I agree with much that has been written here. However, I also disagree with much that has been written. The latest one, and for me the bit that shows there may be a problem with how some people are relating to this is - from Keith Thomas - How does a 10 year old not get his ass kicked by adults?

Keith - how old do you think the original Robin was when he first appeared?

There has been some truly awful art through this thread. To be honest, I don't think the picture of Batman and Robin jumping out of the Batmobile is part of that. There has been some truly awful art throughout comics hoistory. There has been some truly incomprehensible stories published throughout comics history (When viewed from an adult perspective - I present Spider-Man 1 for that - he actually manages to web onto a returning spacecraft. Can we please just stop and think that one through for a second? Exactly, to a 10 year old, this plot is not a problem).

On the whole, I would say most of these posts have been anti-Quitely and I have posted some of those - his Jean that looks like an off model Kitty being one, BUT, let's not just bash every piece of art he's drawn just because it was him. The Batman and Robin picture does not, in my opinion, rate as porely as the X-Men cover previously mentioned.

When we were younger there was some truly amazing art in comics but there was also some truly rubbish art as well, but we didn't really have a problem because we were 10. We forget this at times. Ditto for story.

How does a 10 year old really survive in these kinds of situations is one of the bigger bags.

I never have been much of a Robin fan, if at all. I had an older brother, and whenever we played out the roles, I always got stuck with Robin -- and that's what it felt like, the losing end of the deal. And when I got older, I still didn't care for the character, or for any of the plethora of young sidekicks. To me, as a kid, they all struck a wrong chord because I wanted to identify with the adult hero and not ever with the kid, lad, boy, whatever, not ever with the replicative juvenile.

That said, it did not occur to me, especially as a very young reader, to question the given of Robin's prowess. When I was 6-8 years old, I accepted fully how Robin's origin related to what he could do as a support to Batman. It was, after all, in comicbook form, which forgives so much more than a real-life portrayal could pull off. The old Batman & Robin stories still work, in my opinion, even if by the time I was 10 years old myself I completely preferred Batman solo.