Cullen Row

The first poster of Gotham Knights gives us a quick look at some of the show’s protagonists: Turner Hayes (an original character, but I won’t be surprised if he turns up to be an adaptation of Damian Wayne), Duela Dent, Carrie Kelly, and the Row siblings. On the far left, we can see Cullen Row, portrayed by Tyler DiChiara. As for now, we don’t know anything about his role in the series, apart from the fact that his sexual orientation will be the same from the comics. We can, of course, take our usual look to the original character.

Cullen Row was born in Gotham City, the son of Marcus and Miranda Row… not that it mattered, as since his birth his one and only parental figure was his older sister, Harper. Miranda, in fact, died when he was a newborn, and Marcus was a violent alcoholic who thrashed the house and beat his kids everytime he drank too much, which happened often. Harper was the only one left to take care of Cullen: she fixed all the toys his father broke and built new ones, she nursed him when he was beaten, and when the Riddler cut the power from all Gotham City, she connected his nightlight to a battery so that he didn’t have to sleep in the dark. Cullen grew up to be a sensitive and frail teenager, and when he discovered he was a homosexual, things got even tougher for him, as all the bullies at school chose him as their favorite target. Something good finally happened when Harper obtained emancipation and moved away from her father, taking her little brother along: they found an apartment in the Narrows… that wasn’t exactly a safe haven for them, but at least it was the kind of hell you could lock out of the door. Harper worked as an electrical engineer, and insisted that Cullen continued his studies. He did his part, and tried every time he could to make things easier for his sister: when the landlady paid her with a ticket to Wayne Gala instead of the money she owed Harper, Cullen convinced her to go (he even joked about taking home the handsome Tim Drake, Bruce Wayne‘s adoptive son, so that he could hit on him), and he spent his evening helping his sister find a nice dress for the night and adjusting her makeup and hairstyle. As she left, he stayed home, to watch some anime or some episodes of his favorite tv series, Supernatural. His night, however, would have been much different than the one he expected.

As he was alone in his apartment, Cullen Row received an unexpected and unwelcome visit: a gang of street kids who had been harassing him had followed him to see where he lived, and they exploited his night alone to “send him a message”. They wreaked the place and beat him, and even shaved his hair so that his head spelled “FAG”. When Harper came back, she did what she always did: she fixed everything, pieces of furniture and objects, but also her brother, shaving her own head in a similar way. Cullen, however, didn’t feel safe anymore. As he finally got out of the house again, he was accompanied by Harper, but the gang attacked them nevertheless: the girl tried to fight back, and knocked a couple of them out with a home-made taser, but they were too many… and that’s when Batman came. As a modern knight in shining armor, he sent away the attackers, and warned them never to harass the Row siblings again. Cullen was starstruck, and he became an instant fanboy; his sister was just the same. They started thinking of ways to honor their savior, but while he planned to get a bat-symbol tattoo, his sister moved the thing much further, using her engineering skills to actively aid Batman in his crusade, willing or not. Oblivious to what was happening, Cullen would have felt in first person the perks of having a superhero sister soon after: when kids all over the Narrows started feeling ill, Harper knew there was something wrong, and she realized that some nanobots had been released in the neighborhood, mind-controlling the victims. Even Cullen was infected by the nanobots, and he became the puppet in the hands of an unseen puppet master… the Mad Hatter, a villain expert in mind-control techniques. Red Robin and a new heroine named Bluebird eventually managed to free Cullen and the others from the nanobots, but this was only the first of a new strand of traumatic events right behind the corner. Luckily enough, there were also good things coming for Cullen, including a handsome boyfriend, Bluff… who had some shady ties to the criminal Royal Flush Gang.

Cullen Row is a smart and sensitive young man, one who has suffered much and who keeps on smiling despite all the pain still lingering in his heart. Despite his understandable devotion to his sister and a naturally good heart, Cullen is also quite gullible, and shows a dangerous fascination with evil: first he became an unwilling henchman for the Mad Hatter, then he started dating the Ace of Diamonds from the Royal Flush Gang, then he became a follower of Punchline, the new girlfriend of The Joker… not exactly a reassuring resume.