Marvel Studios just wrapped up its latest (and arguably its greatest) streaming series on Disney+. Like many Phase Four narratives, Hawkeye revolved around one of the core six Avengers passing on their mantle to a new superhero. In this case, Clint Barton passed the torch to an enthusiastic young archer named Kate Bishop. Clint and Kate’s dynamic as a grizzled vigilante superhero and his eager young protégé is similar to Batman and Robin.
The show’s conflict of Clint fearing for Kate’s life but ultimately taking her under his wing would be a great story to introduce a version of Robin into the DC Extended Universe. The DCEU receives plenty of flak for borrowing liberally from Marvel. On top of borrowing the notion of a shared superhero-infested cinematic universe, DC has borrowed Marvel’s signature quips, its use of MacGuffins, and its multiverse reintroducing previous on-screen incarnations of beloved heroes. But Hawkeye gives DC the perfect template for a Robin storyline.
One of the DCEU’s strengths has been taking characters who are generally considered to be a laughingstock, like Aquaman, and giving them the big-screen treatment they deserve. Much like the pre-DCEU Aquaman, Robin is a hugely underrated character. Warner Bros. has avoided using him since the disastrous release of 1997’s Batman & Robin. The Dark Knight Rises barely hinted at his existence. At his best, Robin is a great foil for Batman. The Caped Crusader works spectacularly as a lone wolf, but he’s been a lone wolf for the past few movies. Giving him a young ward could be an interesting way to shake up the franchise.
The DCEU Needs A Robin
The DCEU is introducing a multiverse, much like Marvel, and Matt Reeves’ The Batman will take place on an entirely different version of Earth. It doesn’t make much sense to introduce a Robin for either Ben Affleck or Michael Keaton’s returning Batmen. Affleck’s Robin was insinuated to have been murdered by Jared Leto’s Joker and Keaton’s Batman is technically the same one that adopted Chris O’Donnell’s Boy Wonder in the Joel Schumacher movies (even though Keaton never shared the screen with him). Plus, Ezra Miller’s Flash will presumably fill the teenage protégé role when they return to the screen in his solo movie.
The most logical way for the DCEU to introduce Robin is to wait for Robert Pattinson’s new Batman to settle into his role as Gotham’s masked protector. The Batman will follow a sort of “Year Two” storyline with a naive, inexperienced Dark Knight who’s still getting used to the superhero lifestyle. By his third or fourth movie, when he’s a few years into his crimefighting career and he’s got some mileage, he can adopt a young Dick Grayson and begin training him as a caped sidekick.
Hawkeye Nailed Clint And Kate’s Mentor-Mentee Dynamic
As a “buddy cop” type series revolving around the bickering of a mismatched pair, Hawkeye has the same setup as most of the MCU’s Disney+ shows. But it’s by far Marvel’s most effective take on that formula to date. Sam and Bucky weren’t particularly mismatched in The Falcon and the Winter Soldier, while Loki’s Loki and Mobius had the one-note dynamic of a god with delusions of grandeur and a stuffed-shirt bureaucrat deflating his ego.
Clint and Kate were the first duo whose similarities and differences were really explored. Kate idolizes Clint and desperately wants to follow in his footsteps, but Clint sees himself as a villain following his dark days as the Ronin. The mentor sees the dark side of being a superhero; the mentee is blinded by the glitz, glamor, and glory.
Clint has experienced the best and worst of being a superhero. He watched his best friend plummet to her death to save the universe. When Kate falls off a rooftop and a wire catches her at the last second, Clint looks over the edge, and in a haunting moment of silence amid the chaos of the fight, he’s reminded of Nat’s death. It makes the danger that Kate is in all too real for Clint, so he cuts her loose and insists that she go home and leave him to finish the mission alone. He eventually learns to trust her abilities as an Avenger-in-training and accepts her as his partner ahead of the spectacular, action-packed finale.
This basic arc would make a compelling conflict for a Batman and Robin movie. Christopher Nolan and Christian Bale already nailed the lone-wolf Batman in The Dark Knight trilogy. Pattinson and Reeves need to do something entirely different with their reboot. Contrasting the new Bruce Wayne with a DCEU version of Dick Grayson could be a great way to differentiate this take on the lore – and Hawkeye already laid the foundations for how to make it work.