Did Batman kill Robin in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?

Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League has been receiving some criticism for the way that it has been handling some of DC’s most beloved characters, especially Batman from the Arkham game series. 

As well as the Justice League, some other heroes from the Arkham games are mentioned in passing, including Batman’s trusty sidekick Robin aka Tim Drake. We are going to be diving into a certain scene from the game to find out more about Robin’s fate, so be aware that there will be spoilers from here on out. 

Did Batman kill Robin in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?

The answer to this isn’t as set in stone as you might think, but it is safe to assume that Batman most likely did kill Robin in Kill the Justice League. 

When the Suicide Squad are tasked with hunting down Batman, they end up in the bat cave where they find a holographic recorded message from Batman intended for Tim Drake as well as his colleagues Dick Grayson (Nightwing) and Barbara Gordon (Oracle). 

The message is a fail-safe created by Bruce Wayne in the event his Batman persona is compromised and the Justice League needs to be nullified. The Suicide Squad are the ones who use the information to take down the Justice League, but the message was meant for Bruce’s Bat family, so it feels personal, especially for fans of the Arkham games (despite the jokes the squad throws out). Things get a little emotional when Bruce’s hologram says his goodbyes to Robin, Nightwing, and Oracle, refers to Robin as “son” and states that Robin is the one who made him see the importance of working together as a team and a family. 

Things get dark quickly when the question of where Tim Drake is and whether he even saw this message gets answered. King Shark notices a smell of blood in the air and when he follows the scent, he finds Robin’s bloodied mask. He simply says, “Robin was here. I do not think he won.” Harley responds with “Bats got Robin? Talk about cuttin’ out the middle man.” 

All of this heavily implies that Batman does kill Robin while under the influence of Brainiac’s mind control, which is heart-wrenching when you realize just how much Robin and his other Bat family members meant to Bruce. 

If Robin is truly dead in this universe—the same one that the Arkham games are set in—it is also another example of Rocksteady’s odd choices when it comes to how they have handled some of the DC heroes and established Arkham characters in Kill the Justice League. 

Robin plays a significant role in the Arkham series, even saving Batman’s life from Ra’s al Ghul’s assassins in Arkham City. His role became more prominent in Arkham Knight, though he has always proven himself to be a valuable ally and friend to Batman in the series. To kill him off-screen —and at the hands of Bruce—seems unfair to this version of the character after years of development during the Arkham series. 

Could Robin still be alive in Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League?

While we see his eye mask and a smear of blood on the floor beneath it, as well as some scratches on the floor that suggest a struggle, that’s all we see of Robin. There is no body to be found, so it may well be that Robin was injured and managed to get away.

It seems unlikely that Robin would allow Brainiac to continue killing innocent people and brainwashing the heroes of Metropolis as he does in Kill the Justice League,  even if he was critically injured. It’s hard to believe that he is off licking his wounds somewhere rather than doing something about it. Surely he would return and find Bruce’s message or at least show up somewhere along the way to help out Harley Quinn, Deadshot, Captain Boomerang, and King Shark, even if it was in a minor way. His lack of involvement in any way suggests that he may well and truly be gone. 

We won’t know for sure whether Tim Drake’s Robin is definitely dead in the Arkham universe unless Rocksteady releases more information. This could come in the plethora of post-game content that Rocksteady has planned or via some kind of DLC. What we do know is that as of now, Batman is dead for sure and Robin is at least missing in action. 

With two of the Arkham-verse Bat family members taken out, and Nightwing and Oracle likely to either be dead or in some kind of peril, it’s safe to say that Rocksteady has well and truly decimated the legacy of the Arkham Bat family in one swift kick to the gut.