Our first stop is probably the most obvious. Dick Grayson is a superb character, and has evolved over the years into one of the DC Universe's premier heroes as Nightwing, but there's no denying his Robin costume was just utterly ludicrous on pretty much every level. And it's a well documented type of ludicrous, as countless articles and internet pieces have pointed out the inherent silliness of the costume. Keep in mind that we are also huge fans of the various Robin characters over the years, so this isn't a "Robin sucks" article. This costume is very much a product of it's time. When the character was created and made his first appearance in April 1940, he was created mostly to function as a youngster that the readers of the day could relate to. The idea of giving him a colourful costume that acts as a counterpoint to Batman's darker attire also makes sense, we guess. Kids like colourful characters, right? And in those days comic books were in their infancy, and DC Comics would not have faced legions of jaded older fans saying "Dude, what's with the green booties?" But as the character evolved and comic book readers evolved with him, it became more and more obvious that the costume just didn't work any more. It's actually quite surprising to us that Dick didn't drop the Robin costume and become Nightwing until the mid-eighties, which means he had to prance around in garish red, yellow and green, wearing flesh coloured tights (presumably), for over forty years. Not cool!
