Thought something like this would be useful and since I'm re-reading through the 160-300 Tim Drake issues I might as well write it up. This is not complete. I will add more to it later, as I go through the books. If you have any suggestions, questions or comments, post it ^.^

When you see a ">>>" it means that this set of events happens within the same space of time as an arc listed above it.

For those Stephanie Brown fans out there, bare in mind this is a Tim Drake guide, but Stephanie Brown more or less begins to co-star starting at around Robin #40. She is an important part of Tim's story and as such so is her story. Most if not all of Stephanie's important appearances can be found within this guide... and those that are likely not to be should be in the Stephanie as Robin issues in Batman and 'Tec, and her other appearances should be easily found by reading through Batgirl vol 1-3. I'm pretty sure the only other appearances she has are in Birds of Prey (maybe) and Batman, Inc. (maybe for like 2 issues)

There are some issues which are bad in my opinion, such as just about anything with the General, but the General plays an important role down the line so I suggest reading a few of those arcs even though I think they're not all that great.

When I mention a story arc by name it generally means I think you should read that entire story arc. I mention this because some stories have prologues, epilogues, and spin offs. Those should all be read in my opinion as part of the arc. This is important because not every arc has been collected completely, like No Man's Land. It roughly spans the entire year of 2000 in at least 6 series, Off the top of my head I can think of at least 9 series that was involved with the cross over. Some of these arcs have little to do with Tim and others have a lot to do with him, but if I'm listing it it's because it's for you to understand what is happening in the story and to gain a better understanding of Tim Drake and the settings he is in.

Establishment Comics (Comics that place Tim in canon in the past, but he plays no role in that comic)

Batman #436-439 - Year 3

Introduction and Training

Batman #440-442 & New Titans #60-61 - A Lonely Place of Dying (Tim Drake plays a major role and is introduced)

Batman #443-445

Batman #448-449

'tec #615

'tec #618-621 - Rite of Passage (Tim Parents are kidnapped and Batman goes to save them

Important or Character Development comics in Year 1 (Year13) of Tim Drake as Robin

Batman #455-457 (Tim gets the Robin suit)

Robin vol 1 (Tim goes to Paris for Training)

Batman #465 (Tim's first night as Robin)

Batman #466 (A one issue story concerning how Robin views heroes)

Batman #467-469 - Shadow Box (King Snake attacks B&R)

Robin Anual #1 (Tim Drake's first encounter with Anarky as Robin [They met earlier as Money Spider and Unknown boy before Tim was officially Robin])

Robin vol 2 (Tim has to defend Gotham from Joker)

'tec #644-646 - Electric City (A good story with B&R dealing with a vigilante and murderer)

Batman #480 (Jack Drake gets out of the hospital)

Batman #481 (minor scene, Jack Drake buys the house next door... like 1 page, it can be skipped)

'Tec #647-649 (introduction of Spoiler)

Robin vol 3 (Tim and Huntress team up for the first time)

Important or Character Development comics in Year 2 (Year14) of Tim Drake as Robin

Robin Annual #2 : Bloodlines (Introduction of Psyba-Rats)

Batman #488, 'Tec #657, & 658 (Tim Trains Azrael)

Batman - Knight Fall

Batman - Knight Quest

>>> Showcase '93 #11 & 12 (Tim seeks advice from Dick)

>>> 'tec #668 transitions to Robin vol4 #1

>>> Robin #1&2 Robin (Robin escapes the Batcave, meets Shotgun, deals with the Speedboyz, and Arthur Brown escapes Blackgate)

>>> Robin v4 #3-5 (Spoiler & Tim's 2nd meeting. Cluemaster foiled)

>>> Showcase '94 #5, Robin #6, and Showcase '94 #6 (Tim and Huntress team up again)

>>> Robin #7 (Bruce Wayne and Jack Drake return to Gotham)

Batman - Knights End

Robin #10 (Zero Hour caused Tim and Dick Robin Team up)

Robin #0 (Robin and Nightwing talk about the Robins on the past... A recap issue and leads into Prodigal)

Prodigal (Shows Tim and Dick's interaction as Batman and Robin)

Troika (Bruce upgrades Batman and Robin's gear while fighting KGBeast)

Robin #15-16 (Spoiler get's kidnapped)

War of the Dragons (Massive battle between top martial artists)

Robin #19-20 (First meeting with the General)

Robin #21-22 (Tim's first use of Alias Alvin Draper)

Important or Character Development comics in Year 3 (Year15) of Tim Drake as Robin

Batman #526 (Bruce and Tim have an important Talk)

Robin #25-26 (Tim learns a lesson. Spoiler & GA (Connor) appear. Spoiler becomes serious vigilante. Technically starts the issue prior but are the previous 2 issues are an arc that isn't important and everything important from that issue recapped here. Also there is an "end" at the end of #25 but the story continues in #26 save for without GA)

Contagion

'Tec #697-699 (Tim gets Locked in a cell with a bunch of villains, shows his fingerprints are flagged as Alvin Draper)

Legacy

Robin #35 (Robin and Spoiler save people during Final Night)

Robin #40-41 (Tim and Ariana events. Robin and Spoiler team up to take on some Ghost Dragons)

Robin #43-44 (Robin and Spoiler take on the Mighty Baffler!)

Robin #45 (Tim has a bad day ^.^ not essential, but shows a bit of what Tim has to deal with)

Robin #46 (Tim doubts himself. Somewhat of a continuation from #26)

Robin #47-48 (Another General adventure that plays out later on)

Robin #49-52 (Robin goes back to Paris to start his training over and Shiva and King Snake turns up)

Cataclysm

Aftershock

Young Justice: The Secret (The first team up of Robin, Superboy, and Impulse)

Brotherhood of the Fist (sequel to War of the Dragons)

Young Justice #1 (Young Justice officially forms. No other mention save for YJ's dissolution will be mentioned. It's a great read and happens in continuity, but none of what happens in its pages is important. You should still read it though.)

Robin #56-61 (Robin and Spoiler start dating. Spoiler reveals she's pregnant. Tim's friend is murdered.)

Important or Character Development comics in Year 4 (Year16) of Tim Drake as Robin

Road to No Man's Land

No Man's Land

>>> Robin #62-66 (Tim moves to Keystone city, teams up with Flash, and then moves back to Gotham Heights)

Great Guide for Tim Drake. I am going to have to pick up some of these issues. You should do this with other characters also.

@haydenclaireheroes said:

Great Guide for Tim Drake. I am going to have to pick up some of these issues. You should do this with other characters also.

I'd only be willing to do it for the Bat family characters... and even that, looking back at some of the older stories I can't bring myself to reading them because the style is so god awful... it was bad the first time when I didn't realize how much they improved...and Batman always has had the cream of the crop.

Also I'm not looking through EVERY series of books, just the ones I know that Tim appears in a lot... which is 'Tec, Batman, Robin, Red Robin, Teen Titans, and Young Justice.

same here. i better get searching soon

When I'm not broke. When I'm not Broke

@BlackArmor said:

When I'm not broke. When I'm not Broke

>.> Yeah, thinking about it, there is roughly 200-250 issues in that list right now. largely due to NML and KnightSaga...and NML isn't collected completely so if you go off the the collection you are missing stuff... and KnightSaga most people give too much credit to Bane when Batman's fall started a few months before Bane ever entered the scene... I mark it at Batman #486 when Batman fights Metalhead ^.^

@Durakken: 200-250 issues? my wallet hurts

@Durakken: Can you do a guide for Stephanie Brown since she is part of the batfamily and a relatively new character because she started to appear in Tim Drake's Robin series.

@BlackArmor said:

@Durakken: 200-250 issues? my wallet hurts

Knight Saga is like 70ish issues long

NML I think is like 100 or so issues... You gotta remember that it takes place over the course of a full year and involves every issue for the year of Detective Comics and Batman, and then several Nightwing, Robin, Catwoman, and Azrael books.

And then every arc i mention is 4+ issues in length and there is at least 10 of them so that's like 40 more issues...then there are a dozen or so single issues...

That all adds up to 230ish issues with a rough estimate.

if you want to read them I suggest finding alternate ways of reading them as there are libraries and such ways to read them for free legally... personally I don't mind pirating stuff, but I also say if you pirate and you like something you should buy books from those series to support them if and when you can... I would never have read all the comics I have in the last year if I were to buy them all... 3700 issues would costs quite a lot of money ^.^ But I don't want to make this a debate on pirating so anyone that reads this please don't. I'm just stating there are other ways out there to get these that are free...some being legal and some being not so much.

@haydenclaireheroes said:

@Durakken: Can you do a guide for Stephanie Brown since she is part of the batfamily and a relatively new character because she started to appear in Tim Drake's Robin series.

That's easy... Read Batgirl vol 1-3 and Robin vol 4. Stephanie appears sparsely in Detective and Batman comics but she mainly stays in those other titles. Her major events are in the one mentioned above (her introduction), War Games, and her 2 or 3 issue stint as Robin... she's on the cover for those issues and the Robin series goes on a brief hiatus ^.^.

Further, stay tuned to this thread because any major thing that happens to Stephanie in 'Tec and Batman I consider part of Tim's story so those sections will likely be listed here as well.

@Durakken: Thank you

@haydenclaireheroes said:

@Durakken: Thank you

Sorry, I just remembered she is in Cataclysm too. She teams up with Catwoman for a short time during those events, but it's nothing major for her character.

This is really awesome. But shouldn't Identity Crisis be in there somewhere?

And you should totally do this for other characters *DICKGRAYSON*

@Gambit1024: Identity Crisis is in there. It doesn't go by name because it's really strange. It's actually a 3 part story with the first 2 parts being called Identity Crisis and the 3rd part being called something else. It's labeled as "Tim gets the Robin Suit"

@Gambit1024: Also, no thanks on Dick Grayson... largely cuz he's far too hard to do or just not needed...

His time as Robin is pre CoIE and so we don't know what is really canon about his time as Robin...and I'm not reading those books.

I've not read any of his run as Nightwing in Titan books or outsiders

All his major events after CoIE are the same as Batman's with his title series being worthless as most continuity ignores it...including the next arc in the series in most cases. That being the case his major events are basically Year 3, CoIE, Tim's intro, Knight Saga, NML + Prodigal, Under the Red Hood, Infinite Crisis, Bruce Wayne Fugitive, Battle for the Cowl and his run as Batman in the series he was Batman when Batman returned. there are a few I'm missing on that list but no...his list is pretty much every major Batman event in my opinion.

So I'm not the right person to do it for Dick Grayson as my knowledge of him is limited.

@Durakken: Least your honest. You wouldn't happen to know anything about Wally West, do you?

@Gambit1024 said:

@Durakken: Least your honest. You wouldn't happen to know anything about Wally West, do you?

I know very little about all the Flashes... and Wally least of all... I was however considering reading up on Bart because I love him as Impulse in Young Justice.

Just for the record... I read in the area of 70 comics/manga monthly... and a lot more on the side. I used to read 100-200 issue manga chapters/issues every week. The hard part about western comics is that the quality varies and even if you love a character there are long stretches that can suck... and when you're reading every issue of the New 52... it's really hard to get through because 50% are garbage in my opinion, or characters I don't care about... Doing something like this requires that I look through a ton of comics. I'm willing to do it characters or things I like...but not for ones I don't. Luckily for me Tim Drake is really the only one that fits the mold of being rally hard to do this for that I would be willing to do it for.

The only other characters I read up on or started to read up on is Green Lantern and Superman. I can tell you everything that you need to care about GL as a concept, but nothing as far as characters. I'd really like to read up on Kyle Rayner one day as I love the concept behind him...to see if he is as good as he could have been to me. Superman... well I got through the Reign of Superman and almost up to his marriage to Lois... but the writing is just so boring and bad it's hard to get through...which is why I haven't read up on Supergirl and Superboy yet even those two I think are interesting characters and all the issues I have read in the past for them have been good... Superman is a slow read because he's boring because his writers suck, because they don't relate to him, but they keep him around in the present day. The worst the writing and art is the harder it is to continue and the slower the read so if I read those books, even though if it was a good series I could get through it in a week, it would take me probably several months to complete ^.^

The characters I might do this type of thing for other than Tim are Stephanie Brown, Misfit, Cassandra Cain, but as pointed out those are all really simple and modifications on Tim's list.

Updated the list... I'm up to Robin #16. I've scanned ahead with Batman and Detective Comics and I'll add in Young Justice sooner or later...

More or less every Robin vol 4 issue will be included in this as they are important in some way or are just that good cuz Chuck Dixon rocks and Tim's story always kept moving ahead.

I'm thinking of making a list with the site list just so you can click through it easily... not sure how well that would work...

Kick ass guide

this'll be a bit expensive.

Hrmmm I wonder if I should continue making this...

Thank you so much.

Awesome, I just bought the "Flying Solo" trade about a month ago.

Maybe you should place this guide in the Recommended Readin Section so it'll be easier for other people to find it :D I think is a great guide as so far as I've been following it.

I'm looking at the moment for alternative versions of Tims origin story. I found so far:

• Batman #440-442 & New Titans #60-61 - A Lonely Place of Dying
• Secret Origins 80-Page Giant
• new52 Teen Titans #0
• new52 Secret Origins #3

Are there any other versions?