Read This: Batman and Robin have been mistaken for gay since the beginning
When Batman adopted a young ward named Dick Grayson and renamed him Robin back in 1940, it had a number of positive effects on his career. His comic-book sales doubled, his public image was softened considerably, and he finally had someone to talk to while he was solving all those complicated cases. But the change had another long-term effect on the franchise: For the next 76 years (and counting), Batman and Robin would be mistaken as being gay. Glen Weldon, the author of The Caped Crusade: Batman And The Rise Of Nerd Culture, sorts through all of this supposed Bat-subtext in a piece for Slate called “A Brief History Of Dick.” Weldon makes it very clear at the outset that the Dark Knight and his faithful sidekick are heterosexual. Nearly every important artist and writer behind the character, from Bob Kane to Frank Miller, agrees on that. One major exception is writer Grant Morrison, who essentially “outed” Batman in a 2012 Playboy article. But the preponderance of evidence, Weldon says, suggests that Batman and Robin are “straight as uncooked spaghetti.”
