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[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5133716]Agreed. Beyond BTAS, it isn't that good of a representation.
- I don't care for the JSA all that much, especially the "all the Golden Age characters except for the really important ones are tied firmly to WWII but are still around now and only have kids in their 20s" set up of post-Crisis. They work better on Earth-2. Outside of Jay interacting with the Flashes, they don't have any impact outside of their own little corner anyway.
- There shouldn't have been any sidekicks after Dick's generation.
- Dick may have been better off just getting the Neal Adams Robin costume and keeping the identity back in the NTT era, because Nightwing will never measure up to Robin in importance
- COIE was needed at the time but has had a terrible legacy that ruined a lot of characters
- Byrne's influence on Superman and Miller's influence on Batman are both terrible and the characters need to be pried from their grip (easier said than done at this point). Perez is better for Wonder Woman, ideally she should be more of a solid mix between him and Marston than purely one or the other.
- Morrison writes a better Hal Jordan then Johns
- I can enjoy Flash as either Barry or Wally. As long as they have the iconic red costume and battling the Rogues or talking gorillas, I'm generally satisfied.
- Both the Super [I]Marriage[/I] (usually as written) and the romance with Wonder Woman are boring. Lois in general is still the best Super love interest though.[/QUOTE]
What would a Batman devoid of Miller's influence even look like nowadays?
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[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5163314]The Robin mantle being Batman's Internship Program instead of being an identity unique to and intrinsically tied to Dick Grayson has done more damage to his character than Batman sticking around and being ageless ever could.
The identity should have been retired in main comic canon once he became Nightwing. Whatever has been done with the other characters who wore the mantle, the desire to pass it on was borne from an out of universe reason (needing to keep the brand iconography alive) rather than an in universe one.[/QUOTE]
I agre. I'd go further though and say Dick should keep being 'Robin' even after he goes his own way. 'Robin' is his superhero identity and its hella iconic.
I love Damien, but really Dick should be the only 'Robin'. Batman can have other associates over time, but not other 'Robins', and they don't need to be kids. Nothing about Jason or Tim required them to be children.
Damien makes sense as a child companion because he's Batman's legit son, but Batman shouldn't really want him in the field unless accompanied by him.
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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5163601]What would a Batman devoid of Miller's influence even look like nowadays?[/QUOTE]
Bronze Age to (really) early Post Crisis. He still broody, keeps to himself, and keep secrets sometimes but he also smiles and laughs openly alongside Dick and Alfred. It's not like current Batman is completely devoid of emotion, but it's very rare.
There's no such thing as Batman Can't Be Happy that King and Didio portray
Visually there's less focus on Gotham being a crap sack noir city. It's a normal city with a normal level of criminality, and there's a bit more color. The villains are still funny and not trying to outdo each other in being scary or sadistic.
Although Joker would still escalate because we're only discounting Miller, not Alan Moore
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[QUOTE=Timothy Hunter;5163601]What would a Batman devoid of Miller's influence even look like nowadays?[/QUOTE]
It's hard to tell because Miller's take is so popular. Who knows if the character would be around still without his iconic work inspiring other stuff? I know I'm probably in the minority, but I have to wonder if the cost of turning Batman into an increasingly dark and abusive edgelord that can fall into fascist power fantasies is worth the increase in popularity and good stuff we got.
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I think the notion that Dick should've stayed Robin is completely ridiculous, yes the mantle belongs to him but Nightwing looks a hell of a lot better than an adult Robin does.
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[QUOTE=9th.;5163990]I think the notion that Dick should've stayed Robin is completely ridiculous, yes the mantle belongs to him but Nightwing looks a hell of a lot better than an adult Robin does.[/QUOTE]
Depends on how the Robin costume is tweaked. Some modern Robin outfits are easier to take seriously than OG Discowing for example.
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[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5164187]Depends on how the Robin costume is tweaked. Some modern Robin outfits are easier to take seriously than OG Discowing for example.[/QUOTE]
Jimmy as sidekick didn't fare very well compared to robin who became nightwing . Jimmy has stagnated. So much so the character has no role in larger dcu. That's not something i want to happen to dick.
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[QUOTE=Flash Gordon;5163607]I agre. I'd go further though and say Dick should keep being 'Robin' even after he goes his own way. 'Robin' is his superhero identity and its hella iconic.
I love Damien, but really Dick should be the only 'Robin'. Batman can have other associates over time, but not other 'Robins', and they don't need to be kids. Nothing about Jason or Tim required them to be children.
Damien makes sense as a child companion because he's Batman's legit son, but Batman shouldn't really want him in the field unless accompanied by him.[/QUOTE]
I think Tim and Jason being young informed a lot of their experience as Robin because it became about them growing up and bringing their youth and inexperience to the table as Batman's partner, in different ways. You don't really get that with adult partners.
[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5163786]It's hard to tell because Miller's take is so popular. Who knows if the character would be around still without his iconic work inspiring other stuff? I know I'm probably in the minority, but I have to wonder if the cost of turning Batman into an increasingly dark and abusive edgelord that can fall into fascist power fantasies is worth the increase in popularity and good stuff we got.[/QUOTE]
Well, Year One Batman wasn't a dark and abusive edgelord at the very least.
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[QUOTE=9th.;5163990]I think the notion that Dick should've stayed Robin is completely ridiculous, yes the mantle belongs to him but Nightwing looks a hell of a lot better than an adult Robin does.[/QUOTE]
There are people that say that? I thought the argument was on whether or not he should be Batman or whether he should pursue his own legacy.
The only reason why I think he should become Batman is that it'd free up the identity for Chris Kent, but since [B]that's[/B] not happening anytime soon, he should keep it.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;5164369]Well, Year One Batman wasn't a dark and abusive edgelord at the very least.[/QUOTE]
Unfortunately, it's the other little story he did that is a bigger deal:p
[QUOTE=PCN24454;5164495]There are people that say that? I thought the argument was on whether or not he should be Batman or whether he should pursue his own legacy..[/QUOTE]
Those that say he can be an adult Robin usually mean he can still do it away from Batman. "Robin" isn't really a name that denotes a young age (unlike Wonder Girl or Kid Flash) and it has achieved success by being with the Titans.
There isn't really a functional difference between an adult Robin acting solo or with Batman or with the Titans and Nightwing. The former is just the more famous identity that he's actually known for.
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[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5164538]Those that say he can be an adult Robin usually mean he can still do it away from Batman. "Robin" isn't really a name that denotes a young age (unlike Wonder Girl or Kid Flash) and it has achieved success by being with the Titans.
There isn't really a functional difference between an adult Robin acting solo or with Batman or with the Titans and Nightwing. The former is just the more famous identity that he's actually known for.[/QUOTE]
Robin's associated with the "Boy Wonder" epithet so I think youth is associated with the character to some extent, along with being Batman's younger sidekick.
If he were Robin I think there would be more of an expectation of him deferring back to Batman or being in Gotham with Batman than there would be as Nightwing.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;5164591]Robin's associated with the "Boy Wonder" epithet so I think youth is associated with the character to some extent, along with being Batman's younger sidekick.
If he were Robin I think there would be more of an expectation of him deferring back to Batman or being in Gotham with Batman than there would be as Nightwing.[/QUOTE]
But he ends up doing that as Nightwing a lot of the time anyway.
He pretty much is treated as one more of Batman's (now many) foot soldiers, he's just no longer the important one.
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[QUOTE=SiegePerilous02;5164644]But he ends up doing that as Nightwing a lot of the time anyway.
He pretty much is treated as one more of Batman's (now many) foot soldiers, he's just no longer the important one.[/QUOTE]
I think he's treated much differently than he would've been treated had he been Robin though. I mean, Robin's not so much important so much as the one who will mostly like do whatever Batman tells him to, while Dick has more autonomy and can call out Bruce more.
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[QUOTE=Frontier;5164655]I think he's treated much differently than he would've been treated had he been Robin though. I mean, Robin's not so much important so much as the one who will mostly like do whatever Batman tells him to, while Dick has more autonomy and can call out Bruce more.[/QUOTE]
But isn't the main reason we think that because the mantle was passed down to another kid, thus keeping the "Robin must be the kid partner" thing alive? Had Dick remained Robin as an adult but continued not being Batman's partner, who knows what the expectation will be.
Dick-as-Robin was becoming more of an independent operator in the Bronze Age was less likely to do as he was told by the NTT days. He stands up to Bruce a couple times in the first few issues alone. The reason he gave up the identity was more due to the Bat-office wanting the Robin identity back, not as much of a reason in-universe that Robin [I]has[/I] to be Batman's subordinate any longer
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[QUOTE=Frontier;5164591]Robin's associated with the "Boy Wonder" epithet so I think youth is associated with the character to some extent, along with being Batman's younger sidekick.
If he were Robin I think there would be more of an expectation of him deferring back to Batman or being in Gotham with Batman than there would be as Nightwing.[/QUOTE]
Agreed. The Robin mantle is infinitely more iconic than Nightwing, or just about any other superhero name you can think of, but it's iconic only because it's half of "Batman and Robin." Had Dick kept the name going into adulthood, he'd have remained glued to Bruce's hip.
And Siege is right that DC treats Dick like nothing more than a sidekick anyway, but it wasn't always like this, and just because DC is screwing up right now in how they handle Nightwing, that doesn't mean it's how it *has* to be.
Even as Nightwing, Dick has found plenty of success; his comic usually sells better than anything that isn't League or Harley related, he's been in a number of popular larger media adaptations, he's apparently treated like the face of the DCU streaming service....Dick doesn't need the Robin name to be successful, what he needs is a DC who give a damn and recognize that he's not just a sidekick.
Now maybe thirty years ago, if DC had done things differently, it could have worked and Dick could have found autonomy as Robin in a way the Robin name simply couldn't today. Maybe back then there was a chance to remove Robin from "Batman and...." and allow the brand to stand as an independent IP. But that moment has passed, if it ever existed, and Robin is firmly entrenched as Bruce's sidekick regardless of who is in the mask. For good or ill it's a name Dick has outgrown and the sooner DC realizes that (they used to know this! What happened?) the better off we'll all be.