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

[Restingvoice]

The Nightwings, I presume
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[Restingvoice]

Paolo Pantalena

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This reminds me of Superman Truth. It was the beginning of the end for New 52 Superman if I'm not mistaken. They pretty much mercy killed him after Truth and Savage Dawn ends.

[oasis1313]

At least the hair is beginning to grow out again.

[byrd156]

You say that but creative team after creative team across different editors the same problems continue to happen. Creators constantly struggling to figure out what do with in these concepts. They feel fundamentally broken.

It sure feels like it but come on we know it's not. It's a string of half-assed projects that keep getting interrupted by other storylines or editorial interference. You have Abnett who can barely write any of the Titans but can't write Dick at all. (Honestly think he has a worse voice for Donna but I digress) You have constant writing teams shifted around or phased out to finish up storylines they weren't a part of.

If we were getting fully written consistent arcs that were straight up garbage then yeah I would agree. But recently we haven't we get change after change with barely a constant status quo. Jobs change, the look and style of Bludhaven changes, etc.

This series starts by tying it in with some past Grayson ideas and Batgirl. Mix in some familiar and new is always the best way to kick off a book. Having Raptor being built up was great and he feels like a legitimate Dick Grayson villain like Lady Vic and Blockbuster. Then we immediately move into The Night of the Monster Men crossover. 5 issues into a new series and it's already a crossover, that's not good. But then they shift into a Superman and Nightwing story that reestablishes their relationship and does a lot of character work that leads to him heading to Bludhaven. Another good idea focusing on familiar and yet different.

It takes 10 issues to get to Bludhaven, I liked the build up to get there and Dick's supporting cast was introduced and used well in the 6 part set-up for Bluhaven. It establishes a bit of how the newest incarnation of Bludhaven looks and feels, while setting up the run-offs and other side characters in Dick's life. All the while having looks of quick guest appearances that feel natural like Starfire, Wally, Babs, etc.

Then Nightwing Must Die, a 5 part arc that takes a dive into DickBats history which is another smart move since it's another beloved era of the character. Familiar villains are reused and Dick and Damian team up all the while introducing this idea of the multiverse that could be explored more by Dick. Exploring what makes Dick Grayson, Dick Grayson. This is probably my favorite arc of the series so far, it felt the most unique doing a bunch of cool Morrison things while highlighting a lot of positives and negatives about Dick and making him over come those negatives. Then ending with a focus on the lessons and effects that Shawn, Dick and Damian learned.

Then we have a one off issue team-up about Dick and Wally which is alright but very long overdue. Had some good character moments and is just a nice issue to read.

Blockbuster (4 issues) , Spyral (3 issues), and then Raptor's Revenge (5 issues) I think are the last great arcs of this Rebirth Nightwing. Blockbuster builds off of what came before in Bludhaven and reintroduces how crime and bigger villains work in this city. Dick fighting Blockbuster was fun, so was everything that happened on the submarine. Then we go back to more Spyral stuff, teaming up with Huntress, romantic issues that Dick fans always love to talk about. Mr. Minos, Tiger, and the Skull Girls are back. At the end of Spyral turns out it was all to free Raptor. All these arcs kept building off of each other, there was high action and drama but quiet moments too. Leading to a team up of all the major villains which I thought was handled extremely well. After Seeley is off the book that's when everything starts to fall apart.

There was one tie in to Gotham Resistance during this but it was largely ignored but still unneeded.

Then we move onto Humphries take on the character which changes a lot of what Seeley was building up about Bludhaven. Granted it's still a gambling town but it's lost a lot of the grime and seaside town feel it had mixed into it. There are a few times where it feels very seaside but not a lot. Dick decides to become a cross fit trainer instead of helping out at a community center. He did break up with Shawn but he could always go to another or she could just leave to get away or you play into that drama. It felt like an unnecessary change because the cross fit stuff barely comes into play in the story at all. There were other good ideas that Humphries thought of like having the Judge be a villain Dick fought long ago, Baby Ruthless being an old Bludhaven Vigilante, Guppy, etc. He had good ideas but he only got one arc that lasted 7 issues. The arc didn't feel as tight as everything that came before but I wouldn't call it bad. Just a lot of missed opportunities.

Then everything seemingly goes to s***. We have three issues in a row with different creative teams. One a story Damian tells that isn't very good followed by a fun team-up between Dick, Roy, and Damian which doesn't really go anywhere. It's filler but it's fun filler which I would rather have over long arcs like the Judge that are wasting potential. Then we get into Percy's stuff.

I personally don't like what he's been doing, his Dick feels incredibly off to me. The whole anti-tech thing is just wrong on so many levels and the whole arc Dick feels like he's in the passenger seat of Babs' story. I like the idea of the arc, a villain using all this tech to terrorize the city and what not. Then we get the tie-in with the Bat wedding that goes nowhere but again is another fun filler which has a Dick that feels like himself (written by Seeley of course). Then Percy's out of story goes on and isn't very good. He introduces the idea of a mobile command center which is cool and does a short 2 issues crossover with Silencer that feels very rushed which leads into the now infamous Ric arc that is just DC scrambling to figure out what to do next.

What was my point explaining everything we have gotten before? Well it's because all the solid, great character work Dick has had since the reboot has been from a writer who loves and understands the character. It honestly feels like Seeley is one of the only guys at DC that can actually write Dick without making him either emo and annoying, out of touch and stupid, or over-bearing and ineffectual. I bet if Higgins wasn't restrained by the terrible mismanagement of what the overall history was, the crappy red and black, and literally every other roadblock he had to deal with we would have a had an incredible run from him. We have had good Nightwing stuff since the reboot, these concepts are not broken, I know they work because I have seen them work and enjoyed them.

[oasis1313]

I agree with many of your points. Dick shines best when his adventures are being chronicled by a scribe who really cares about him, as Seeley obviously did. I think a big part of Dick Grayson's popularity is that his fans LOVE him and when he's written by someone who not only doesn't care about the character--but is even out-spoken in his LOATHING of the assignment--you don't get lemonade out of those lemons. I didn't like Percy's notion that Dick is a luddite with computers; he's been using some of the most advanced systems (the best Bruce Wayne's endless money) can buy; maybe Dick PREFERS to reach out and punch somebody, but it demeans the character to say he's a cyberphobe or hint he's too dumb to use computers. The whole thing was building up Batgirl--at Dick's expense, as usual. Then Silencer is pushed--again, at Dick's expense. Dick's book is HIS; he shouldn't be undermined in it. A lot of people--like me--only bought the Titans book to support Nightwing. Could you imagine landing the plum job of writing Uncanny X-Men, then telling the boss, "I don't like Wolverine so I'm not going to write him in this book." The whole thing could be fixed by Didio waving his magic wand and telling the creative team: "Put some luster on it." If I was in Didio's place, I would order ALL my creative staff to make their characters palatable to the customers. Maybe I would give them sales quotas to meet. There are good writers outside the Old Boys' Network who would be THRILLED to write such iconic characters.

[byrd156]

He starts talking about Nightwing around 26:00.

[Badou]

What was my point explaining everything we have gotten before? Well it's because all the solid, great character work Dick has had since the reboot has been from a writer who loves and understands the character. It honestly feels like Seeley is one of the only guys at DC that can actually write Dick without making him either emo and annoying, out of touch and stupid, or over-bearing and ineffectual. I bet if Higgins wasn't restrained by the terrible mismanagement of what the overall history was, the crappy red and black, and literally every other roadblock he had to deal with we would have a had an incredible run from him. We have had good Nightwing stuff since the reboot, these concepts are not broken, I know they work because I have seen them work and enjoyed them.

Seely is someone who hated Bludhaven and Blockbuster. I think he disliked them for very similar reasons I do. He originally did not want to write Rebirth Nightwing because he was going to be forced to move Dick back to Bludhaven by management. He only agreed to write it if he could completely redesign the setting as he saw fit. He was someone that disliked Bludhaven, Blockbuster, and was not nostalgic for the Dixon era to return. Someone perfect to redesign it. I think he did as well as anyone could have done (under the circumstances) to try and fix these concepts and create something that could last, but despite that the concept still failed. Again. As it did pre-New 52. Making it look more like Atlantic City/Vegas makes it look nicer, and tries to change to tone to fit Dick's character more, but this is just putting paint over a broken foundation to fix it. These aren't new problems unique to the reboot, but are foundational problems that have been around for a long time.

There are two main problems with Bludhaven that cause it to be broken. Guess we have a new appreciation thread and I can repeat my views on all this. One is that there is nothing of value in Bludhaven outside of Dick. It is a wasteland of nothing. There are no villains worth anything, no organizations, no other heroes, and no other characters in general that hold any real value there. So when a new writer comes on the book they struggle to try and develop anything because there is so little to work with. Blockbuster isn't enough to carry it all and he isn't much. They will drag some villains from Gotham in for an arc or try something new like with the Dark Web or the Judge, but nothing sticks because writers come in and out and want to try adding their own ideas given how little there is to really work with and it mostly feels like poor imitations of average Nightwing runs we already had, or doing stories that Batman, Spider-man, or Daredevil have already done and done better.

It also creates a situation where creators aren't interested in the property because what little there is isn't appealing to them. There is nothing there to attract creators to want to work on the property too or want to stay long term when other books become available. I think if you gave creators the option to write a Nightwing solo and could do anything with it most, if not the vast majority, would take the character out of Bludhaven where there are more resources available to them rather than anchoring him to such a wasteland. He was a character that wasn't designed to be locked to a setting like Bludhaven, imo, and works better the more freedom he has to move.

The second major problem is that Dick has no major connection to Bludhaven as a setting. It holds no real value to him as a character other than that is just randomly where Dixon decided to set his Nightwing solo series and that is where DC thinks Dick should be, but DC wants Dick to hold Bludhaven in the same regard Bruce holds Gotham or Spider-man NYC. It doesn't work. Dick wasn't born in Bludhaven, he wasn't raised in Bludhaven, none of his family is from Bludhaven, no normal job that ties him to Bludhaven, he didn't create any of his hero identities in Bludhaven, and none of his friends or long standing love interests are from Bludhaven. There is zero reason why he would care so much about it. To get him back there for Rebirth they had to bring in Superman who was from the pre-New 52 universe to tell him that is where he used to be in the old continuity and he went back there. Then gave him a love interest in Shawn to keep him there. Creators constantly have to find excuses to keep him there instead of it being a natural fit for the character that he is intrinsically drawn to.

I think Seeley is aware of these issues and he knew he couldn't really give Dick some deep connection to Bludhaven. So he decided to switch it up. He could change Blockbuster's history and he decided to give him some deep emotional connection to Bludhaven and hope that would help tie Dick to the city more through Blockbuster. It was a good idea, but not strong enough to fix these problems. Seeley also tried to balance the book with one Bludhaven arc and one globetrotting arc, but I think he struggled to balance that and is when the book started to fall apart for him.

I said at the start of Rebirth that Bludhaven wasn't going to work, and 2 years later here we are having all these problems with the setting. No one knows what to do with Dick in Bludhaven, struggling with reasons for why he is even there, and no real central idea has been strong enough to really stick. This Lobdell story with Scarecrow and the multiple Nightwings isn't going to fix anything. A year from now, two years, or five years from now the same problems will continue because to really fix Bludhaven you have to completely demolish the entire concept and built it up into something where it is valuable for Dick to be there, and be a setting that creators are drawn to, but I don't think DC will ever do that. They will continue on like they are for a number of years until they give someone the green light to set Dick somewhere else for a while probably.

As for Higgins, I do think he is one of the very few creators who genuinely loves the character (I think most writers say they do just to win over fans), but after listening to podcasts and disagreeing with a lot of his story ideas I think it was for the best that management stepped in. Like the idea of him wanting to make Tony Zucco into Dick's own Joker and then have Dick nearly beat him to death with his fists while in Chicago, or things he did do like having Dick buy Haly's Circus, killing Mr Haly, and burning it to the ground. So I'm a bit torn on him as a Nightwing writer. He is better than he was at the start of the New 52, but some of his takes I'm iffy on.

[oasis1313]

A decent paycheck should be plenty of incentive to do a good job at anything you're hired for.

[Badou]

A decent paycheck should be plenty of incentive to do a good job at anything you're hired for.

No one is saying they aren't trying, or working hard, but that doesn't stop creators from seeking better opportunities if given the option.

[oasis1313]

No one is saying they aren't trying, or working hard, but that doesn't stop creators from seeking better opportunities if given the option.

You're absolutely right, Badou. "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen." We just have to wait for someone to come along who will write with Grayson's best interests at heart. What the hey, I haven't missed an appearance of Dick Grayson in well over sixty years and I've seen him written in both wonderful and rotten manners. I'm encouraged by Fabian being on board and willing to give him a chance. Nightwing needs my money.

[Godlike13]

What creators might wat to do with Bludhaven doesn’t even matter at this point. They won’t let them do anything, and even if they do they toss it out with the next creator shift cause it’s editors can’t manage any semblance of consistenty to actually build onto or accomplish anything.

Fabian being on board to help Lobdell kill time till cancellation is hardly comforting. I find it quite discouraging. It’s just makes it more clear that this so called next evolution of Dick Grayson is really just a managerial mess they are throwing whomever they can find at to make deadlines at this point.

[oasis1313]

What creators might wat to do with Bludhaven doesn’t even matter at this point. They won’t let them do anything, and even if they do they toss it out with the next creator shift cause it’s editors can’t manage any semblance of consistenty to actually build onto or accomplish anything.

Fabian being on board to help Lobdell kill time till cancellation is hardly comforting. I find it quite discouraging. It’s just makes it more clear that this so called next evolution of Dick Grayson is really just a managerial mess they are throwing whomever they can find at to make deadlines at this point.

I've survived managerial messes at work plenty of times and so has Dick Grayson. A lot of things going on at DC right now are VERY discouraging--particularly the lack of professionalism. I just keep telling myself that if Dick can survive the Hitler Era, he can handle this.

[Rac7d*]

I am likin the dick origin in titans

[dropkickjake]

Seely is someone who hated Bludhaven and Blockbuster. ... They will continue on like they are for a number of years until they give someone the green light to set Dick somewhere else for a while probably.

I remember during Higgins run we were all clamoring to get him out of Gotham. Bludhaven was nice under Seeley's pen, but every creator treating it like a blank slate is whats killing us. We'd need the Bat Editor to demand bludhaven stay consistent, but a certain characterization of the city into the series bible.

As for Higgins, I do think he is one of the very few creators who genuinely loves the character (I think most writers say they do just to win over fans), but after listening to podcasts and disagreeing with a lot of his story ideas I think it was for the best that management stepped in. Like the idea of him wanting to make Tony Zucco into Dick's own Joker and then have Dick nearly beat him to death with his fists while in Chicago, or things he did do like having Dick buy Haly's Circus, killing Mr Haly, and burning it to the ground. So I'm a bit torn on him as a Nightwing writer. He is better than he was at the start of the New 52, but some of his takes I'm iffy on.

I think that Higgins could do a great job on Nightwing now, actually. He seemed to get a real handle on the character by the time he departed. He'd need a good direction and licence to stick to it. I actually liked his idea of having Dick live in Amusement Mile. That would be great, assuming he was a globe trotter with AM as his home.

[Badou]

I remember during Higgins run we were all clamoring to get him out of Gotham. Bludhaven was nice under Seeley's pen, but every creator treating it like a blank slate is whats killing us. We'd need the Bat Editor to demand bludhaven stay consistent, but a certain characterization of the city into the series bible.

But there isn't really anything in Bludhaven worth being consistent. There is very little there that creators are drawn to reusing over trying something of their own creation. Even Seeley's take on it ran its course quickly, but I think the big reason why people wanted Dick out of Gotham wasn't because of Gotham itself but because Dick wasn't allowed out into the DCU. He was cut off from the DCU and was locked into Gotham or Chicago where he had no reach into the greater universe.

I think that Higgins could do a great job on Nightwing now, actually. He seemed to get a real handle on the character by the time he departed. He'd need a good direction and licence to stick to it. I actually liked his idea of having Dick live in Amusement Mile. That would be great, assuming he was a globe trotter with AM as his home.

I think it was a massive mistake to have Dick buy Haly's Circus and set the character in amusement mile. The circus works as a place where Dick can occasionally return to for brief periods to reset himself. I don't think it works as a place to set the character permanently and Higgins very quickly ran into a lot of problems when he tried to focus so much of his run there. Sure some of it had to do with how much they were setting up the Owls, but overall it didn't work and he ended up burning it all down to get away from it.