After a psychological experiment goes wrong, Batman begins experiencing terrifying hallucinations that put Robin’s life in danger. As the line between nightmare and reality blurs, Batman must confront his deepest fears before it’s too late. This adaptation of the classic 1963 comic serves as a prequel to Joel Schumacher’s Batman & Robin, exploring the origins of Batman’s overprotectiveness.

Written by Ben Wan, Based on Batman No. 156, Written by Bill Finger, with Art by Sheldon Moldoff and Charles Paris. 

Featuring music by Geoff le Geoff

Read by Tim Maxwell

In the leadup to recording our Superhero Stuff You Should Know podcast episode on the Wachowskis’ Batman Year One way back in 2023, Tim Maxwell and I discussed that we hadn’t done a Clooney Batman audio story yet. 

After having written for nearly every other live action Batman at that point, I decided to take a crack at it. Here was an opportunity to do some zany Silver Age stories in a different context.

Robin Dies At Dawn is a Silver Age classic that I first read in one of the Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told collection. I read it as a kid but then didn’t think much of it until it played a huge role in Grant Morrison’s run, right down to using the doctor from that story as the main villain. (More on that later)

Clooney’s Batman only got one movie, whose main journey in the film is his overprotectiveness of Robin, stemming from his fear of losing someone he cares about. Robin Dies at Dawn, then, seemed like a perfect way to play off of that fear since so much of it is built around Bruce’s being haunted by the idea of losing Robin.

In this interpretation, Robin Dies at Dawn takes place before the events of the movie and serves as one of the main reasons why Batman has become so stubbornly overprotective of him by the time the film starts, with Robin’s sole night out as its own catalyst for him wanting to branch out on his own.

The villains of the Gorilla Gang also seemed like a natural fit for the world of Batman & Robin since Poison Ivy infamously shows up at the party stripping out of a gorilla outfit.

The main addition to the Batman & Robin universe that was necessary to the story was Ace the Bat Hound! While we never saw a dog in Batman & Robin, there’s enough room to say that there could have been one in Wayne Manor since in Batman Forever, Alfred does have a line, “Perhaps the dogs are hungry,” when they attempt to coax Dick into staying at the Manor.

The final monologue about how it was the start of a “beautiful day” was also a callback to what Batman says when the team thaws out the city in the movie.

EXIT HURT, ENTER CRANE

Now onto the scientist character…when I originally wrote the Robin Dies at Dawn audio, I kept the scientist’s name as Dr. Simon Hurt. 

I didn’t plan to adapt the Grant Morrison arc into the Schumacher world, however. In fact, I prefer keeping the stories to what would’ve been around at the time of that incarnation of Batman. But since that was the now-canon name for the scientist, it made sense.

After I finished the original draft, Tim reached out to me much later with an idea to produce our own version of the unmade Batman 5 script, Batman Unchained by Mark Protosevich, which would have featured the Scarecrow, as played by Nicolas Cage. As I pitched my idea on what to do with Scarecrow, the thought occurred to me to plant the seeds for our Unchained within Robin Dies at Dawn and turn the scientist character into Dr. Jonathan Crane, instead of Simon Hurt.

When I re-examined the comic, it struck me how much of the doctor’s dialogue focused on Batman’s fears. Then there were the vague similarities between the doctor in Sheldon Moldoff’s art and Nicolas Cage himself!

If anything, it felt like the character would’ve better suited Jonathan Crane than a new character! Tim loved the idea and I rewrote Robin Dies at Dawn to replace Dr. Hurt with Crane, where I actually changed very little of the character’s dialogue from the original comic.

While Batman Unchained is still in the works as of this posting, it’s safe to say that the origins of our Scarecrow are planted in this story. We’re excited to present that when the time comes and for you to see how Robin Dies at Dawn plays a role.