“So the bird boy’s all grown up! Left the nest. New plumage and everything. Nightwing now, is it? Well, you’ve stuck your beak in the wrong place once too many times! Prepare to get your feathers plucked!”
“Okay. I’m going to kick your ass in a minute, but I want to clear something up first. I appreciate the bird jokes, and I know I have a nighthawk symbol on my chest now, but Robin was never meant to be a bird thing. I know! It sounds crazy! Over the years I just kind of rolled with it, but my theme was supposed to be Robin Hood. You know those hot pants everyone likes to make fun of? In retrospect, they were a mistake, but my whole look with the tunic and the boots was based on medieval fashions. That’s why my costume had so much green in it! I thought I was cool in the 1940’s, before Green Arrow made Robin Hood his schtick. If I had intended for Robin to be a bird thing, I would have worn wings or a beak or something, not a Shakespearean-inspired leotard. Anyway, I just wanted to get that off my chest after seventy years. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk! I’m going to break your face now.”
WHAT
WHAT
WHAT
MY EYES
THEY’VE BEEN OPENED
AND THEY CAN’T BE CLOSED
“Alright, thanks for making that easy. Don’t bother trying to pick those cuffs. Do you mind if I wait here until the police arrive? It’s a slow night, and now that I have a captive audience… well. Where was I? Right. Historical costumery. I know I’m supposed to be ‘the nice Robin’, not ‘the nerdy Robin’, but my original costume has been the source of derision for three quarters of a century of publication history. I brought photos. ‘Oh, but Nightwing, your costume doesn’t have a utility belt! Where do you keep a photo album?!’ Heh. That’s my secret.
Aaaanyway. Let’s start with Jules Leotard, inventor of the flying trapeze, AND of the garment that still bears his name.
Looking good, Jules! That mustache is very 1867. Notice anything familiar about his costume? The gloves, the leotard, the bare legs, the boots, the belted waist…? Aerialists also often wore capes to make a dramatic entrance, only to shed them before performing. Not that this is relevant to my secret identity and backstory in any way or anything, of course.
Back in the day, Robin Hood was usually depicted wearing red and green. Here’s the cover illustration of a book published in 1900…
‘The Adventures of Robin Hood’ starring Errol Flynn came out in 1938. Batman was created the following year, and I came along in 1940! Robin Hood was hot shit at the time, so it was probably more obvious that ‘Robin’ was a shout out to the hero of legend rather than the songbird. Check out the cut of their tunics:
And speaking of red and green! Did you know they weren’t always associated so strongly with Christmas? Coca Cola’s advertising campaign that began in 1931 may be responsible for that. Back in Ye Olde Days, folks were rocking the ‘red and green layered short tunics’ and ‘hose-as-pants’ look long before I was. Check out this illustration from the 15th century:
And also these fashionable dudes wearing poulaines:
Now, if I were meant to be a bird-themed hero right off the bat – don’t groan, that was a good one – it would not have been subtle. Batman has ears and a picture of a bat on his suit. Catwoman’s first costume was just a dress with a damn hyperrealistic cat mask over her head! Yeah, of course I’ve got a picture, but don’t tell her I showed you.
And there you go! Bet you didn’t think you’d be getting a history lesson AND an asskicking tonight, did you?”
“Robin” doesn’t even mean “bird”. I have discoursed boringly on this before. In sum, “Robin” is just a nickname for “Robert.” It doesn’t have anything to do with birds, really – it just means “Bob.”
The bird in England was historically called the Redbreast. There was an Olden Days trend for calling animals by people names, especially to denote their gender – in England it was considered a cute and funny meme around the 1600s. The animal would get a “Christian” first name, and its species would be its last name: Tom Cat. Jack Ass.
Some of these have stuck and become the actual names of the birds: Jack Daw, Jenny Wren, Mag(gie) Pie, Robin Redbreast. These days, those are all legitimate species, but before the meme, they were called Daws and Pies and Redbreasts.
When English colonizers invaded North America, they looked at a completely unrelated red-chested bird and thought they’d call it Robin Redbreast. This was shortened to Robin.
And that was that.
Thus:
basically Robin Hood, Robin Goodfellow, Robin from Batman, and American/European robins are all just named after that one guy.
Robert.
What a legend
So, like, I don’t follow Batman at all but I guess a grown-up Robin might start to stuffily refer to himself as “It’s Robert. Actually.”
