There are time I think something can’t get dumber and soon realize I’m underestimating the power of stupid. Take for example Tim Drake. They made him Red Robin as an homage to Kingdom Come, then gave him that dumb bird cape in the New 52, and now they’re giving him a new hero name. Yes, Tim Drake will now be calling himself…Drake, at least if Newsarama is right. This is a new form of stupid. I guess Spoiler will now be going by Brown? Will Batman just call himself Wayne now? I here Kane is getting her own CW series. I know some people have an issue with “Red Robin” as it’s both too close to Robin and the name of a restaurant chain, and DC is still trying to play to the cool kids but seriously?
Oh it gets dumber. Why is he calling himself Drake, or least why did an alternate universe Tim call himself Drake? Not because of his last name. Because of the duck. Because a male duck is a dangerous bird. Granted we’re talking Earth-3, where evil not-Justice League comes from but really? Ducks are dangerous? To what, bread? Darkwing Duck maybe. Dick Gray…sorry, “Rick” Grayson (DiDio!) went by Nightwing, Spoiler went back to being Spoiler, and Jason took over the Red Hood costume to pay back the Joker. There have been other bird-named additions to the team (one of whom was killed off) but there were also bat-named ones and ones with connection to neither. (Knight and Squire come to mind.) So even the reason Tim turned his last name into his superhero name is stupid. Who thought all this was a good idea?
Brian Michael Bendis? I should have known. Even people in the comments of that article were coming up with better names! Redwing (the name of his Robinmobile in the pre-52) is probably my favorite. Matches the history, ties in to Nightwing. That takes thought and thought is apparently not Bendis’ strong suit sometimes.
