The Bat-family is without a doubt one of the largest groups of vigilantes in comic books, but the fact all of their secret identities are so closely linked together is more of a liability than anything else, and the one who perfectly understands it is Tim Drake, Robin.
One of the most important parts of being a superhero is having a secret identity. There are plenty of supervillains that would love nothing more than to hurt a hero through their loved ones, and Barry Allen and Superman know that all too well. However, keeping a secret gets exponentially harder the more people are aware of it, which is one of the biggest problems with the Bat-family, which is made up of, at the very least, eight people. If any of their identities leaked, it’d be extremely easy to piece together who each member is from that. After all, if Robin is leaked to be the son of Bruce Wayne, it would not be hard to figure out who hides under Batman’s mask.
Robin Chooses Protecting His Identity Over Stopping Crime
Tim Drake pointed this out himself way back in Robin #39 by Chuck Dixon, Staz Johnson, Adrienne Roy, and Bob Smith. While trying to stop a robbery, Robin is captured on camera by a news crew. Having to pick between chasing the criminals or destroying the camera, Robin surprisingly chooses the latter. He reasons that having his face recorded, even with his mask, could put his secret identity at risk, and if people figured out Tim Drake was Robin, it wouldn’t be hard to piece together that Bruce Wayne is Batman. This is one of the problems with having such a tightly-knit group of superheroes that fight crime together.
The Batfamily has typically gotten extremely lucky with their identities not leaking, but this isn’t always the case. Way back in Forever Evil by Geoff Johns, David Finch, and Sonia Oback, readers saw Nightwing’s identity leaked to the entire world. The only reason this didn’t become a massive problem for the Bat-family was that, at the time, the Earth was under the control of an evil version of the Justice League. While people had a little bit more on their minds than Dick Grayson being Nightwing, this still required Dick to give up his role as for a while and even fake his death until Nightwing was able to regain his secret identity. If the identity of any member of the Bat-family was ever revealed, it would not be hard to piece together the rest of the puzzle, especially since Batman’s villains are some of the smartest criminals around.
Tim Drake Is Aware Of The Bat-Family’s Biggest Weakness
Thankfully, despite several villains knowing who Batman is, no one has really been able to leak the secret identities of the Bat-family in a way that has had any real lasting impact. Still, with the fact Jason Todd is currently in police custody, it could be possible that the Bat-family will have to deal with this terrible scenario sooner or later. Showing that he prioritizes his secret identity over stopping criminals, Tim Drake’s Robin proved that he is aware of the Bat-family‘s biggest weakness.
