Brandon Robinson (left) and his father, Lenny visit children in costume.
When Brandon Robinson’s father mentioned he had been pulled over by police on Route 29 in late March, the incoming freshman had no reason to believe the traffic stop was anything out of the ordinary.
But the rest of the world didn’t seem to think so because of one small detail: Robinson’s father is Batman.
The routine stop – featuring a man in a Batman costume driving a black Lamborghini with Batman symbols for license plates – became an overnight sensation. Robinson and his father were finally forced to divulge their shared secret: By morning, they were ordinary people – Robinson was a high school student living with his mother in Harrington Park, N.J., and Lenny was a 48-year-old Baltimore-area businessman.
By afternoon, they assumed the roles of Batman and Robin, traveling the state of Maryland on a crusade against not the Joker or Riddler or Penguin, but a different kind of evil: pediatric cancer and other juvenile diseases.
“People at first are kind of shocked and don’t really believe me when I tell them we do this,” Brandon said. “I always keep a picture on my cell phone of us in costume to show them.”
Brandon said he didn’t even realize his father’s traffic stop had gone viral until The Washington Post picked the story up and friends from his high school started talking about it. That day in March, Lenny was headed home from Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, where the Hope For Henry Foundation had hosted a superhero party in the hospital’s pediatric ward. Lenny and Brandon have attended dozens of events like these since 2001, when they discovered their super power in bringing joy to sick children.
“The kids look at them and think they’re the real Batman and Robin,” said Laurie Strongin, founder and Executive Director of the Hope For Henry Foundation. “They really inhabit the characters of Batman and Robin, and the amount of joy they bring is incredible.”
They always make sure to leave the house for an event in full character, so they keep the dream alive for the kids.
“My four-year-old son believes he is the real-life Bruce Wayne,” wrote Washington Post columnist Mike Rosenwald, a close family friend.
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It all started with a six-year-old Brandon, who idolized the Dark Knight.
“I really just fell in love with the character,” he said. “It would be 98 degrees out in August by the pool, and there I was, running out in my Batman costume.”
He even made his parents wait for him while he put on his costume for trips to the grocery store.
Soon, it became a bond between father and son. Despite a divorce, which put them on opposite sides of the Mason-Dixon Line, they were still united by a love of all things Batman.
“I never really thought that anything would have come from me loving Batman so much,” Brandon said.
Over the years, Lenny caught the Batman bug and began to collect memorabilia in a “Batcave” at his home near Baltimore – he “had to have the best suit,” custom-made in New Jersey for $5,000, and he bought a black Lamborghini made to look like the Batmobile. Brandon’s Robin costume was an exact replica of the costume actor Burt Ward wore as the Boy Wonder in the 1966 movie Batman.
Lenny began visiting hospitals and schools in his full suit and Batmobile 11 years ago to hand out rubber Batman bracelets and small toys and sometimes give anti-bullying presentations, all on his own dime and time.
Working under the project name Superheroes For Kids, Lenny spends more than $25,000 a year of his own money on visiting sick children. His slogan reads, “At the end of the day, you must ask yourself, ‘Self, did I make a difference?’ And the answer had better be yes.”
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Although each of his three sons accompanied him at one time or another as Robin, it was Brandon who showed the most interest.
“Brandon’s come with me probably 50 or 60 times,” Lenny said.
He now works closely with Hope For Henry, Sinai Hospital, Mt. Washington Pediatrics, the DC CARES Foundation and the Hackerman-Patz House and participates in walks for cystic fibrosis, among other diseases. He has also made appearances at Georgetown University Hospital and Children’s Hospital.
“Most people won’t love putting on a pair of green tights and being in them for five to 10 hours,” Brandon said. “But once I went to the hospitals, I realized the impact it had on the kids. I could have been wearing anything else, but seeing the impact I made made it worth it.”
Brandon said he usually takes a sidekick role because the focus is on Batman. But over the course of his experiences, he said, he’s learned that everyone can be a superhero.
“I remember at one school, there was a kid with autism and he came up and told me that although everyone is obsessed with Batman, Robin was his favorite character,” Brandon said. “I got a letter the following week from his mother about how I really had touched her child’s heart and made him happy and how it was the first time she had seen him smile in weeks – it really put me in a different place.”
“It’s made him aware,” said Lenny. “Other kids his age don’t necessarily appreciate what they’ve got and this had made Brandon and his brothers really aware.”
Becoming Batman and Robin isn’t an easy feat; there is no quick change of clothes in a phone booth. It can take Lenny up to 45 minutes to get into full costume – which doesn’t allow him to use the bathroom – and the father-son duo spend hours the night before a visit cleaning the Batmobile and sorting Batman toys, books, hats and necklaces.
By now, they’ve got it down to a science. But of course, things can, and sometimes do, go wrong.
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The Robinsons have drawn the attention of Maryland police before, when the Batmobile got a flat tire on the way to an event. They also have to make sure they leave plenty early to make it to events on time – Lenny told The Washington Post that it can take up to 30 minutes just to get out of a gas station because everyone wants a picture.
And even Batman can get a traffic ticket. In the incident that made international news this past March, Lenny had been pulled over for failing to have proper license plates because, according to state police, Batman symbols aren’t a substitute for real license plate numbers. Fortunately, Lenny carried the real plates in his car, and was able to scrape by without a ticket on the good will of the officers who pulled him over.
What came of the event was a police dashboard camera video that went viral, and Lenny and Brandon faced what many superheroes fear: the revelation of their true identities.
Their civilian names were by no means a secret, but the entire operation was a quiet one. After the Post article, however, the “Route 29 Batman” was thrust into the spotlight. Between interviews and hospital visits, letters and phone calls flood in from around the world, including Croatia, Germany, Vietnam and Brazil.
“It’s definitely different,” Brandon said. “There are more phone calls and cameras, but the overall message of we what do has not changed and will not change.”
In August, Brandon will be starting as a freshman at this university. He plans to apply to the business school and wants to go pre-law – perhaps to become a real-life crime fighter.
Lenny has even bigger plans – he said he envisions a team of Maryland students as different superheroes, all fighting for the same cause, and is considering a book deal.
Despite the recent success and spotlight, Brandon said they will continue their superhero work to inspire the children and families who need it.
“Each and every day, these kids are fighting for their lives, to get better and be healthy,” Brandon said. “I think us being there provides them with a sense of hope that in the end, they’ll be okay.”
blasey@umdbk.com
