Editing Robin (character) (section)

====Dick Grayson====
In [[Frank Miller (comics)|Frank Miller]]'s Dark Knight Universe, Grayson's origin differs in various ways to the official [[DC Universe|DC Comics Universe]]. As seen in the ''[[All Star Batman and Robin]]'' title, he is a twelve-year-old boy who performs in the circus with his two parents, as the Flying Graysons. [[Bruce Wayne]] had come to the show many times to watch him perform his stunts. One night, while Wayne watches the show with reporter [[Vicki Vale]], the Graysons perform an amazing feat. The audience begin to cheer and clap when suddenly a man arrives and shoots Grayson's parents in the head.

Batman takes out the gunman while some corrupt [[Gotham City Police Department|Gotham City Police]] officers take Dick Grayson into custody. They take him instead to a place outside [[Gotham City]], into a deserted stretch of forest where they torture or execute people, but Batman comes to the rescue. Batman takes Dick into the [[Batmobile]] and asks him to join him in his crusade against crime in Gotham City. Dick agrees to join the crusade. Upon arrival in the [[Batcave]], Batman intends for Dick to survive in the cave without any help. However [[Alfred Pennyworth]] takes pity on Dick and gives him a meal and a decent place to sleep. Batman is displeased, as he wants Dick to go through the same things he did, whether Dick likes it or not.

[[File:Dick Grayson as the Joker.jpg|thumb|In order to taunt Batman emotionally, Grayson takes on the appearance of a more grotesque and gruesome-looking "Joker" until their final confrontation in ''The Dark Knight Strikes Again''. Art by [[Frank Miller]]]]

Later, Batman brings in the killer of Dick's parents, a man called Jocko-boy Vanzetti. Batman tells him that even though Vanzetti killed his parents, someone else hired him to do so. Batman gives Grayson, who at the time had an axe, the choice of whether to kill Jocko-boy or not. Grayson cuts the tape over Vanzetti's mouth and asks him who hired him to kill his parents. The answer, much to Batman's disgust, is the Joker. Batman orders Grayson to make himself a costume. He does so using Robin Hood as an inspiration. He becomes an archer and wears a cape with a hood thus calling himself "Hood". Batman, upon seeing this, pulls his hood down, telling him that anyone could do simply that. Batman tells him to lose the hood and calls him Robin. With his new alter-ego confirmed, he accompanies Batman to confront Green Lantern, as Batman and Green Lantern talk in one of Batman's safe houses which Robin had painted yellow in order to keep Hal Jordan from using his power ring. After a lengthy discussion in which Jordan loses his composure and strikes Batman, Jordan accuses Batman of kidnapping Grayson and dressing him up as his sidekick. Batman tells Jordan that Robin is not Grayson, but in fact a boy he met six years ago on a trip to [[Istanbul]]. He eventually retracts the lie and merely assures Jordan that Grayson is not Robin. Robin then reveals he took Jordan's power ring and after a short fight, Robin accidentally hits Jordan in the throat, cutting his air supply. Batman then hits Grayson to make him 'stay down', unmasks and performs a [[tracheotomy]] to save Jordan's life. After this, Batman reflects on the event, saying that he did not do a very good job of teaching Robin and then takes Robin to his parents' grave to grieve, claiming that is where it started. Dick cries and punches the headstone, after which Batman consoles his grieving and mournful young ward.

Sometime later, Batman fires Grayson for proving unsatisfactory, which strengthens the rift between the two, and they eventually part ways. In ''The Dark Knight Returns'', Grayson is absent but mentioned several times. First, Commissioner Gordon asks Bruce if he has spoken with him recently, and Bruce coldly says he has not. Later, when Batman's new Robin, [[Carrie Kelley]], rescues Batman and asks about his tank-like vehicle, Batman responds that "Dick called it the Batmobile", and later when Batman suffers a diabetic stroke, he desperately calls out Grayson's name. He is also shown talking to Grayson in his mind, such as when he calls the Mutant leader a "brand of evil we had never dreamed of." This seems to imply a sense of fatherly love otherwise not shown, or that Batman simply missed Grayson's company.

In ''The Dark Knight Strikes Again'', Grayson re-appears as a genetically altered supervillain. Sometime after his dismissal, he apparently joined forces with senior villains such as Luthor, and underwent extensive gene manipulation to gain a healing factor and [[shapeshifting]] powers, but at the cost of his sanity. At the behest of the government, Grayson begins a maniacal crusade to hunt down and kill as many superheroes as possible, but in order to conceal his identity and partly due to a twisted revenge scheme on Batman, Grayson takes on the appearance of the [[Joker (character)|Joker]], who killed himself in ''The Dark Knight Returns''.

After maiming and killing a number of heroes, such as [[Guardian (DC Comics)|Guardian]], the [[Creeper (DC Comics)|Creeper]] and the [[Martian Manhunter]], he seeks out [[Carrie Kelley]], Batman's new partner, a.k.a. Catgirl, intending to kill her in order to exact his final revenge on Batman. Grayson confronts Carrie and Green Arrow in the sewers and engages them in battle. Carrie strikes him with thermite, acid and all sorts of chemicals that cause Grayson to explode, apparently killing him, but [[Saturn Girl]] later has a vision of a second encounter between Carrie and Grayson and reveals to Carrie that Grayson (though his identity is not yet revealed at this point) is still alive. Grayson eventually ambushes Carrie in the Batcave and proceeds to beat her brutally, lacerating her lips and breaking her bones one by one. Batman arrives and recognises Grayson when he activates the Batcave's self-destruct and Grayson attempts to shut it down with his old abort code, prompting him to revert to his original form and costume. As Elongated Man takes Carrie to safety, Batman and Grayson contemptuously go over their bleak history together, with Grayson even admitting that despite his harsh treatment, he loved Batman like a father. The two eventually fight, but Grayson remains unharmed by everything Batman throws at him: when Batman beheads him with a Thanagarian axe, Grayson effortlessly catches his head and places it back on his neck. Eventually, Batman hurls himself and Grayson into a pit of lava beneath the Batcave; Grayson falls into the lava and is totally disintegrated, thereby leaving nothing left of Grayson for him to grow back, while Batman is rescued by Superman. As Grayson's remains disappear, Batman acknowledges his ward's demise with a sad "''So long, Boy Wonder''".