Bat Family Ages?

[Hartzilla2007]

What's interesting to me is how nicely the DC Animated Universe avoids this problem. I've found that it holds up very well if you assume each series (except the ones set in the future, of course) takes place in roughly the years it aired. My conjectural DCAU chronology has Bruce Wayne born in 1962, becoming Batman in 1984 at age 22. Dick Grayson is born in 1974 or '75 ("Robin's Reckoning" is ambiguous about whether he's 9 or 10 in his flashbacks, which are early in Batman's career). B:TAS begins around 9 years later, in 1993 (at least the Robin episodes thereof, since FOX insisted Robin be 18), so Bruce is 31 and up. He's around 37 by the time of TNBA, 39 by the start of Justice League, 43 by the end of JLU. It's a reach to assume he could still be physically capable at 43 after two decades of extremely strenuous activity; realistically he'd have burned out in his early 30s. But he's supposed to be the ultimate physical specimen and all, and some pro athletes (like Jimmy Connors) have managed to keep competing professionally into their early 40s. So I think it's within acceptable limits.

Actually, if you take 'Epilogue' into consideration it lines up even better as Waller says at some point, not long after JLU, she notices Bruce start to slow down with age before retiring after about another 20-30 years. And only then because he has a heart attack right in the middle of a fight.

Actually I think he retired because the only way he got out of the fight he had a heart attack in was to point a gun at the guys he was fighting.

 

[Admiral_Young]

I was referring to that early story in 'tec as what Zee was talking about when she was having her heart to heart with Selina in "Heart of Hush". Zee tells Selina that if she feels threatened by her not to be because Zee brought forth the question to Bruce and he turned it down...a reference to the story that Allyn Gibson brought up. Zatanna also says to Selina that if she has something to say to him to do so before it's too late, to which Selina asks if that would change anything.

What I meant to say was that I'd like to see a future hook up between Zee and Bruce and was using that scene from "Heart of Hush" as an example that the two of them have or had feelings in the past for one another. Once again I possibly haven't made myself clear and apologize if there was confusion lol.

 

[Christopher]

As for the dates themselves, they're rather meaningless since even if Bruce did become Batman in '84, it wasn't "our" '84. It was and '84 that look like the 30's or 40's, full of art-deco, fedoras and police zeppelins.

Well, no fictional setting is really "ours," but it's convenient to make use of the date references. Also, Static Shock, which was folded into the DCAU in its second season, had pretty strong ties to contemporary reality, such as guest appearances by real celebrities like Shaquille O'Neal, and there was an episode aired in 2001 where Virgil used the phrase "That's Y2K" to mean "That's so last year." So that provides a chronological anchor point corresponding to the broadcast date, and the rest of the dates derive from that reasonably well if you equate the other series' time frames with their broadcast dates as well.

I've never been clear on this (and I suppose it depends on which origin you read) but wasn't there a time dilation factor involved in his transit from Krypton to Earth?

Not in the DCAU; Kal-El's ship used hyperdrive to jump to Earth. John Byrne's Man of Steel origin also mentions hyperdrive. Birthright is ambiguous; the ship takes a long time to get to Earth, almost exhausting its life support in the process, but it isn't specified how long. Later, Lois says the images Luthor has picked up from Krypton are thousands of years old, but I can't tell in a cursory review whether she's referring to images contemporaneous with Jor-El's life or something from much earlier in Krypton's history.

As for the Silver Age comics, a 1959 Jimmy Olsen story puts Kal-El's infancy "more than 20 years into the past," suggesting no time dilation.

Superman: The Movie implies time dilation, but is self-contradictory. When Jor-El first speaks to Clark in the Fortress, he says he's been dead for thousands of years, which would require severe time dilation along the journey, but later on, Lex says that Krypton blew up in the 1940s, and in a restored scene in the expanded edition, Jor-El says that if the Kryptonians' pride hadn't destroyed them, he could be holding his son in his arms that very moment -- which is inconsistent with his earlier statement unless Kryptonians live for millennia.

The various R.I.P. tie-ins aren't entirely consistent with one another. "Heart of Hush" officially takes place immediately prior to "R.I.P.," but making sense of Bruce's love for Selina with his relationship with Jezebel is difficult.

I read through some of R.I.P. when I came upon it in a bookstore, and what surprised me about the character named "Jezebel Jet" is that she doesn't have jet-black hair. I mean, if you're going to give her a corny name like that -- a name that makes "Silver St. Cloud" seem subtle by comparison -- you might as well go all the way and have it be coincidentally appropriate for her hair color.

 

[Admiral_Young]

^ I should think that given the revelation regarding Jezebel's character there was a reason she wasn't given black hair.

Grant Morrison has a more realistic take on the ages of comic book characters...this is taken from his panel from Comic Con.

The first fan asks "how old" Bruce Wayne and Tim Drake are. Morrison: "It doesn't matter. You have to understand: these people aren't real. They don't live in the real world." Friday July 23, 2010 12:35
12:37

"There's no science, it's the science of anything can happen in fiction," Morrison continued. "We've already got the real world. Why would you want fiction to be like the real world? In fiction, you can do anything." Friday July 23, 2010 12:37

12:37

"You can't make it realistic, because it's not," Morrison said. "Batman is 75 years old, and Robin is 74 years old. But they'll never grow old, because they're different from us."

 

[Christopher]

^ I should think that given the revelation regarding Jezebel's character there was a reason she wasn't given black hair.

I guess I didn't read that far. I couldn't get past the bit about "the psychotic Batman who's nonetheless so crazy prepared that he created a whole backup personality in case he even went insane, and in his insanity he's hallucinating his 1950s comic-book adventures." Batman actually being insane is just not something that appeals to me.

But the point is, if they weren't going to give her black hair, why name her "Jet" at all? If you're going to give her a ridiculously comic-booky name, why not something like "Cherry Cerise" or "Rose Rubicund?"

 

[Admiral_Young]

Have no clue with regards to the origin or usage of her name.. I had no problem with the name and it's a moot point really considering that Jet was a means to an end game. RIP is something that has confused fans and I'll admit that it's pretty damn confusing to understand but after reading it a few times since it's clear that this is just part of Morrison's overall plan that he started with "Batman and Son". I would suggest finish reading it myself. I love his crazy whacky stuff.