Over Bruce Wayne’s long and arduous career as Batman, the dark knight has had to call in the help of underaged sidekicks time and time again. From the original Robin, Dick Grayson, to his actual son Damian Wayne, Bruce seemingly can’t stop himself from initiating young men into the family of The Bat.
While Dick Grayson may have been the first young man to take on the mantle of Robin, after a falling out with Batman, the mischievous Jason Todd would find his into the mask. But which of these two young men made a better Robin? And, in turn, which of them would grow into the greater hero?
10 Finding His Own Path - Jason
Though Dick will always be the original Robin, as far as Jason is concerned, he’s always been a little too much of a boy scout. Dick, unlike many members of the Bat-family, has been able to move past the traumas of his past and managed to come out relatively unscathed.
In comparison, Jason has taken his traumas and transmuted them into tools that helped him to forge his own path outside of Batman and the rest of the Bat-family. While Dick steadfastly adheres to the lessons that Batman had instilled in him from a young age, Jason has stepped outside of those same lessons in order to become something more than Batman could have possibly created.
9 Independent Of Batman While Respecting His Lessons - Dick
While Jason has managed to step outside of the lessons that Batman had taught him before his untimely death and subsequent resurrection, Dick managed to step outside of Batman in his own way. After their falling out, Dick didn’t know what he would do, but he knew that he would continue to fight crime, only this time, he would do it one his own terms, someplace far away from the overbearing bat.
As Nightwing, Dick was able to build a name for himself, not as the sidekick of The Batman, but as a fully-fledged hero. Dick may have left Batman behind, but the lessons he taught Dick and his golden rule of no killing, would stick with Dick wherever he went.
8 Lasting Results - Jason
Batman and his first protege, Dick Grayson, have always been against taking the lives of those who they would come up against in battle. And while Jason was taught the same lessons that Dick was taught at a young age, after his death and subsequent resurrection, Jason had a very different outlook on what it means to stop a criminal.
After his resurrection, Jason began to understand that certain people just shouldn’t be allowed to live after the crimes that they’ve committed. How many people would have been spared had Batman had the followthrough to just end those that had spent their time devastating Gotham and its citizens?
7 Leadership Skills - Dick
While Jason has more recently become the leader of his own team of outlaws, that in no way makes him even close to the leader that Dick is. Not only has Dick been trained by Batman from a very young age, but even more than that, the original Robin was both a founding member and the leader of the original incarnation of the Teen Titans.
Dick has been working on his leadership skills for a very long time, being capable of controlling and utilizing a group of teenaged superheroes who all think they’re capable of fighting without their mentors is a feat in and of itself.
6 One-Upping The Bat & Nightwing - Jason
Though Batman and Nightwing are two of the most capable heroes, not only in Gotham but in the world at large, Jason was still able to fight both of them simultaneously and still come out on top.
A feat that very few people heroes, villains or otherwise can claim to have done. Jason is so incredibly skilled in different forms of combat (more on that later) that he has been able to one-up his mentor and even take on his first protege.
5 Detective Skills - Dick
For the proteges of Batman, becoming a master detective is more or less a prerequisite. While all of Batman’s proteges are master detectives in their own right, there are perhaps none more competent a detective than Dick (with the exception of Tim Drake).
Among Dick’s many outstanding feats as a detective are solving riddles from the Riddler fast than Batman himself, solving cold cases that had been shut for over fourteen years and even solving four cases in the FBI’s “America’s most wanted” all in a single morning. Jason may be a talented detective, but he’s not “solve four of America’s most wanted cases before breakfast” talented.
4 Combat Skills - Jason
In the world of DC Comics, Jason Todd ranks right up there with the best martial artists in this, or any, universe. Much like Batman, Jason spent years traveling the globe studying every form of martial arts that he could get his hands on.
Among his teachers are Ra’s al Ghul and the League of Assassins, Lady Shiva, Bronze Tiger, and All Caste, all of whom regard him as the most talented pupil to have ever studied under their tutelage.
3 Didn’t Let Joker Murder Him - Dick
While it may seem a bit harsh, the fact that Dick never let himself be captured and murdered by Batman’s greatest foe speaks volumes in and of itself. It’s not so much that Jason got captured and was murdered, but the fact that he was reckless enough to share his secret identity which led to his capture.
Jason's recklessness on the job is a theme that was revisited time and time again and yet, it wasn’t until his death and subsequent resurrection that Jason finally took those lessons into consideration.
2 More Diverse Training - Jason
As previously mentioned, after his resurrection Jason began taking his training much more seriously. He began to travel the globe in order to study martial arts with every master that he could find. Having already been trained by Batman, Jason was already very proficient.
However, after traveling the globe, he became a martial artist capable of taking on Batman and Nightwing simultaneously. Beyond that is the fact that Jason wasn’t satisfied learning just martial arts, he wanted, needed, to learn how to take down an enemy permanently. And for that, he turned to some of the most proficient killers in the world. Jason would eventually become so proficient that he would even rival Deadshot in terms of accuracy, rarely missing a target.
1 No Blood On His Hands - Dick
Perhaps the thing that makes Dick the greatest of all of Batman’s proteges is the fact that he’s never allowed himself to succumb to the pressures of the job or break the rules that Bruce had established.
While the rest of Batman’s proteges have faltered at one point or another, especially Jason who to this day continues to take care of villains in a more permanent manner, Dick has always been above reproach. Or as Jason might put it, he’s always been too much of a boy scout.