokinbrd also said Batman got a dose of the Purple Healing Ray once. I don't remember that one, offhand, but I'm willing to believe it happened


IIRC, Diana used it on him after Superman nearly beat him to death when he was being tricked by Maxwell Lord into thinking he was fighting Darkseid, Brainiac, etc. during Sacrifice.

[napafish77]

What age is Bruce during The Mad Monk and The Monster Men? Where do they fit into the timeline?

[Sn4tcH]

What age is Bruce during The Mad Monk and The Monster Men? Where do they fit into the timeline?

Mad Monk ends with Batman saying a bunch of bodies have been found with "rictus-grins". So, it leads directly into The Man Who Laughs, which is Batman's first encounter with the Joker.

So, Monster Men and Mad Monk happen during Year Two, but before Batman fights the Joker for the first time.

[nepenthes]

What age is Bruce during The Mad Monk and The Monster Men? Where do they fit into the timeline?

I put these as Full Moon Rising in year two. That's the name for the set

[Captain Jim]

I refuse to accept Yost's views of Tim being 16/17. Stephanie is pretty much the same age as Tim and she's now starting college. I picture Tim being 17/18.

Especially since he was 16 before OYL.

I don't think it does any violence to say that Tim recently turned 18. I could see Steph being 19 maybe, which would fit with Tim still being in high school and Steph just starting college.

[myme]

I don't think it does any violence to say that Tim recently turned 18. I could see Steph being 19 maybe, which would fit with Tim still being in high school and Steph just starting college.
Stephanie is 19 years old, as Lee Garbett said so on the DC Boards. (click me) (http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?messageID=2005476627�)

[hippie_hunter]

I don't think it does any violence to say that Tim recently turned 18. I could see Steph being 19 maybe, which would fit with Tim still being in high school and Steph just starting college.

Tim was portrayed as a 15/16 year old before OYL. Add in the year plus another year comic book time and you have Tim around the age of 17/18, which would still be a senior in high school and Steph being 18/19 just starting college.

[hippie_hunter]

Stephanie is 19 years old, as Lee Garbett said so on the DC Boards. (click me) (http://dcboards.warnerbros.com/web/thread.jspa?messageID=2005476627�)

Steph being 19 makes me think more along the lines of Tim being late 17/early 18.

[BooCoo]

I'd give the following ages based more on how the characters are written than anything else. Obviously artist interpretation can be all over the place. Tim's rendition has been pretty erratic (most artists don't 'get' how to do teenagers).

Bruce 35-38
Dick 25-28
Jason 24-26
Tim 17-19
The Little Snot 10 (or 18 with his new troll look)

I try not to get caught into the continuity trap. You end up going in circles since stuff changes so much over the years.

*note to self. may adjust numbers as thinking fangirl wonders at new secret of Bruce about Dicky*

[Jorriss]

So in the most recent Booster Gold it is shown Dick's parents have been dead at most 15 years. This makes Dick roughly 25?

[hippie_hunter]

I'd give the following ages based more on how the characters are written than anything else. Obviously artist interpretation can be all over the place. Tim's rendition has been pretty erratic (most artists don't 'get' how to do teenagers).

Bruce 35-38
Dick 25-28
Jason 24-26
Tim 17-19
The Little Snot 10 (or 18 with his new troll look)

I try not to get caught into the continuity trap. You end up going in circles since stuff changes so much over the years.

*note to self. may adjust numbers as thinking fangirl wonders at new secret of Bruce about Dicky*

Jason isn't in his mid-twenties. He was quite a bit younger than Dick, not a year or two younger than him.

[Godlike13]

I wanna say Jason's around 21.

[Lorendiac]

Tim became Batman's latest apprentice in "A Lonely Place of Dying." He was 13 at the time. Jason had recently died. I have the impression that Jason was not much older -- maybe a year or two older than Tim when he showed up. It seemed to me that they looked about the same size when Jim Aparo was drawing first one and then the other in the late 80s, and I have the impression that the typical Gothamite never actually figured out that "Robin Number Two" had died at all! Many people probably assumed, when Tim started being seen in public, that he was "the second Robin back in action after a dry spell." If Jason had been, say, four years older and six inches taller right before he died, that probably wouldn't have worked!

As far as I know, Tim never bothered to issue any press releases saying: "Guys, I'm actually the third Robin. The second one is dead and buried." (Jim Gordon probably could tell the difference, even if we assume he hadn't already become reasonably certain of the secret identities of Batman, the first Robin, and the second Robin -- but Jim Gordon spends a heck of a lot more time in conversations with Batman and his various sidekicks than the typical resident of Gotham City!)

So if Tim is now, say, 17, then I could see Jason being a full-grown 18 or 19. Although, given the way his history got rewritten on the fly by Superboy-Prime punching a wall, who knows?

[Lorendiac]

Ducard was a major teacher in that area. Also, if it hasn't been retconned, he studied relevant fields at Princeton, with an eye toward joining the F.B.I.

Looking back through this thread, I see I never got around to replying to this comment. I think I meant to. Better late than never!

I don't specfically remember "Princeton," but I do remember (vaguely) that Post-COIE, the continuity seems to be that Bruce never completed a bachelor's degree, although he did indeed take some college courses while he was thinking of pursuing a "conventional" law enforcement career. If you remember reading he took some courses at Princeton, I have no reason to disagree!

In fact, your FBI comment reminded me of something! I bought "Zero Hour" as it came out in 1994, and then I bought the "zero issues" of the regular Batman titles of that era. They served as a quick recap of Batman's origin story. One of them -- don't ask me which -- greatly surprised me by having one panel casually mention that young Bruce Wayne had actually joined the FBI and then gave it up after six weeks. Presumably because it was too much paperwork at a desk and too little action on the streets?

As far as I know, his very brief time with the FBI has never been mentioned again in any other issue of any title since 1994, but I don't think it's ever explicitly been erased from history, either! It was basically just a "throwaway comment" which everybody at DC seems to have promptly forgotten! (Don't you love it when that happens?)

[Batman Fan 31593]

Based on Tim Drake's states ages within the comics, it's actually quite easy to place Batman's adventures from 1989-2005 onto a timeline. Of course, you have to disregard certain references to the passage of time, such as during NML and later during Rucka's run on Detective.

Tim Drake was 13 when he was introduced in "A Lonely Place of Dying" in 1989.

In 1993, at the beginning of "Knighquest" in Detective Comis #668 (this issue leads into Robin #1), Tim receives a special driver's license that allows him to drive because of his disabled father. We can assume this is because Tim has just turned 14 years old.

In Dec. 1998, in Secret Origins 80-Page Giant #1, it is revealed that Tim has recently turned 15 years old.

In 2003's Robin #116, Tim celebrates is 16th birthday on panel.

I'm sure there is disagreement about how long Bruce had been Batman at the time ALPOD occured, so here is a timeline starting with ALPOD, in which I will use "Tim Drake Year 1, Year 2, etc."

Tim Drake Year One (13): A Lonely Place of Dying, Robin minis 1 thru 3, Sword of Azrael, Vengeance of Bane, Knightfall

Tim Drake Year Two (14): Knightquest, KnightsEnd, Prodigal, Contagion, Legacy, Cataclysm

Tim Drake Year Three (15): Road to NML, NML, New Gotham, Officer Down, Murder/Fugitive, Hush

Tim Drake Year Four (16): War Drums, War Games, Identity Crisis, Under the Hood, Infinite Crisis

All of those events could reasonably fit within the span of four years, for the most part. The only year that seems a little cramped to me is Year Three. Even ignoring the fact that NML supposedly took an entire calandar, it seems unlikely that NML and Hush took place within the same year.

[Jared]

I don't specfically remember "Princeton," but I do remember (vaguely) that Post-COIE, the continuity seems to be that Bruce never completed a bachelor's degree, although he did indeed take some college courses while he was thinking of pursuing a "conventional" law enforcement career. If you remember reading he took some courses at Princeton, I have no reason to disagree!

In fact, your FBI comment reminded me of something! I bought "Zero Hour" as it came out in 1994, and then I bought the "zero issues" of the regular Batman titles of that era. They served as a quick recap of Batman's origin story. One of them -- don't ask me which -- greatly surprised me by having one panel casually mention that young Bruce Wayne had actually joined the FBI and then gave it up after six weeks. Presumably because it was too much paperwork at a desk and too little action on the streets?

As far as I know, his very brief time with the FBI has never been mentioned again in any other issue of any title since 1994, but I don't think it's ever explicitly been erased from history, either! It was basically just a "throwaway comment" which everybody at DC seems to have promptly forgotten! (Don't you love it when that happens?)


Is "The Man Who Falls" the story you read? That does mention Bruce going to the F.B.I. academy for six weeks. It also refers to Bruce attending "many campuses", with no specific mention of Princeton. I may just be conflating the comics with Batman Begins.

In BTAS, Bruce and Harvey Dent are old college buddies, but I don't recall if a specific school was mentioned there.

If someone has Batman in Barcelona on hand, isn't Bruce's tour guide/hostess someone he went to school with? Do they say where they attended?

[DKR]

Is "The Man Who Falls" the story you read? That does mention Bruce going to the F.B.I. academy for six weeks. It also says refers to Bruce attending "many campuses", with no specific mention of Princeton. I may just be conflating the comics with Batman Begins.

In BTAS, Bruce and Harvey Dent are old college buddies, but I don't recall if a specific school was mentioned there.

If someone has Batman in Barcelona on hand, isn't Bruce's tour guide/hostess someone he went to school with? Do they say where they attended?

I think it was Hudson University.:confused:

[Lorendiac]

Is "The Man Who Falls" the story you read? That does mention Bruce going to the F.B.I. academy for six weeks. It also says refers to Bruce attending "many campuses", with no specific mention of Princeton. I may just be conflating the comics with Batman Begins.

I read "The Man Who Falls" a long time ago -- I think it's collected in a TPB in my collection -- but it is not what I was remembering. I haven't looked at in a long time. When I mentioned Bruce trying the FBI before quitting, I was definitely thinking of one of the "Zero Issues" of one of the regular Batman titles of the 1990s. Either "Batman #0" or "Detective Comics #0" or "Shadow of the Bat #0" or "Legends of the Dark Knight #0" -- at any rate, it was published in late 1994, right after "Zero Hour" ended.

But it's also been a long, long time since I bothered to reread any of those "Zero Issues," so I don't know which it was that mentioned the FBI. They were working together to bring readers up to date, I believe in a 4-part arc that was mostly flashbacks, on the details of Batman's "modern continuity" of the mid-1990s.

[tua34183]

this batman timeline has information regarding Bruce's age...

http://therealbatmanchronoproject.blogspot.com



check it out!

[Enjoypolydor]

I like my characters to age. It makes them more realistic. I would hate to pick up a batman comic in 40 years just to see batman the same age as he is now. As long as every 5 years his age increases by 1 year we're making progress.

[dupersuper]

I like my characters to age. It makes them more realistic. I would hate to pick up a batman comic in 40 years just to see batman the same age as he is now. As long as every 5 years his age increases by 1 year we're making progress.

Progress towards his death or another reboot...:frown: