Dick Grayson: Robin, Nightwing, Batman, Agent of Spyral Appreciation 2019

[OWL45]

Finallyyyy... something! I can't believe it took them this long to do this. The Court swooping in to make him a Talon should've been day one.

I agree but I’m also happy they are doing something with the character. The past few months have been rough. This sounds interesting and has potential.

[K. Jones]

Why is the Robin R Tim's design?

Tangent ... Tim's supposed to get a new superhero name but it doesn't look especially like he'll get a costume change, unless the solicits and cover art are all secret surprise lies.

So what are the odds he finally gets a codename that starts with "R" like Redbird or Redwing?

[Badou]

I still think this is just Jurgens writing whatever DC editorial tells him to. I don't think he has any investment in this story. Though I said from the very beginning that it made zero sense for "Ric" to go back to Bludhaven. As he has zero connection there and the way they set it up it would be the last place he would want to go if he is trying to get away from Dick's life. He should have gone back to the circus, or what is left of it, from the start if he is trying to find some direction. It is so frustrating how they wrote this garbage story.

[Ascended]

Well, if nothing else Jurgens is a real pro. I'm sure he got handed this assignment not because he's interested or invested in the direction but because he's an employee and his bosses told him this was the gig. But that said, he doesn't seem the kind of guy to half-ass a job even if he's not really feeling the story. So I wouldn't be surprised if this is Jurgens just trying to make the most of the situation he and the character have been put in. If he's stuck writing this idiotic Ric stuff, he'll at least try to make it worthwhile.

Now, whether Jurgens can actually make this readable is another thing entirely, but it seems to me that he's at least going to do the best he can with what he's got, which is more than I can say for editorial.

[K. Jones]

I still think this is just Jurgens writing whatever DC editorial tells him to. I don't think he has any investment in this story. Though I said from the very beginning that it made zero sense for "Ric" to go back to Bludhaven. As he has zero connection there and the way they set it up it would be the last place he would want to go if he is trying to get away from Dick's life. He should have gone back to the circus, or what is left of it, from the start if he is trying to find some direction. It is so frustrating how they wrote this garbage story.

Said this in the Superman thread, but ...

Dick is Leviathan and "Ric" is just DC running out the bad storyline to be the perfect red herring for the big twist in the Bendis story.

[Pohzee]

Said this in the Superman thread, but ...

Dick is Leviathan and "Ric" is just DC running out the bad storyline to be the perfect red herring for the big twist in the Bendis story.

I saw that and I think there may be some interesting credence to this.

Take for example the conversations with the heroes in the Leviathan promo.

Batman: Your war on crime accomplishes nothing. I've tried it your way.

He addresses Batgirl as Barbara and she is the first person he tries to convince to join his cause.

Plastic Man: You and I were born into a broken world and it almost killed us. We both figured out we needed to start over.

And then of course the Spyral/Leviathan connection from Grayson.

Some of this is pretty generic and not strong evidence, but I'm still kinda hoping for it because literally anything else is better than what we have right now. Particularly anything spy related or that puts Dick in a place of importance in the DCU (which he isn't right now.)

[Godlike13]

If only...

[jules]

Said this in the Superman thread, but ...

Dick is Leviathan and "Ric" is just DC running out the bad storyline to be the perfect red herring for the big twist in the Bendis story.

Can’t be true though. Dick is always unavailable for event stories. :-)

Except if he’s scheduled to die in them, so let’s hope that if it should turn out to be him that that isn’t on the cards for an ending.

That qualification aside, I could get behind this idea. Given the various familial, personal and professional relationships and clashes that the Bat family have had with Spyral/Leviathan, they should have a strong involvement with this story, and I’d love to see Dick regain his spy associations, even if he’s still in a state of some confusion.

Of course I’d like the character to be recognisable enough to convince me to buy his title again even more, but... tiny steps.

I remain glad that I switched entirely to digital some years back, so that I could buy based on preview pages and word of mouth rather than have to commit to something I might hate 3 months in advance, but I’d really like to be able to buy a DC title again. I’ve always been primarily a DC reader, but right now so many of my favourite characters are dead, brain dead, or cancelled that I’ve pretty much soured on them and run screaming to Marvel for comfort. Never thought that would happen.

[dietrich]

August 2019

Attachment 82479NIGHTWING #63

written by DAN JURGENS
art by TRAVIS MOORE
cover by BRUNO REDONDO
variant cover by WARREN LOUW
While the Nightwings recover from their last battle against the fiendish Burnback, Ric reflects on the small portion of his past that he remembers—life in the circus as the youngest member of the Flying Graysons—in hopes of finding any clues as to what kind of man his parents hoped he’d become…perhaps a certain Talon has the answers he seeks?

that's an awesome cover and the solicits sounds like baby steps to getting Dick Grayson back to himself.

I like the Grayson as Leviathan split personality idea. Makes more sense than the Red Hood with Dick's background as Agent 37

[DGraysonWorldsGreatestSpy]

Dick being Leviathan is interesting but highly unlikely, since the COIE any event evolving Dick was either bad for him or to use him for Batman and while Bendis has no outright bias against Dick, Ric by August is just getting into Another Court Of Owls plot so it will have to be some kind of Duplicate/Doppelgänger

[lemonpeace]

I just got in on the Ric Grayson saga to see what's gotten all the Nightwing fans so riled up and surprisingly it's not bad; it's actually pretty good. The dialogue can be stronger here and there but it's nothing so bad that it takes me completely out of it and the ideas are always there. I like the characters behind the new team of Nightwings, particularly Sap and Hutch. It feels like Sap is doomed to fall morally or die tragically and they are setting up Hutch for a role fighting next to Dick after Ric returns to being Dick/Nightwing but i could be wrong.

[Badou]

I saw that and I think there may be some interesting credence to this.

Take for example the conversations with the heroes in the Leviathan promo.

Batman: Your war on crime accomplishes nothing. I've tried it your way.

He addresses Batgirl as Barbara and she is the first person he tries to convince to join his cause.

Plastic Man: You and I were born into a broken world and it almost killed us. We both figured out we needed to start over.

And then of course the Spyral/Leviathan connection from Grayson.

Some of this is pretty generic and not strong evidence, but I'm still kinda hoping for it because literally anything else is better than what we have right now. Particularly anything spy related or that puts Dick in a place of importance in the DCU (which he isn't right now.)

I'd be fine with anything else, but I don't think Batman editorial will allow it. Who knows though.

I just got in on the Ric Grayson saga to see what's gotten all the Nightwing fans so riled up and surprisingly it's not bad; it's actually pretty good. The dialogue can be stronger here and there but it's nothing so bad that it takes me completely out of it and the ideas are always there. I like the characters behind the new team of Nightwings, particularly Sap and Hutch. It feels like Sap is doomed to fall morally or die tragically and they are setting up Hutch for a role fighting next to Dick after Ric returns to being Dick/Nightwing but i could be wrong.

I personally think it is the worst story Dick has ever been written in. It is a mess on nearly every level of production. The direction made no sense, how they tried to set up this story made no sense, the constant hitting readers over the head with how Ric shits on Dick's life, Ric acting like an ******* for no reason, his complaining, turning Ric into a homeless squatter, giving him another dumb job as a cab driver this time, the boring and bland cops that are a bad rip off of the Superheavy and We Are Robin story, the endless pages of recaps and Ric narration, the lack of any heroes caring about what happened outside Barbara, the horrendous management problems, having Percy leave after one issue after his story got derailed, DC putting in-house writers to write an editorial mandated story with Lobdell and Jurgens that don't care about the story, Lobdell didn't even bother writing the issues himself and had others script his plots for him, the inconsistent art, the Eric Esquivel mess, how this slow grind of a story story has gone on for 8 months now, and how creators on the book are fleeing it and how other creators want to ignore this book is even going on. I think it is a perfect example of everything that is wrong with modern superhero comics.

[Shadow Myyst]

I just got in on the Ric Grayson saga to see what's gotten all the Nightwing fans so riled up and surprisingly it's not bad; it's actually pretty good. The dialogue can be stronger here and there but it's nothing so bad that it takes me completely out of it and the ideas are always there. I like the characters behind the new team of Nightwings, particularly Sap and Hutch. It feels like Sap is doomed to fall morally or die tragically and they are setting up Hutch for a role fighting next to Dick after Ric returns to being Dick/Nightwing but i could be wrong.

The story has no heart and isn’t Dick Grayson. It’s going nowhere and it’s lackluster. Generally I’ve seen that most who don’t mind the story weren’t invested in Dick as a character and his role in the DC Universe beforehand. I don’t need to repeat Badou cause that’s pretty much it. If you ain’t Justice League or have a big writer in your corner DC don’t give a damn about you these days. I personally feel it lost what Rebirth was originally trying to do with the character and address issues with him instead of add on to em

[Restingvoice]

I just got in on the Ric Grayson saga to see what's gotten all the Nightwing fans so riled up and surprisingly it's not bad; it's actually pretty good. The dialogue can be stronger here and there but it's nothing so bad that it takes me completely out of it and the ideas are always there. I like the characters behind the new team of Nightwings, particularly Sap and Hutch. It feels like Sap is doomed to fall morally or die tragically and they are setting up Hutch for a role fighting next to Dick after Ric returns to being Dick/Nightwing but i could be wrong.

What got me riled up, first was the fact that the idea to do all this didn't come from a Nightwing writer. He had his own plans. Then Batman writer and DC editorial decided to impose their idea and forced him to cancel his story. The Nightwing writer left, then DC had to scramble for a replacement. Both replacement writers are aware that this is an unwanted project as they said on twitter and interview.

The second was the fact that amnesia story where the character decided to be anything other than their original has been done before in Batman and Red Hood, and their story is more interesting, involving some other well-known characters like James Gordon and Ra's al Ghul, and with Batman it's also used as a vehicle to portray interesting ideas such as street kids Robin and civilian Joker.

The third and what made me yell was when I realized that we have a Nightwing comic starring a Dick Grayson who refused to be Dick Grayson or Nightwing, but team up with a bunch of Nightwing fill-ins to do what Nightwing usually do. Fight crimes in Nightwing city.

Like what's the point of making him amnesia if he's just gonna do the same thing Nightwing do anyway? Just write Nightwing!

So even if the story is enjoyable on its own, I still reject it for the first reason I mentioned. At least.

[OWL45]

The story has no heart and isn’t Dick Grayson. It’s going nowhere and it’s lackluster. Generally I’ve seen that most who don’t mind the story weren’t invested in Dick as a character and his role in the DC Universe beforehand. I don’t need to repeat Badou cause that’s pretty much it. If you ain’t Justice League or have a big writer in your corner DC don’t give a damn about you these days. I personally feel it lost what Rebirth was originally trying to do with the character and address issues with him instead of add on to em

To be fair they tried to do something different with the character with GRAYSON and fans acted a fool. He was starring in more books at that time then any other period in the characters history aside from becoming Batman. I think DC seemed to stop caring to a point after that. They gave people Bludhaven and his blue uniform back then washed their hands with him. Nostalgia has killed this character and has hampered him from growing. To a degree I blame DC but I also blame a certain segment of the fan base. I agree with a post earlier about the upcoming story line with the COO and Talon being a step in the right direction. The Leviathan idea would be badass but again DC would be hesitant I think to do something so radical with the character given how things have gone previously with any type of change.