WARNING: This article contains spoilers for Batman/Catwoman #7, on sale now from DC Comics.

As the first of many Robins, Dick Grayson knows almost everything there is to know about being Batman's partner against crime. But there are still a couple of things even he doesn't know about the heroic mantle. Catwoman just teased the dark secret meaning behind Robin's iconic colorful costume, a secret that Batman never told any of his sidekicks and took to his grave.

Batman/Catwoman #7 (by Tom King, Liam Sharp, Clayton Cowles, and Darran Robinson) takes place right after an aging Catwoman admitted to her daughter that she killed the Joker. Bound by the ethics her father instilled in her, Helena Wayne immediately turned over all the evidence to Gotham's newest police commissioner Dick Grayson. When he went to Wayne Manor, Catwoman surrendered herself into his custody voluntarily. As the duo made their way to the squad car, she told Commissioner Grayson about the time she asked Bruce why he had Robin wear such an colorful costume when Batman's costume was mostly black. Dick responded with an answer he's told before, that if he wore a black costume he would rely on it to hide in the shadows instead of honing his stealth skills.

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Dick Grayson Explanation Robin Costume Catwoman

But Catwoman revealed that the real reason was far more tragic. As she was getting in the car, she said that Batman had told her the brightly-colored costume was meant to make the Joker laugh. Batman thought that if Joker saw him as nothing, as a "silly little joke" he might not kill him.

Since the original Robin's debut in Detective Comics #38 (by Bill Finger, Bob Kane and Jerry Robinson), every character who's taken up the mantle of Robin has used a similarly flamboyant costume. When telling Dick the real reason behind his costume's colors, she specifically mentions the yellow cape. While not all of the Robins used the same color scheme, they all had the yellow cape in common, implying that the same reason was in place for them as well. Tragically, Batman's plan to keep his partners safe didn't always work, however, as both Jason Todd and Damian Wayne were killed while wearing the Robin costume.

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Catwoman Robin Costume Explanation Dick Grayson

Batman's justification for the Robin costume's colors follows a similar line of thought to the yellow oval under the Bat symbol he occasionally sports, most noticeably in his Batman Inc. suit shortly before the "New 52" reboot. He's claimed multiple times that the yellow is meant to draw people's attention and their bullets towards his chest, which is significantly more armored than the rest of his costume.

The fact that even Robin's costume was meant to protect him from the Joker, shows how dangerous the Dark Knight's nemesis could be and how much Batman cared about his charges. However, every character who has taken up the mantle of Robin has eventually moved to using a costume with a more subdued color scheme. Perhaps the fact that Batman never disapproved of the new looks indicates that he felt they had developed their skills enough to be seen as more than a joke.

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