Dick Grayson: Robin, Nightwing, Agent of Spyral Appreciation 2018

[Avi]

There was no plan in the early days of Grayson. It was an idea passed down to the bat office from the higher ups that they wanted to get rid of Nightwing. There was plenty of confusion from the moment they got out of the gate. At first the idea was that Dick was just suppose to change his identity but otherwise be business as usual with Dick basically operating under a new identity but effectively being the same. He was even suppose to be in the Batman Eternal which was launching shortly after his "death" in Forever Evil. At some point that idea got dropped and the higher ups passed down the concept of him becoming a secret agent. In the beginning no one even knew who the writer was going to be or what the series would be about, hence all of the different messages we were getting from marketing which people complained about endlessly because of his look and the gun.

Then when we got info on who the writer would be we still weren't sure who would be the writer because Tom King and Tim Seeley were showing up as the writer in different solicits. On top of that they were both sending out very different messages about which direction a Dick Grayson Secret Agent book would even go. It wasn't until the launch of the book got closer and the Nightwing book was drawing to a close that we got the idea that they would both be on the book and got to see their takes on it which drew even more whining because people still didn't like the concept and hated that Bruce and Dick fought in the King side of the story even though Bruce and Dick had come to blows in the past.

imo that is still different. Higher ups planned it in advance, there were measures taken. His "death" was not in the initial equation but Seeley and King still had time to prepair. Lobdell was announced one month before the issue released and the solicitations keep changing again and again. Percy left, the guy that introduces the change in NW. That's as if King wrote Nw#30 and then Seeley wrote Grayson alone (or vice verse).

Yes, Grayson did something new. But if we look at the change then it's just Superhero to Undercover Spy.

For this Amnesia arc it's name change, memory erasure, no superhero identity, changed appearance. And we do know how it ends. The same way Bruce' amnesia did and the same way Grayson ended. With things forgotten or erased and no effect whatsoever.
Problem is I will to 80% not enjoy the journey.
It's neither backed by a liked writer nor by a newcomer. Just a writer who took two runs of a character to make the third run universally accepted.

Yeah, maybe Lobdell learned, maybe he can introduce or bring back characters that have impact on Dick like Artemis and Bizarro had on Jason but we also know that he is appearently only a guest writer(?), so for now it looks as if he does not even have the time and again, he does not even get to introduce Amnesia!Dick.

[yohyoi]

If we make a poll, 97% are probably against the amnesia direction. The only ones for it don't know Dick Grayson or rarely read him.

[yohyoi]

I hate this direction. Even people in Reddit, Twitter and Tumblr agree on how bad it is. Can you imagine how bad everything is for these three to agree? We are living in dark times.

[Godlike13]

Man this fanbase is weird and I'm not sure the character can work this way. There's periods of hard stagnation and general genericism that creates disinterest, lack of discussion. This place becomes a wasteland, tumblr devolves into ship begging and obsessing over fanon, twitter would rather discuss memes. Then there are periods where DC tries to actually produce growth and take chances which are met with loud whining and mass panic.

Pfft, they are not gonna produce growth when they can’t actually even put forth the effort to competently put it together. And they know that. They know they’re in trouble here. That’s why the solicitations became so detailed, and the overall promotion and advertisement has been so bare bones.
We got lucky with Grayson. It’s was a happy accident in a way. At first they didn’t know what to do with it, but at least with Grayson they went out and got ideas. This on the other had is just a mess their initial writer didn’t even want anything to do with. Leaving them to resort to someone who can just get it out.
So of course its met with whining and panic. The more that comes out about it the more it becomes apparent it’s not really about growth and taking chances, something I always championed when it comes to Nightwing, but about getting him out of the way and isolating the character. Why do you think DC isnt doing anything to try an ease the whining or panic. Because they can’t. They don’t have anything that can do that much even.

[Badou]

There was no plan in the early days of Grayson. It was an idea passed down to the bat office from the higher ups that they wanted to get rid of Nightwing. There was plenty of confusion from the moment they got out of the gate. At first the idea was that Dick was just suppose to change his identity but otherwise be business as usual with Dick basically operating under a new identity but effectively being the same. He was even suppose to be in the Batman Eternal which was launching shortly after his "death" in Forever Evil. At some point that idea got dropped and the higher ups passed down the concept of him becoming a secret agent. In the beginning no one even knew who the writer was going to be or what the series would be about, hence all of the different messages we were getting from marketing which people complained about endlessly because of his look and the gun.

Then when we got info on who the writer would be we still weren't sure who would be the writer because Tom King and Tim Seeley were showing up as the writer in different solicits. On top of that they were both sending out very different messages about which direction a Dick Grayson Secret Agent book would even go. It wasn't until the launch of the book got closer and the Nightwing book was drawing to a close that we got the idea that they would both be on the book and got to see their takes on it which drew even more whining because people still didn't like the concept and hated that Bruce and Dick fought in the King side of the story even though Bruce and Dick had come to blows in the past.

Then the Meghan Hetric art pieces came out showing what Tynion had in mind for the Nightwing issue to kick off his run which was just a generic mourning issue, but this produced even more whining because people actually wanted to see people mourn for a person that wasn't actually dead. Even after Tynion basically said he saw no point in a Nighwing solo book people were begging for his take because he wanted the Nightwing book to basically become a team up book instead. It wasn't well after all this when he started going hard on the boy band mentality with the Robins that people started to sour on him writing Dick.

After the first issue of Grayson/ last issue of Nightwing there was tons of whining because people wanted only Tim Seeley to be the writer and thought Tom King's take was too grim because of the Dick vs Bruce fight. So every issue Tom King wrote in the early days was met with rants and huffing and puffing. Then there were complaints about Dick showing too much skin, being to powerful in the series, not being powerful enough, too happy go lucky at times, the changes to Helena, that the first 8-12 issues didn't have much of a plot, there were complaints about the art, people wanting the finger stripes back. It never really ended until the book itself ended.

No one was sure where the Grayson thing was headed in the beginning. It was pretty much exactly like what the amnesia thing with higher ups wanting a new direction for the character. Like people complain at length about Dick not being given opportunities big opportunities but also fear the character doing anything he hasn't been doing for the last 30 years or so when he saw his last previous major switch up when he moved to being Nightwing.

Grayson is the complete opposite of this situation. DC and the new Batman editor at the time dropped the Tynion Nightwing book idea and put Dick's character and book on hiatus for a few months while they planned a new direction. They came back with a new direction with him as a spy in Spyral and a creative team attached. Then Grayson was one of the books DC was launching with their DCYou campaign. Sure, we got lucky in that the quickly put together direction and book worked out, but that isn't what we are getting here. Percy walked off and DC dumped Lobdell on the book to write an editorial mandated story dealing with the fallout of Dick getting shot in the head. There is no plan or structure in place like there was with the Grayson creative team where you can see what the direction and plan is.

[Rakiduam]

Man this fanbase is weird and I'm not sure the character can work this way. There's periods of hard stagnation and general genericism that creates disinterest, lack of discussion. This place becomes a wasteland, tumblr devolves into ship begging and obsessing over fanon, twitter would rather discuss memes. Then there are periods where DC tries to actually produce growth and take chances which are met with loud whining and mass panic.

More open disappointment than mass panic. If they were aiming to growth they wouldn't need to regress the character to a blank state.

It is disenchantment and distrust. Just look at the comments, most people that liked it aren't interested in the character as Jason's fans and the person that only likes Nightwing year one.

At the beginning of Grayson they at least did promotion, unfortunately it was Dick with a gun in his hand because DC marketing is in most cases ery incompetent, but they at least had something to sell.

[Badou]

Also I hate that we still get the shit New 52 Robin suit. Just to add insult to injury on this whole mess, lol.

[Armor of God]

Well, for what its worth Tomasi said that we should expect to see Nightwing and Damian on Tec. Lets hope he ignores everything.

[oasis1313]

So of course its met with whining and panic. The more that comes out about it the more it becomes apparent it’s not really about growth and taking chances, something I always championed when it comes to Nightwing, but about getting him out of the way and isolating the character. Why do you think DC isnt doing anything to try an ease the whining or panic. Because they can’t. They don’t have anything that can do that much even.

I think they LIKE the whining and panic. The more alienated and depressed Grayson fans, the easier to get rid of them along with the character.

[LP22]

Great now ric doesn't remember Jason,now how am I supposed to get that red hood/nightwing team up book...unless the same writer writes both books (trying to be positive here and I love Scott L red hood so hopefully he'll write a good nightwing book)

[oasis1313]

Great now ric doesn't remember Jason,now how am I supposed to get that red hood/nightwing team up book...unless the same writer writes both books (trying to be positive here and I love Scott L red hood so hopefully he'll write a good nightwing book)

Right now Scott Lobdell is my only ray of hope in this thing.

[WhipWhirlwind]

I think they LIKE the whining and panic. The more alienated and depressed Grayson fans, the easier to get rid of them along with the character.

Yeah this is where I'm at.

Unless they involve Dick or Tim in directions I can support I'm not buying bat comics. I'll likely purchase the first issue of Scott's book depending on reviews but I'm tired of going along for the ride only for it to either suck or get aborted 12 issues in because of something going on with Batman.

[Moonwix]

Well, for what its worth Tomasi said that we should expect to see Nightwing and Damian on Tec. Lets hope he ignores everything.

This is great news. Look forward to that.

[byrd156]

Man this fanbase is weird and I'm not sure the character can work this way. There's periods of hard stagnation and general genericism that creates disinterest, lack of discussion. This place becomes a wasteland, tumblr devolves into ship begging and obsessing over fanon, twitter would rather discuss memes. Then there are periods where DC tries to actually produce growth and take chances which are met with loud whining and mass panic.

How is throwing literally everything about the character out and doing something wildly out of character create actual growth? Character growth only works if it builds off of what came before, acting like the past doesn't matter gets us garbage like the New 52.

[byrd156]

Also I hate that we still get the shit New 52 Robin suit. Just to add insult to injury on this whole mess, lol.

The slight changes to it make it a little better (doesn't mean it's good) but the best part is they can't even keep the suit consistent in the same damn book.

Screen Shot 2018-10-03 at 3.16.48 PM.jpg

Screen Shot 2018-10-03 at 3.17.07 PM.jpg

In the flashback he has the normal stripes dow the middle but the suit in the case has the lame sideways ones.