DC Pride: Tim Drake Special #1

The Elephant in the Room

Meghan Fitzmartin Writer

Belén Ortega Artist

Luis Guerrero Colors

Pat Brosseau Letters

Ortega & Guerrero Cover

Travis Moore & Tamra Bonvillain Variant Cover

Dave Wielgosz Editor

Our cover shows the newly bisexual Tim Drake standing next to his new boyfriend, Bernard. Behind him, are images of his best friends, Superboy, Batgirl (formerly Spoiler), Batman, Nightwing and our lovable Impulse. It’s not the most impressive image of Impulse I’ve ever seen, but I am glad he was included in this collage of people most important to Tim.

The variant cover is just a cuddly picture of Tim and Bernard, so I’ll skip that and head right into the issue. This comic book is divided into five stories — all by Fitzmartin and four by Ortega. But the stories are really more like chapters of one larger tale, primarily about Tim coming to terms with his sexuality. Bernard is kidnapped, but Robin easily saves him. And it’s all fairly nice and cute, but Bart doesn’t show up until the very end, so that’s where we’ll head.

Conner and Bart just so happen to be in Gotham City for whatever reason and have encountered a mysterious giant glowing elephant. So, they naturally call in their buddy Tim, who can only look on in bewilderment as Conner’s heat vision passes harmlessly through the beast. Superboy can’t even grab hold of the elephant, but the elephant can knock Impulse down and put a huge hole in the wall. Bizarrely, Robin tries using Zatanna’s backward-speaking magic, which has no effect. (Has Tim Drake EVER cast a magic spell?)

As our bumbling heroes chase the elephant out onto the streets, Superboy suggests that Robin should call in his ex-girlfriend, but Tim refuses, saying Stephanie Brown has been avoiding him lately. Conner says he’s heard just the opposite. Meanwhile, Bart is the only one actually doing anything, rescuing bystanders from a stampeding beast that Robin believes isn’t a ghost or magic.

Suddenly, our heroes are joined by Stephanie and Cassandra Cain (who both call themselves Batgirl now just to make things more confusing). Tim’s interaction with Stephanie is just as awkward as you could imagine, but Impulse luckily interrupts them with a couple of clues: an old telegram and a police officer’s badge. Cassandra suggests they split into two teams — one to follow the elephant and one to investigate the clues. And much to Robin’s dismay, everyone insists on pairing him with Stephanie.

The telegram contained an address that led Tim and Stephanie to an abandoned warehouse, where they find an odd silver disk. As soon as they touch the disk, the elephant rematerializes right in front of them. It doesn’t take too long for the others to catch up with them, and when they do, Robin finally has a plan. He has Cassandra distract the elephant, while Conner destroys the disk with his heat vision and Bart throws together an impromptu suit of armor to ram through the beast like a cannonball. Once the elephant is gone, a mysterious voice says, “Finally, I have found a worthy opponent.”

We never do find out who said that, as the story abruptly cuts to Tim and Stephanie finally having a heart-to-heart discussion and Tim introducing her to Bernard.

The last time Impulse appeared in comics, he was in the far future, hanging out with Gold Beetle without any explanation given as to how or why he was there. That was Flash #769, which came out more than a full year before this comic. Seriously, it took over a year before someone at DC dared touch Impulse again after Jeremy Adams unceremoniously banished poor old Bart. It wasn’t until Meghan Fitzmartin sat down to write one of the most important chapters in Tim Drake’s life that we got an opening for Bart’s return. And what was her solution? Simple. Just ignore Jeremy Adams’ story. Hey look, if he wasn’t going to bother with explaining how or why Bart ended up in the future, then she doesn’t need to provide any reasons for his sudden return to the present. Besides, DC gave up on caring about continuity years ago.

I was really happy that Bart was shown here as one of Tim’s best friends. However, he didn’t really do anything as a best friend. He did plenty as a hero — rescuing bystanders, finding clues and delivering the final blow on the monster — but not much beyond that. Granted, the last thing this issue needed was one more heart-to-heart conversation about why it’s OK for Tim to be bisexual. We got plenty of that here, thank you. But I do wish that the elephant was an elaborate prank played on Tim by Bart and Conner as a way to force Tim to finally talk to Stephanie. Instead, the elephant was created by an unseen, unknown villain that nobody seemed to care learning anything about.

As a whole, this was a nice, sweet issue, but maybe a little too nice. Every single person in Tim’s life showered him with unconditional support right from the get-go. And that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but it doesn’t always turn out that way in reality. Even in today’s world, many people have to choose between being open about their sexuality and losing many friends and family members or preserving those relationships by burying their true selves. I’m not advocating for more heartache and drama being thrown at Tim, but maybe having just a couple of people be uncomfortable by this would have made for a more interesting story. And I’m looking specifically at Stephanie. She was dumped by Tim for a boy, but was totally fine with it and instantly overjoyed to meet this boy. Again, that’s the way it’s supposed to be, but not every teenage girl is going to handle a situation like this with so much maturity and class. It would have been perfectly fine for her to be mad at Tim for a few issues.

Funnily enough, I actually found myself feeling jealous on Bart’s behalf. In his complex and sometimes contradictory history in the comics, Bart was always portrayed as heterosexual. He had a steady girlfriend in his solo Impulse series, had another during his brief spell as an adult (even had sex with her), plus various random crushes and flirtations. And yet, when I first heard that Tim Drake was bisexual, my first thought was that it should have been Bart. I guess the only reason I had for this were the strong hints — but no confirmations — given in the Young Justice animated series. Then again, maybe I was just jealous that Tim got a whole special comic book all to himself, while Bart can be completely forgotten for entire years at a time, only to be revived as a mere background character. In the end, gay, straight or whatever, I just want more Impulse stories.

Well, at least I have the CW Flash universe to give me some Impulse content. Next time, we’ll wrap up the Earth Prime miniseries.