By contrast, Robin is Tony Stark, basically. Talented, exceptional, self-absorbed, arrogant, provocative, attention-seeking, addiction-prone. Only difference is he lacked any of Tony’s inner self-loathing until life gave him a good smack down.
A side note that may not be obvious: the same was true of Tony. Tony's inner turmoil is a given nowadays, but it was a pretty sharp change in the series back in -- good heavens, 1979. Tony was *much* more like early Robin before then -- maybe a *little* more complex after his origin story, but not terribly. But the story "Demon in a Bottle" was Tony's smackdown, as his alcoholism finally overtook him. Everything that's happened since has essentially derived from that story, which was the first decently serious portrayal of alcoholism in comics that I know of. My biggest single complaint about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they've never properly wrestled with this: in the comics, *everything* about Tony's personality is affected by his alcoholism, and he makes more sense in that light.
It's one of the problems of such a long-running story: I suspect that most folks who came to the character after, say, 1985 have a very different take on him than I do, having started right around that storyline when I was a kid...
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Date: 2017-05-23 06:59 pm (UTC)A side note that may not be obvious: the same was true of Tony. Tony's inner turmoil is a given nowadays, but it was a pretty sharp change in the series back in -- good heavens, 1979. Tony was *much* more like early Robin before then -- maybe a *little* more complex after his origin story, but not terribly. But the story "Demon in a Bottle" was Tony's smackdown, as his alcoholism finally overtook him. Everything that's happened since has essentially derived from that story, which was the first decently serious portrayal of alcoholism in comics that I know of. My biggest single complaint about the Marvel Cinematic Universe is that they've never properly wrestled with this: in the comics, *everything* about Tony's personality is affected by his alcoholism, and he makes more sense in that light.
It's one of the problems of such a long-running story: I suspect that most folks who came to the character after, say, 1985 have a very different take on him than I do, having started right around that storyline when I was a kid...