“You don’t need to worry about Bruce. As long as it serves a direct purpose, he can put with almost anything.”

“Does it serve a purpose, though? I mean, yeah he needs his secret identity to ‘protect his loved ones’ and all that—-but honestly, most of the people he’s close to, present company included, can take pretty good care of themselves.”

“Okay, picture this…Bruce wakes up one morning as says, ‘Forget it. I’m tired of the charade.’ By six, it’s all over the news: Gotham’s Dark Knight is Bruce Wayne. By six-twenty, the mayor has ordered Gotham Police Commissioner to arrest the vigilante know as Batman—and, by six-forty—-Jim is forced to come for me.

“Chances are they’re knocking on your Dad’s door, warrant ready, by four the next day. And let’s not even think about what happens to Alfred and Babs.”

“People know, though, right? I mean…bad guys like Bane.”

“Yeah, Bane. Ra’s Al Ghul. Shiva. Hugo Strange. Cain. Fortunately, Bane likes having the card to himself, Ra’s is oddly protective of the man he still thinks of as a potential heir—Shiva doesn’t care, Strange is dead and Cain has a different agenda.

“On those counts, all we can do is pray that none of them decide to drop a dime.”

[Gotham Knights #08]

Another great series of panels from this issue.

• Tim really is still very young, inquisitive and for all his intelligence is still quite naive, it’s nice to see a writer who doesn’t make Tim a miniature adult superhero.  He isn’t, and honestly speaking, despite his methods, Timmy is still far behind the level Dick was at the same age.

(But that is understandable, Dick had been Robin for nearly seven years at sixteen, Tim has only three years under his belt. In addition to being more suited as a detective rather than as a crime-fighter; Tim isn’t the natural Dick was as a fighter and he’s always had to push himself harder. That’s why I have a lot of love for him, Tim is often very hard on himself and as an outside observer you see that he really should be so hard on himself.)

• Dick is, without a doubt, the most natural, wise councilor and leader in the DC universe. He’s been there, done that, suffered through countless things, (as a typical Scorpio he’s thrown himself into the fire like a phoenix and come out anew.) And Dick, (with a manner he’s gained in skill from combining both Bruce’s wisdom and his own skilled abilities with people from his time as leader of the Titans,) is always the person his friends, teammates and young superheroes turn to for advice.

You see clearly how Tim always goes first to Dick for advice because he knows how lucky he is to have him as a ‘Older Brother.’ All the Robins do, even Jason, who is insanely jealous he can’t get Dick’s approval or attention, (look at the jealousy when he attacks Tim at Titans Tower and then goes searching for Dick…dressed as Nightwing!)

It’s always nice to see when authors address this instead of shoving Dick back to side-kick position in the Batman books.

Oh and:

“Okay, and he knew we were in this room because…?

” ‘cause he’s Batman…”