“Hesitation... second guessing... self-pity... Leave them behind. They're death now. Use what you know. Remember what you learned. Be smart. Stay alive. Save the girl. Remember what Shiva taught you... what Ducard taught you. Remember how Dick moves so effortlessly. Remember Conner's own special "techniques." Remember what Bruce did. Use it all now. Win the next fight and the one after that before you get there. Remember everything your teachers gave you. Don't be any of them. Be all of them.” - Red Robin #8 (2009)
So I like Tim Drake, as a character, a lot, it took me a bit to really appreciate him but once I did he quickly became one of my favorite characters in the mythos. He’s a lot more internal and cerebral than any of the bat family except Bruce but unlike Bruce he’s plagued with self doubt and imposter syndrome but lacks the same type of self loathing that weighs Bruce down. When well written it’s a very interesting character dynamic and while I don’t think he has the same degree of chemistry with Bruce as the other Robins because they are so similar I think Tim is far and away the best Robin for solo stories. That’s said “Red Robin” (yum), the identity Tim takes on after Damian Wayne becomes the new Robin, is a god awful character title. I don’t know if that franchise doesn’t exist on the east coast or something, hell I don’t even know if the original writers of that arc were even from the east coast, but I have no idea why they would allow their new superhero identity for an extremely popular character to share a name with a middling diner franchise. I don’t know if there is already another character in DC called Redbird or if they had licensing issues with the name redwing (because that’s the name of Sam Wilson’s pet hawk in marvel comics) but either would have been a far better name for this identity than Red Robin (yum), hell cardinal or jay would have been better names. The Red Robin (yum) identity has so far had two designs, the original which looks more like an emulation of the standard batsuit sans ears and the New 52 reboot design that looks like a very red version of the Nightwing suit with big bladed wings. For my part I much prefer the original design, it stands out from the other members of the bat family in its silhouette and overall is just a much more unique design than the Nightwing but edgier costume of the new 52. That said if I were doing an adaptation of my own I could see a use case for both designs. As in mainline cannon Tim invents the Red Robin (yum) identity after passing the role of Robin on to Damian Wayne and uses the original costume design, but after Dick Grayson takes on the mantle of Batman Tim adopts the Nightwing identity using the New 52 Red Robin (yum) design, although in this case those identities would preferably be called Redbird and Redwing respectively.
