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By the end of the Modern Age (in 2011), how old is Tim Drake? How old is Bruce Wayne? Before we answer these questions, it’s essential to keep in mind what we’ve already previously established—that some DC writers and editors built a different Modern Age timeline than mine. To briefly recap, two major differences in my timeline include: Dick starting as Robin in Year Five instead of Year Three due to my strict (more literal) reading of Long Halloween and Dark Victory; and treatment of Zero Hour as a soft reboot (as opposed to a hard reboot). As a result, some of the age references in the comics don’t always jibe with my timeline, which is 23 years long (as opposed to DC’s 15-year-long timeline). I’ve retconned Modern Age Tim Drake debuting as Robin a bit younger based upon the aforementioned timeline differences and a stricter (more literal) reading of the overall passage of time in the DCU, following Tim’s first appearance onward. (The latter is our topic of discussion here.) Bear in mind, I’m not trying to define or redefine Batman character ages willy-nilly—I’m simply attempting to construct and/or suggest a detailed, unambiguous canon. And, like I’ve always said, this is technically an impossible task. We can’t inject realism (in the form of perfect continuity and age restraints) into a science-fiction unreality that ignores conventional passage of time. But we can have fun trying. Let’s begin by examining Tim’s history as depicted by DC editors and writers on their mega-compressed 15-year chronology.
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MODERN AGING Part 1: Tim Drake
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We first see Modern Age Tim Drake chronologically through flashback in Batman #436 where he appears as a seven-year-old that witnesses the deaths of the Flying Graysons at the circus. Tim’s next appearance is his debut in Batman #440-441 (1989) where he is 13-years-old. He meets Batman and Nightwing and becomes the new Robin. Tim is still mentioned as being 13 (going on 14) and is shown to be starting high school in Batman #448 (1990). In Robin II: Joker’s Wild #1 (1991) and Batman #471 (1991), the implication is that Tim has turned 14. Robin III: Cry of the Huntress #5 (1993) implies that Tim is still 14. In Robin Vol. 2 #1 (1993), a “Knightquest” tie-in, Tim gets his driver’s license early (at age 14) due to the fact that he needs to be able to drive his father around. In Robin Vol. 2 storylines by 1994, we are told Tim is in 10th grade. By Robin Vol. 2 circa 1996, Tim is still in 10th grade. Tim is 14 nearing 15 in Secret Origins 80-Page Giant #1 (1998). Tim is confirmed to still be in 10th grade in Robin Vol. 2 #75 (2000). Tim is confirmed to be 15 in Robin Vol. 2 #80 (2000). In “Bruce Wayne: Murderer” (specifically Batgirl #24, 2002), Oracle tells us that Tim is 15. Tim celebrates his Sweet 16 in Robin Vol. 2 #116 (2003). Tim is said to be 16 when Spoiler “dies” (as referenced in Detective Comics #810 and Batman Allies Secret Files #1). In Identity Crisis #5 (2004) and Robin Vol. 2 #136 (2005), Tim is still 16. Tim is said to be “under 18” in Robin Vol. 2 #142 (2005). 52 (2006-2007) takes place and functions as a literal calendar year, so Tim must age to 17 during this arc. Tim is still said to be “under 18” in Robin Vol. 2 #179 (2008). By the time Tim becomes Red Robin, he is still 17, but soon to be 18. Red Robin #17 (2011) and Red Robin #25 (2011) both say Tim is a senior in high school and 17. Flashpoint happens before Tim reaches the age of 18.
To recap the above in terms of publication years, Tim is 14 from 1991-1998, 15 from 1998-2002, 16 from 2002-2006, and 17 from 2006-2011. There is a very long stretch where Tim stays 14, but this could easily be connected to the fact that Zero Hour is right smack dab in the middle of the range. According to numerous sources in the Comic Book Resources forums, DC editors wanted to age certain characters using a rough formula of four years of written material equaling one actual chronological year. For Tim’s 15 and 16, this four-years-of-publication-as-one-year-of-aging rule seems to apply. With that same logic applied moving onward, Tim should have turned 18 before Flashpoint, but it seems that DC editors (maybe with knowledge of the impending reboot) simply decided to keep him at 17 until the end.
While it’s clear that writers were utilizing the four-as-one formula for Tim’s age, it’s also true that many writers showed significantly more years’ worth of “in-story time” elapsing in the period spanning from Tim’s 16th birthday through Flashpoint (i.e. from 2002 to 2011). Writers detailed this passage of “in-story time” by scripting holidays, different seasons, topical events, asterisk notation, and more. Since both age and time (duration) use the exact same units of measurement, you can’t have one formula for age and a different formula for the passage of time. Yet the use of contradicting principles has occurred, forming a paradox. While DC’s timeline ostensibly works for Tim on a surface level, it only does so in a vacuum where few other characters exist and there is willful ignorance of the fact that seasons change, holidays come and go, and time literally passes over the years. Tim’s debut at 13 and end at 17 only works if we subscribe to a timeline where a mere four years pass between Tim’s debut and Flashpoint. Put another way: “The Death and Return of Superman,” “Knightfall,” “Cataclysm,” “No Man’s Land,” Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Countdown, “Batman RIP,” Final Crisis, 52, Battle for the Cowl, every single JLA story, and every other non-Batman comic between 1989 and 2011, must happen in a measly four year span. Unless both Zero Hour and Infinite Crisis are hard reboots, this ain’t kosher.
Now let’s address my timeline. Obviously, Tim’s age must be rejiggered a bit to make sense on a 23-year-timeline (the Batman Chronology Project’s timeline) versus a 15-year-timeline (DC’s timeline). To account for the difference, we could retcon it so that Tim becomes Robin at age 8 instead of 13, but that seems far-fetched. Plus, if you went this route, it would completely erase the fact that Tim watched the Flying Graysons die. However, a more elegant solution, and the one I’ve taken on my Modern Age timeline, is retconning Tim’s debut as Robin to a month or two before Tim turns 11-years-old (in Bat Year 13). This allows for Tim’s 16th birthday to still take place where it originally was meant to (in Robin Vol. 2 #116, July, Bat Year 18), thus eliminating most inconsistencies regarding his age up to that point. After that, only very minor inconsistencies pop up every now and again throughout the comics—and most huge errors are eliminated (although we do have to reimagine Tim as being 2 instead of 7 when the Flying Graysons die). Even Tim being referred to as a minor in the Red Robin series is totally legitimate if we think of the term “minor” to mean “under 21.” On our 23-year-timeline, Tim is 20-years-old (with his 21st birthday happening in July of 2011) during the Red Robin series. Thus, by the time we reach Flashpoint, Tim has turned 21-years-old.
Another great reference to comic book character ages is Chris J Miller’s “Table of Birthdates” from his brilliant “Unauthorized Chronology of the DCU.” (Chris lists Tim’s age in 2011 at 22 because he has kept Tim’s Robin debut at age 13, hence the two year age difference compared to my chronology.)
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MODERN AGING Part 2: Bruce Wayne
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Onto Modern Age Bruce Wayne i.e. the version of the character that appeared in comics from 1986 through 2011. According to my chronology, he turns 48-years-old in February 2011 (making him 48 at the Flashpoint conclusion of the Modern Age). Does this seem too old? Too young? Maybe you’re thinking, “Bruce looks a hell of a lot younger than 48.” Well, that argument can be thrown out the window due to a string of seemingly pedantic but important alimentary factors. Modern Age Bruce has been resurrected from the dead by metahuman power (“Super Powers” and Zero Hour), re-generated by a Lazarus Pit (Birth of the Demon), healed by the Holy Grail (The Chalice), psychically rehabilitated by salubrious energy (“Knightquest”), killed and magickally revived (JLA: Obsidian Age), mended in an Apokoliptian healing-chamber (Superman/Batman: Torment), sent to live as a god for thousands of years on ancient Earth-1 (Trinity), nourished by the Fountain of Life at Nanda Parbat (“Resurrection of Ra’s al Ghul”), enlivened by the “lazarus machine” at Vanishing Point (Return of Bruce Wayne), and re-animated by Metron after dying and visiting the New God afterworld (Return of Bruce Wayne). Bruce has also journeyed through outer space for long periods of time, which has been scientifically proven to slow the aging process. Plus, have you seen what Brad Pitt or Tom Cruise look like in their fifties? The chiseled former was kicking ass for Tarantino at age 55 while the athletic latter was scaling skyscrapers as Ethan Hunt at age 48-49! Not to mention, Adam West played Batman at age 40, Robert Downey Jr played Iron Man at age 55, and Ben Affleck played Batman in his mid-forties and was slated to play him again at age 47 before plans changed. There’s even more evidence I could list, but I digress and rest my case. Bruce would likely look young, fit, and healthy well past his prime. But how did I get to 48?
First, let’s begin with DC’s version of Bruce’s life—which, again, differs from my timeline. DC tells us (in Frank Miller’s “Year One”) that Bruce becomes Batman at age 26 in Year 1. Robin comes along in Year 3 (Bruce is 29). In Batman #416, which takes place shortly before Jason Todd’s death, Nightwing hasn’t seen Bruce in eighteen months. He also says that was Robin for a total of six years. So Bruce is 36 when Jason dies (midway through Year 10 according to DC). After Zero Hour retcons and sliding timescales (which change a lot of things, including reducing Dick’s time as Robin to a mere 4 years), we get to various Greg Rucka ‘tec tales and mini-series (Death and the Maidens) where we are told Bruce’s parents died roughly 25 years ago. If Bruce’s parents died when he was 8 (as we are told in Zero Hour), that means Bruce should be 33 around the time of Death and the Maidens, Hush, and other tales of that era, which is impossible. In Paul Dini’s “House of Hush,” publishes seven years after Death and the Maidens and Hush, it is implied on multiple fronts that Bruce is around 34 to 35-years-old. So, Bruce only ages a couple years in seven years of comics? Even DC editors realized this undeniable paradox pretty quickly, which is why those “25 years ago” blanket statements were quickly ignored and/or halted in the mid to late aughts. Therefore, the next possible reference we can use (and the primary reference that DC editors used towards the end of the Modern Age) is the age of Tim Drake. According to DC, Tim Drake shows up a few months after Jason’s death (Year 10) and is age 13 when he debuts as Robin. By mid 2011, according to DC editors, he was 17. Therefore, 4 years would have passed since Year 10, making 2011 equal Year 14 with Bruce at 40 years of age. This coincides with Grant Morrison’s run in Batman RIP, where we were told that Bruce was in his thirties (and, in my opinion, going on forty). This also confirms that Batman, according to DC writers and editors, was in his 14th or 15th year of costumed adventuring by 2011. (This also reaffirms that DC ended the Modern Age with a 15 year timeline as opposed to my 23 year version.)
This is all fine and dandy, but unfortunately, in order for this DC version of events to fit correctly into any chronology we must ignore the fact (as we did regarding the life and times of Timothy Drake) that seasons change, holidays come and go, and time literally is shown passing over the years. Again, we would have to assume that from the time Tim became Robin all the way up to the 2011 Red Robin storylines, only 4 years had passed. Put another way: The Death and Return of Superman, Knightfall, Cataclysm, No Man’s Land, Bruce Wayne Murderer, Identity Crisis, Infinite Crisis, Countdown, Batman RIP, Final Crisis, 52, Battle for the Cowl, every single Morrison and post-Morrison JLA story, and a nearly uncountable number of other tales all take place in a mere 4 years! Again, maybe this works in the New 52 or Rebirth/Infinite Frontier Era where these stories have become mere references, but in the Modern Age, I disagree.
Here’s how I see things. Let’s start with Frank Miller’s “Year One.” Bruce, age 25, arrives back in Gotham from his training and traveling abroad in January. He turns 26 in February, making him 26 when he debuts as Batman in April. Pre-original Crisis tales always put Bruce’s birthday in February, so that fits with Miller’s “Year One.” According to my chronology, 23 full “Bat Years” transpire (up to the Modern Age’s end in 2011) making Bruce 48-years-old. (25+23=48). Seems simple, right? Of course not. Let’s start with the one solid fact we know, according to the gospel of Saint Frank: Bruce is 26 in April of his first year as Batman. Since I’ve gone with February as Bruce’s birthday month, this means Bruce turns 26 two months prior. According to my chronology, Bruce’s first year as Batman is 1989. During Zero Hour, which was published in 1994, we learn (canonically) that Bruce’s folks died in autumn when he was 8-years-old. If Batman’s first year is 1989 and he is 26, then that means Bruce’s folks died in 1971, which in turn means that the February eight years prior to that (the one in which Bruce was born) was in 1963. 1963 to 2011. Do the math. Bruce is 48-years-old in 2011.
Bruce’s 48-years-of-age-by-2011 (based upon my timeline’s perspective) also works when contrasted to the ages of other characters around him, such as Dick Grayson and Tim Drake. Bruce is 26 when he starts as Batman. Six years later Dick Grayson arrives on the scene. (Dick is twelve-years-old when his folks plummet to their grisly deaths.) Bruce is 32. Four years later, Dick becomes Nightwing. Bruce is 36. Three years later, Tim becomes Robin. Bruce is 39. Nine years later (during which time we have the vast amount of stories I listed above) we reach the end of the Modern Age in 2011 and Bruce is 48. I’ve done a ton of compression to make this work, but still not nearly as much as the DC editors have with their 15-year-long timeline. And unlike DC editors, I haven’t ignored stories or the literal passage of time that is definitively shown in the comics.
But now I’m just maundering. At the conclusion of the Modern Age in 2011, DC says Tim is 17 (going on 18). I say he’s 20 (about to be 21). DC says Bruce is 40. I say he’s 48. We are both right. Isn’t that cool?[1][2][3]
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- [1]VALHERU: [This footnote was written a year before the New 52 reboot with no knowledge of the reboot.—CC] Trying to place correct and definitive ages on the Modern Age DC characters is a losing battle. I’m as much a stickler for chronology as the next guy, but the problem with ages is that they’re static. In fact, age is probably the most untouchable thing in comics. As long as DC publishes Bruce Wayne, he’ll always be “in his prime.” That means that Dick Grayson’s ceiling will forever be “near-prime,” Tim Drake’s will be “sub-prime,” and so forth (Barbara Gordon might be exempt from this as long as she’s not in “fighting shape,” but even she’ll never be older that Bruce’s mid-thirties). That won’t stop writers from giving Tim Drake a birthday every few years, no matter how teenaged DC policy dictates him to be, just like Jeph Loeb kept inventing multiple Halloweens into Year 2.
It’s really just a matter of inevitability. Batman, as a property, is 70-years-old, and there’s no reason to believe he won’t continue for 70 more. DC can do the “4-years-are-1” thing for a while, but what happens in 40 years? Suddenly everyone will look up and notice that Tim is almost 30 and Bruce is getting near retirement age. Hell, we might have four more generations of Robins by then. No editor is going to be disciplined enough to maintain every aspect of the timestream, and no writer is going to let it get in the way of their Great Batman Story.
I’ve long thought that the best thing to do is not to slide the timeline, but rather slide the progression. If Superman and Batman are never going to age, then DC just needs to make them not age; if Dick Grayson is never going to reach his 30s, then make him age slower; Tim Drake can age a little faster, and Damian a little faster than that, but they all have ceilings. DC could do a big event crossover, have the whole universe hit by some “Age Wave,” and there’s our explanation. Why has Tim had 61 birthdays and he’s only 17-years-old? Age Wave. How can Batman have had 39 teenage Robins who are all now in their mid-20s yet he’s still under 40? Age Wave. Let it just be a fundamental force of the DCU.
There’s a secondary benefit of an Age Wave as well: Combined with the principle of Hypertime, it would allow contemporary eras to operate on their own chronological progressions without forcing the rest of the timeline. For instance, we could say that everything up to NO MAN’S LAND is Years 1-9, and it operates on the Year Timescale, but the current era from Rucka to Morrison is allowed to progress however it wants through its own timescale; however, once the current era ends, it passes into the jurisdiction of the Year Timescale, where it becomes Year 10 regardless of its original chronology. The Bat-universe already operates this way, it’s just not intentional—Miller’s artificial “Gangster Era” is Year 1, the Kane/Finger era is Year 2, LONG HALLOWEEN and/or DARK VICTORY constitutes Year 3, the post-Robin Golden Age is Year 4, the Silver Age is Years 5-6, and so on, with the 2 most recent Years being roughly the O’Neil-edited era. It’s basically a retcon system, but unlike CRISIS (which I really think shouldn’t apply to Batman, since it barely touched him anyway), it retcons Year-to-Year, not Crisis-to-Crisis.
Finding Bruce’s true age requires both No-Prize fanwanking and detailed systematizing of in-story evidence. A reader must develop recognition by signing an invisible contract, similar to the understanding in a mystery novel that the writer won’t play fast and loose with the facts. Readers will accept the accordion timeline if they know that’s how it works, just as they accept the idea that Joker will always get the insanity plea. But that also means DC has to establish the rules and abide by them. If Year 1 is an era of pre-costumed mob villainy, then no Monster Men or Dirigibles of Doom until after the Joker debuts, no funky chronologies that have seventy-two things happening on November 16th, and no six-month gaps where Batman is hooked on drugs. If DC can’t say with the same certainty that Batman had a Batmobile by Date X that they can say a Wonder Woman with green hair is from Earth-193, then a chronology simply cannot be had. But if they CAN, then certain doors will open up: While the tone for Year 1 can be gritty and realistic, scaffolded by appropriately grounded storytelling, this doesn’t mean the tone for Years 2 and 3 need be the same, so long as the expectation for wildness and nonsensicality is properly established beforehand. There can be 26 Halloweens in Year 2 or 3 provided it has been made clear that Years 2 and 3 are wild and nonsensical years. But then when Year 9 comes along and it’s supposed to be one exact No Man’s Land-ish calendar year, then a year with no aberration is what we should have. The problem, of course, is that DC has never officially categorized Batman’s Years (not really), so it’s left to people like you and Chris J Miller to do the work for them, even as they continue to ignore it all. The Clayfaces, historically marked with chronologically ascending Roman numerals attached to their names, don’t even debut in order anymore; we can’t expect that ages make any more sense than that.
COLLIN COLSHER: Ain’t it the truth, Val. I should have opened the “Modern Ages” section of the website with a disclaimer re-iterating basically everything you’ve summed up in your footnote here. As I’ve said in the beginning of the project, this chronology (and Chris J Miller’s) is and forever will be a losing battle. “There is no right answer. There can never be a right answer.” I just quoted myself! Anyway, I like your DC-version of the timeline (Miller’s Year 1, followed by the Kane/Finger era is Year 2, Long Halloween / Dark Victory is Year 3, the post-Robin Golden Age is Year 4, the Silver Age is Years 5-6, Year 10 is NML and so on and so forth…). The Age Wave could definitely work and is an interesting and novel idea. And, as far as fighting a losing battle, this is a battle that I quite enjoy losing. I can’t speak for Chris J Miller, but the idea of giving these characters specific ages is damn near impossible. Hell, it is impossible. But I’m trying to get as close to something realistic as I can. The fact that I can even conjure up a practicable timeline with specific character ages is a true testament to the general success of the editors and writers over at DC. If it seems like I complain about them a lot, it’s only because I’m trying to pull a camel through the eye of a needle and they aren’t helping me do it!
At Comic Con International 2010 a young man asked Grant Morrison how old characters like Bruce Wayne and the various Robins were supposed to be. “It doesn’t matter. You must understand these people aren’t real,” Morrison said to laughter. “Batman is a mythical figure. I’m being funny, but I’m not being funny. They don’t live in the real world. It’s like this theory I’ve been developing – you know what they always say about kids? That kids can’t distinguish between fantasy and reality. And that’s actually bullshit. When a kid’s watching The Little Mermaid, the kid knows that those crabs that are singing and talking aren’t really like the crabs on the beach that don’t talk. A kid really knows the difference. Then you’ve got an adult, and adults cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality. You bring them fantasy, and the first thing they say is ‘How did he get that way? Why does he dress like that? How did that happen?’ It’s not real. And beyond that, when you’re dealing with characters, they exist on paper. They’re real in that context. I always say they’re much more real than we are because they have much longer lives and more people know about them. But we get people reading superhero comics and going, ‘How does that power work? And why does Scott Summers shoot those beams? And what’s the size of that?’ It’s not real! There is no science. The science is the science of ‘Anything can happen in fiction and paper’ and we can do anything. We’ve already got the real world. Why would you want fiction to be like the real world? Fiction can do anything, so why do people always want to say, ‘Let’s ground this’ or ‘Let’s make this realistic.’ You can’t make it realistic because it’s not. So basically Batman is 75-years-old, and Robin is 74-years-old. They don’t grow old because they’re different from us. They’re paper people.”
VALHERU: “They’re paper people.” LOL. That explains 80 percent of what Morrison has ever written. I get the concept, but it does highlight my main problem with Grant’s work on Batman (and to a certain extent, on X-Men): stretching suspension of disbelief into a belief of disbelief. It works on Doom Patrol and The Invisibles and JLA—even Batman in JLA—but not Batman in Gotham. What makes Batman unique is his reality—sure, maybe there were eras where he got wacky and met talking gorillas, but we’ve had at least 25 years of proof-positive popular consensus that expects Batman (though not necessarily his villains) to be grounded in an approximated realism that makes even James Bond look ridiculous. Even if it isn’t real, it must look real. Batman may have been around for 75 years, but he’s not 75-years-old, not even as a paper-person; such an idea doesn’t look even remotely realistic.
I ruminate on the billion-plus dollars Chris Nolan has raked in, not simply by doing Batman movies but plausible Batman movies, and then wonder why DC decided to opt out of their own zeitgeist by letting Grant Morrison go noir-weird.
COLLIN COLSHER: Grant Morrison’s comment was a quick dodge of the question (albeit quite a wordy Morrisonian one). Of course no DC writer will ever give a definitive answer regarding character age. “Paper people”, “Robin is 74″… I found it to be quite funny actually! And whether or not you like the “belief of disbelief” style that Morrison has applied to Batman (and many find their Batman to be completely inaccessible), you can’t deny that his books sell pretty damn well. Personally (and I might be in the minority on this one), I find the Nolan films to be very poorly written and at times impinged by the restraints of the realism/plausibility in which they are supposed to exist. Though, Val, I can definitely understand where you are coming from (and there are definitely a lot of people out there that agree with you), but it seems that the reasons you take issue with Morrison’s work are the very reasons I enjoy it so much! But as always, I love the scholarly aperçu you always bring to the table and the insight demonstrated with your every comment.↩
- [2]AIDAN K: Here’s yet another viable alternative to Bruce’s age. Looking at a couple of lines in Morrison’s “RIP,” I came up with Bruce around age 44 at the time of the reboot. Funny that we get another answer. Here’s my reasoning: First, we have from the Black Casebooks (in Batman #678) that “5 years into the mission” is still the Silver Age, though it appears to be the tail end. Add eleven years for Damian’s age, a year for his gestation/time for Bruce and Talia to fall in love in a whirlwind 3 months, and a buffer year between the Silver Age and Saga of the Demon (where Dick leaves, etc.) and we get Bruce at roughly age 43 during “RIP” and age 44 at the time of Flashpoint. No idea how old this makes Alfred. (Perhaps the whole “Outsider” affair rejuvenated him a bit.)
COLLIN COLSHER: This is definitely a possibility. However, the “five years into the mission” line from Batman #678 actually tells us that much of the GOLDEN AGE stuff—NOT Silver Age—occurs in the first five years of Batman’s career. Nor does it definitively mean that the Golden Age stuff immediately ends after five years. Thus, my reasoning for adding a four or five extra years is to accommodate the vast number of stories being squeezed into continuity, which includes the Silver Age tales. And furthermore, it is the reason for my labeling Bruce as a 48-year-old instead of a 44-year-old by the time of the reboot.↩
- [3]COLLIN COLSHER: Here’s a bit of fun before we say goodbye. Let’s play a game and pretend the New 52 reboot didn’t happen, but all of the stories written for the New 52 still occurred, only altered to continue and jibe with the Modern Age. Flashpoint occurs in-story in August of 2011 (and was also published around that time as well). Rebirth takes place in-story beginning in Spring of 2016, but the New 52/DC You stuff ends in-story in early 2016. So, that means almost FOUR-AND-A-HALF full years’ worth of narrative occur during the New 52 (and the Batman Chronology reflects this). By my calculations, if Modern Age Bruce is 48 when Flashpoint happens (and this is definitely true), then adding in all New 52 stories to his canon would put him at age 52, just about to turn 53 in February 2016. Age 52! Fitting, don’t you think!? :-)↩
