irt my last post this is why i can't stand behind all the "dick is better than bruce because he actually cares about life beyond vigilantism" takes that contemporary canon and many fans are so fond of... come on, character psychology used to make sense... dick has the potential to get much worse. it's the most logical development even.

there's bruce wayne who spent years figuring out the great project of vigilantism and put much thought into the importance of his civilian id. and then there's a child who got introduced into it in the most traumatic moment in his life and routinely claims: "that's a waste of a day for dick grayson. anyways let me change into my robin costume real quick:)!" (<- a rough reiteration of one of his actual lines from pre-crisis comics)

i read a post (that i now can’t find) that said if u mischaracterise dick grayson u then mischaracterise every other batman character and like…. yeah pretty much. he is literally patient zero of every weird fanon take

dick controls so much about how bruce and every successive character operates, thinks, and works with each other that interpreting him badly (whether on purpose or by accident) throws canon completely out of balance. like his relationship with bruce dictates jason being adopted. his particular run as robin dictates every other robin and/or batgirl and auxiliary sidekick. his relationship with bruce post ditf dictates tim’s introduction and run as robin. his run with the titans dictates young justice and tt03. what would gotham be without her robin? on and on and on it goes.

not to say that other characters don’t affect canon obvsly — but i don’t think it’s unfair to say that he is so foundational to how these characters exist that removing his influence corrupts the narrative. where would tim be if he wasn’t a dick grayson fan who recognised the quad? where would jason be if dick hadn’t left robin behind and then accepted him into the role? where would cass and steph and duke be if bruce didn’t have that experience raising dick?

A (Negative) Analysis of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - Introduction

Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography

I want to start this essay by admitting I’m actually embarrassed by its length. Why did I spend so much time on something I dislike? The truth is, I did not begin this with the intention of creating such an extensive, formal study of the Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo’s Nightwing run and how it reflects the wider problems with DC’s handling of one of their most iconic characters. I was just trying to organize the thoughts that came up during discussions with other Dick Grayson fans. Before I knew it, I had enough material, enough desire to challenge myself, and enough frustrations to vent to properly create this monstrosity.

dick and raven are so similar because if (when) either of them had a hallucination i am certain they would go "yikes. well, anyway," and not tell anyone. they'd worry about it. but they would just go on with their lives

Dick getting haunted by a hallucinating telling him to die: :shrug:

been watching young justice

rough sketch - lineart - color

i truly think the dickbats era dick-ra's dynamic is underrated. ra's is out here playing hard to get, like, oh i don't care about you in the slightest, detective, you are nothing to me, i don't care that you are batman's heir and successor or that you've won the love and loyalty of my grandson in a way that i never could or about any of the rest of it, the only one of you bats who truly concerns me is your seventeen-year-old brother

and we don't get a lot of follow-up on this from dick's end, but i think this approach would be surprisingly effective. not because dick cares about the ego hit of ""not being considered a threat"" by ra's, or would even want ra's creepy attentions in the first place. it's simply that if you touch tim, and dick hears about it, you are gonna be eating through a TUBE

#please this is so fucking funny#also i love an inconsistent man#bc rmb those last few issues of nightwing 96#where dick kicks his ass and ras breaks into the cave to drop off a sword for dick#and threatens him and says welcome to the black hole detective#unmatched comedy from ras to simply pretend that none of that happened and tim is his nemesis now#<- PREV#it's because dick so thoroughly rejects him that even ra's just has to be like#'well i guess i have to focus on ANOTHER son'#dick vc: you're pathetic and leave me alone#ra's (actually feeling a little rejected): okay FINE i'll go after your little brother instead#dick: /i will end you/

tags from @/vechter and @/boiwcndr

dick & bruce + LET YOUR FATHER DIE ENERGY DRINK, cecilia corrigan

What's really fun about Batman Year 3 is that the tension throughout is: "is he going to kill Zucco when he gets out of prison ? " and you would think "he" would be the person whose parents got murdered by Zucco... But no, it's Batman. Dick is the voice of reason in all of this, he is horrified when he thinks Bruce let Zucco die.

I also kinda love the contrast between Bruce pre-Jason death where he is violent when he needs to be but he is mostly using his detective skills without destroying people's faces and post-Jason death when the violence increased a lot and it's Dick who plays detective and have a level-head. It's a really nice way to head to lonely place of dying.

Batman Year Three is a favourite storyline of mine, too bad the art is (i mo) subpar.

Unpopular opinion: Dick's temper is not that huge and the moments when he explodes in anger needs to be taken in context of what is actually happening in the comics.

Correct

https://13thdimension.com/flight-of-passage-from-robin-to-nightwing-40-years-later/

EDIT. I notice both Gerry Conway and Marv Wolfman wants to take credit for the idea of letting Dick become Nightwing and create a new Robin for Batman to hang out with...

Gerry Conway:

Marv Wolfmann (from another article at the same website):

bruce and dick are both emotionally repressed but in kind of different but parallel ways. like, the repression that bruce experiences stems from never confronting trauma or any negative emotion, whereas dick's repression stems from needing to be the emotional support for an emotionally repressed man at the ripe age of 9 and so never being able to process any emotions associated with that responsibility

Dick is probably the nicest civilian ever when he’s in Bludhaven and all the little old ladies who bring him baked goods and his coworkers at the station have no idea he spends the night beating criminals half to death with his escrima sticks, has the kind of insane family & family loyalty you can’t buy, and would have the entire Justice League at his side with just one phone call.

I CANT believe no one posted the panels??

reporter looking for dirt on Dick:

#drop the thoughts op

Really, my thoughts boiled down to explaining to this friend (who is primarily a Marvel reader) that the Ric Grayson arc was ~3 years of Dick Grayson being isolated from the rest of the DC community due to amnesia. Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo were the team who were getting Nightwing back in the saddle, which resulted in Taylor putting a heavy emphasis on Dick's connections to the greater universe. There is a lot of Babs, since she's one of his most important friends and a long term romantic interest. There's a good amount of Steph and Cass, since Babs was also starring in Batgirls for a while, which made casual crossovers easy. Tim would pop in and out. Taylor also wrote Son of Kal-El, so there were a few crossovers with Jon Kent. There are Titans appearances/stories. I think these were all very intentional responses to the preceding era, but a common resulting complaint is that at times Nightwing felt more like a "buddy book" than a solo. There were also criticisms that characters weren't being used to their full potential, which tbh is just a weakness of teamups in general. Nightwing also crossed over into several events during Taylor's tenure: Fear State and Knight Terrors and Beast World are the big ones, but Dark Crisis happened in there, as did the more casual aforementioned crossovers with SoK-E and Batgirls.

I think another thing that Taylor focused on was a more slice of life approach, aiming for something a little more fluffy and wholesome than the book's previous tone (and indeed, the tone of most Bat-books). This had mixed reactions from fans. Does it make sense as an artistic choice, to tone shift away from the grim and grittiness of getting shot in the head and forgetting everyone you love (and rejecting their attempts to be in your life)? I think so, but that doesn't mean that people will like it.

One of the other big criticisms that folks have (which admittedly I wholeheartedly share) is the pacing. Maybe it's because of the fluffier approach, maybe it's just not Taylor's strength. I think this book moves so slowly. The "big bad" was introduced two years and 34 issues ago, and in Heartless' 14 appearances he has done only slightly more than nothing. I think part of the pacing problem comes from the events, in service of reconnecting Nightwing to the broader universe, but honestly I don't think that explains enough of it. The pacing is... choppy, let's say.

I did specifically praise the art, because this book's art has been so good. I will sing the praises of Bruno Redondo's work forever, and even when he departed the art stayed consistently good. And as I've said elsewhere, I really like the more bold artistic experiments that Nightwing has done. #87's "single panel" approach was SO cool. #105's "first person POV" was additionally a really interesting approach. Neither are something that I think would work for every issue of a run, but I like that these issues celebrate the artistic medium and do something so interesting.

But yeah in conclusion:

This is a small moment, but one I loved. The Titans are all helping out in the aftermath of a major disaster, they're each doing their parts and I love that we see Donna and Kory doing heavy lifting, we hear about Garth and Vic and Raven saving people, and then there's Dick, who helps a kid and makes it personal. That's Dick Grayson for you, someone who walks with Titans, who leads Titans, all these larger than life people, but who takes the time to connect to a kid on the street. Dick walks in both worlds, the epic one of these nigh-godly characters, but also street level moments and care. Not that all the Titans don't, they're sticking around to keep helping, but you really feel that personal connection with Dick, who has so much of himself to give and does so freely.

dick grayson moodboard part 1