8 Times Robin Outsmarted Batman
Those times that the Boy Wonder was able to one-up the Caped Crusader.
Barely a year after Batman was created in 1939, Detective Comics #38 saw Robin arrive to work alongside the Caped Crusader.
For so long, wherever there has been a Batman, there has been a Robin at his side. Much like there have been several people to take on the moniker of the Batman, of course, there have also been several different incarnations of Robin over the decades since the character's April 1940 debut.
In the standard narrative of DC Comics' accepted canon, Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, and Damian Wayne have all at one point or another been Robin, while alternative worlds and different timelines have seen a slew of others take on that particular mantle.
Some Robins have been great, some Robins have been less than great - and some Robins have managed to prove themselves as being just as smart, if not smarter, than the World's Greatest Detective.
Taking a look through the various people to have taken on the Robin name throughout the history of DC Comics, then, here are eight examples of times when Batman has been outright outsmarted by his supposed sidekick.
8. Tim Drake Works Out Batman's Identity - A Lonely Place Of Dying
After the death of the second Robin, Jason Todd, a broken Batman was adamant that he'd be working alone from that moment on. No longer would Bruce Wayne put children in danger, and he was even reluctant to work with Alfred at times.
Of course, Batman has since gone on to have several further Robins over the subsequent decades since Jason's death, and one of the main reasons for this is down to the sheer smarts of Tim Drake.
Tim would become the third person to take on the Robin moniker, but it took the youngster outsmarting the Caped Crusader to fully cement himself in that role.
By all accounts, a 9-year-old Tim had already worked out that Batman was Bruce Wayne and Robin was Dick Grayson. It was only following Jason's death, however, that Drake reached out to assist a clearly troubled World's Greatest Detective.
Seeing that Batman had become reckless and ruthless in a post-Jason world, the then-13-year-old Tim Drake managed to convince Batman to let him fight by his side as the new Robin. And the biggest reason for this was that Tim had proven his smarts time and time again, such as letting Bruce know how he'd established who was the man behind the cowl, before then making his case for Batman always needing a Robin.