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

[Pohzee]

I prefer a clean cut. Edgy emo hair is out.

Anything much longer than 2 or 3 inches is gonna look awful when you're swinging around buildings anyway.

[oasis1313]

I liked the ponytail a lot. Dick is one of the few characters who can rock a look like that.

[Robanker]

I'm partial to style 1, but 4 isn't bad either. I used to think 1 was the only way to do, but a few artists (like Ivan Reis) convinced me that the fourth works as well.

[Badou]

Yeah i am calling bs on what King said about Zatanna fixing Dick. he knew it wasnt going to happen. his story needs it to not happen. he just tries to save himself from the backlash of it all. If Dick is fixed, he would be by Bruce to support him emotionally and also as an ally in the field. King wants Bruce as isolated and crazy as possible.It is also why Damian is nowhere to be seen, with the explanation being he and Batman are not on best of terms so he is off doing his own thing with TT, not really aware of what is going on with Daddy. Dick is another matter. His relationship is different. He is more empathical, he is older, more mature and he and Bruce have gone through a lot. He knows when Bruce needs help, and he wont just take offence and leave when Bruce does his usual shutting people out/dont need or want you here routine. "i am not talking to you" is not really an option for him to take.


I know Gotham Girl isnt finished as she is part of the whole Batman breaking/ killing group. I am saying King hasnt done anything with her recently himself as he is too focused on his Bruce's psyche stories. Everyone and everything else is ignored right now.They are the villains of his story, they need to be there... Dick isnt the villain, he is the ally and support system the villains take away. His "part" is getting hurt and being absent. He doesnt need to build up Dick and Bruce's relationship and Dick's importance to Bruce as it was already there. He just had to highlight/remind it to everyone just before taking Dick off the game. which he did

Nightwing's writers cant pretend the headshot didnt happen.But they certainly could do a much better story with it. They cant blame King for their own failure in this regard. besides the timelines are all over the place. is Batman, Detective and Nightwing even in synch?
it almost feels like Batman is taking place in the weeks following the head shot when Dick is probably still comatose or something... And Tec? may as well be happening before the headshot as Damian is actually around & Bruce takes a break from it all to have dinnetr with Leslie & he is crazy but not in a "lost in his own mind" kind of crazy but rather the "he is so hardcore, we think it is so cool" kind of crazy that Dc loves. Tec has been stalling too tbh, issue after issue revealed to be nothing but a simulation. Nightwing happens months after the headshot. We all know he is going to come back, he even showed up in Doomsday Clock so it is not a secret. Put in a disclaimer that says these events are happening 3 months after whatever is happening in Batman and get on with healing Dick. He doesnt even need to be fixed immediately, take a couple issues where he refinds himself. Doesnt need to meet with Bruce. Dick has enough family and friends that some of then could drop by to keep the readers engaged and stall that particular reunion...Heck, they could go with the nightmares/simulation trend where the stories we read are just happening in the hero's mind and give us stories from Dick's past as he in reality is still camotose OR he can be healing and slowly "remembering" OR it can be people telling him these stories to jog his memory etc etc. Anything was better than what we have.

I was going to leave the discussion there, but two parts of it were eating at me after thinking about it a bit.

One is that King didn't need to do anything with Dick's relationship since it was already established, but that same argument could be made for Catwoman. Her relationship with Bruce is just as established, but King is building his entire run around her while Dick got one issue to joke around and then got shot. I understand what King was trying to do with his story, but I don't think he put the time in to really make it work because of how little he invested into using Dick to build up that emotional tie for his 100+ issue story.

But the second part, and more important part that I wanted to respond to, was the idea that the Nightwing writers couldn't ignore Dick getting shot in the head. They very much could have. The perfect example for this was what happened to Dick in Forever Evil. Dick got his secret identity exposed to the entire world. Everyone knew that Dick was Nightwing and about his connection to Bruce Wayne, but Snyder and all the Batman writers (outside Grayson writers) basically ignored it. Such a gigantic reveal that should have completely changed the course of Batman's mythos was ignored by the Batman office. So it really should work both ways if a Nightwing writer doesn't want to deal with **** that messes up their own story, but they have to work under the main Batman book and that is a MAJOR issue for how messed up books like Nightwing have been since the start of the New 52. It is something that bothers me immensely.

[Konja7]

I would say that King would prefer Dick has consequences. He even has an idea about Dick recovering, while Tim was his replacement as Nightwing.

However, I don't think King needs this for his Batman story, so Zatanna magic was an option too. He can mantain Dick away in other ways (a mission or something like that). The effect in Batman (the only reason why the shot happened) can be mantained even if Dick recovers completely, since Batman feelings about the shot won't dissapear.


Another topic, Nigthwing #57 (February) has 26K, the it seems the sales are stable. The Rick thing has not decreased its sales (Nightwing sold similar before Rick and Lobdell).

[Robanker]

I would say that King would prefer Dick has consequences. He even has an idea about Dick recovering, while Tim was his replacement as Nightwing.

However, I don't think King needs this for his Batman story, so Zatanna magic was an option too. He can mantain Dick away in other ways (a mission or something like that). The effect in Batman (the only reason why the shot happened) can be mantained even if Dick recovers completely, since Batman feelings about the shot won't dissapear.


Another topic, Nigthwing #57 (February) has 26K, the it seems the sales are stable. The Rick thing has not decreased its sales (Nightwing sold similar before Rick and Lobdell).

Some fans are historians in the essence that as long as it's [character], they'll read it. Others won't let their collection have holes in it, quality be damned. Granted some people probably enjoy Ric, but I think this is pretty much all we're seeing at this point.

[Godlike13]

Stunts like these are done to stay a series natural bleeding, but this stunt did nothing really for sales. It saw an insignificant fleeting bump and what’s more saw the loss of the books double ship. Look at Batgirl for what ideally they would want this to have looked like, but instead Nightwing is now consistently selling under Batgirl. And what’s more there’s all these creators they have had to bring in on it. This book is on its death march.

[Konja7]

Sales are crap. Stunts like these are done to stay a series natural bleeding, but this stunt did nothing for sales. It saw an insignificant fleeting bump and what’s more saw the loss of the books double ship. Look at Batgirl for what ideally they would want this to have done, but instead Nightwing is now selling under Batgirl. And what’s more there’s all these creators they have had to bring in on it. This book is on its death march.

I wouldn't say a death march, since the sales are practically the same now than before the Ric thing sarted.

Some suspect the higher sales for Batgirl can be due to the variants (some artist in variant really increase sales at some level). Although I am not totally sure if this is right.

[Godlike13]

And that’s not good. Sales already weren’t great for him, and with the loss of the double ship what this book is pulling in a month is actually worse. The book is now shipping less and needs more hires to complete, yet is seeing no real effect. I expect the series to read “Finale Issue" any month now. These are not good numbers for the character. The saddest thing too is that it’s probably the next series, if there is one, that will truly see the ramifications of this.

And Nightwing gets variants too. Both books have always been getting variants for the most part. That’s not what is different or signaled the change in sales for Batgirl. It started with her direction change.

[Konja7]

And Nightwing gets variants too. Both books have always been getting variants for the most part. That’s not what is different or signaled the change in sales for Batgirl. It started with her direction change.

I don't mean variants. I mean the artist of this variants.

It sounds weird, but some variants for certain artists really increase sales. For example: When Supergirl has a variant of Artgerm, its sales increase like 10 K.

As I said, I'm not sure if this is true, since it was a rumor I heard. You probably are right and the increase of sales in Batgirl is for the change of direction.

[dietrich]

I don't mean variants. I mean the artist of this variants.

It sounds weird, but some variants for certain artists really increase sales. For example: When Supergirl has a variant of Artgerm, its sales increase like 10 K.

As I said, I'm not sure if this is true, since it was a rumor I heard. You probably are right and the increase of sales in Batgirl is for the change of direction.

The cheese cake variants do increase sales

[dietrich]

I liked the ponytail a lot. Dick is one of the few characters who can rock a look like that.

That ponytail is hilarious.
Dick can rock any hair style. Even the buzz cut worked when he isn't drawn ugly

[Badou]

Getting rid of the double ship probably was so they could bleed out the Ric story until the Summer and not have to do more with it. Just churn out an issue of Ric once a month until King gets to his big Batman Summer event where they will probably cancel the Nightwing book and then do some more dumb **** with the character to try and tie him into King's story. I'm sure it will be great. Not awful at all...

Also didn't they cancel Nightwing double shipping but then brought it back for a bit and then got rid of it again? I feel like that happened, but maybe not. I guess it might have been to try and rush together a complete volume of issues before the Ric ****.

[oasis1313]

Getting rid of the double ship probably was so they could bleed out the Ric story until the Summer and not have to do more with it. Just churn out an issue of Ric once a month until King gets to his big Batman Summer event where they will probably cancel the Nightwing book and then do some more dumb **** with the character to try and tie him into King's story. I'm sure it will be great. Not awful at all...

Also didn't they cancel Nightwing double shipping but then brought it back for a bit and then got rid of it again? I feel like that happened, but maybe not. I guess it might have been to try and rush together a complete volume of issues before the Ric ****.

I don't think there are any further plans to tie Nightwing into King's story. One panel and it's exit stage left. Batgirl is being built up and made to look good in her own book; Nightwing is in the gutter--which book is going to sell better?

[Vinsanity]

The new directions for Batgirl sold well because it was different, and there were more stories

I feel like there is reader and writer fatigue for NW plus stories about Batman, you can use Dick because after Killing Joke, not sure you can use Babs. So naturally Dick is the go to for anything bad that happens for the Bats. (Ric, Forever Evil and so on)