DC Studios unexpectedly unveiled the villain of its upcoming Robin film: the Dynamic Duo. The animated film reimagines the early years of Batman's first two sidekicks, Dick Grayson and Jason Todd, using a unique blend of stop-motion animation, stop-motion, and CGI from New Orleans studio Swaybox. Details have remained sparse since the 2024 announcement, leaving fans wondering how DC will handle the two Robins in the same story.
At the 2026 Annecy International Animated Film Festival, Warner Bros. Pictures Animation and DC Studios lifted the curtain on the film, and the plot hints at a dark turn in Jason Todd's fate. According to these plot details, revealed by DiscussingFilm, the story begins with Dick and Jason, teenage street urchins who bill themselves as the Dynamic Duo but later go their separate ways. Dick becomes Batman's Robin, while Jason falls in with the Red Hood, a criminal gang that draws him to the seedy side of Gotham's streets and makes him the film's antagonist.
As The Wrap reports, director Arthur Mintz, one of the founders of Swaybox, described one of the test shots where Red Hood walks through a subway car. When Jason looks into Red Hood's reflective helmet, he sees himself, but when Dick looks at the same helmet, he sees something completely different. This clearly demonstrates how different Dick and Jason are—two best friends who look at the same symbol and interpret it differently.
The Red Hood gang's appearance in the Robin film is a little-known episode. Long before Jason donned the mask, the Red Hood name belonged to a Gotham criminal gang, and one of the first villains to adopt the moniker fell into a vat of chemicals and emerged as the Joker. Whether the Clown Prince will appear in this version has not yet been confirmed, but the gang's rich history provides a powerful source of dark inspiration for the film.
The comic book origins of Jason Todd's Red Hood
In the comics, Jason Todd became the second boy to bear the mantle of Robin, taking over after Dick Grayson grew up and became Nightwing. Batman first encountered him when he caught the boy stealing tires from the Batmobile, then took him under his wing and trained him. From the start, Jason was more reckless and prone to violent attacks than Robin had been before him.
The darkest part of his story came in the 1988 "Death in the Family" arc, where the Joker beat him with a crowbar and left him to die in an explosion. This choice was the result of a phone poll in which DC readers voted to kill Jason. Years later, writers brought him back as the Red Hood, a gun-toting vigilante who kills criminals whom Batman always locks up. This version of Jason fights with the Bat-Family as often as he fights alongside them, making him one of DC's most elusive antiheroes.
This history explains why Jason, as the antagonist in Dynamic Duo, takes fans by surprise. In the comics, he was Robin before becoming a villain. In Dynamic Duo, the usual order is inverted. Instead of Jason replacing Dick, they appear together at the same age—two 15-year-olds who start out as partners and end up as rivals.
Will Dick and Jason be included in the canon DC universe?
Here's the rub for those hoping this will lead directly into James Gunn's main DC Universe. It won't. Gunn shot down the idea months ago, responding categorically «"No", when a fan asked if the Dynamic Duo would be rewritten and incorporated into DC canon. These puppet versions of Dick and Jason live in their own world, which is closer in spirit to the standalone DC Elseworlds series than to the shared world of Superman and the upcoming Supergirl.
However, this doesn't rule out Dick and Jason from the real DC Universe. Gunn's universe already has a plan for a Robin, just a different one. Damian Wayne, Bruce's son, will debut as the iconic Boy Wonder in The Brave and the Bold, even if that film doesn't yet have a release date or cast. Damian is the youngest of Batman's Robins, allowing the two older ones to appear. If Damian dons the Robin costume onscreen, Dick will likely already be Nightwing and Jason will be Red Hood.
When "Dynamic Duo" premieres in 2028, it will likely be a one-off project, a departure from canon and a more unconventional, more poignant story about two boys who chose opposite sides. The Dick and Jason of the canon DC Universe, when they appear, will likely skip the Robin years and appear as adults.