How Would YOU "revamp the Bat-Family?"

[Godlike13]

Right now the Bat office is more dependent on Dick to use for Batman and the other Bat family members, be it as fodder or as a tool, then he is on Batman or any of its franchises’ characters. I mean when’s the last time Batman was shot in the head just so he can feel sad, or Nightwing randomly beat the **** out of another family member just to show readers what an awesome fighter he was. While marketing wise the Bat association helps, narratively speaking under the current Bat office the Bat franchise is actually hurting him. And outside of comics he has more going on with the Titan franchise right now.

[MajorHoy]

I second this. That’s more or less the reason why I don’t like DickBats. It shows that for all his accomplishments, he will always just be Bruce’s sidekick which I think is demeaning to his character. His existence revolves around Bruce even though he should’ve moved on by now.

Dick has moved beyond "sidekick".
He initially refused to take on the role of Batman when Bruce was thought to be dead, but eventually gave in when he saw that Gotham City NEEDED a "Batman" and there were no better options than with him in the role. (Tim wanted to do it, but that didn't work so well. And Jason in the role would be a disaster for Batman's reputation, especially since Jason hadn't reconciled with Bruce and the rest of the Bat-family yet back then. A JasonBats at that point would have been more like Frank Castle as Batman.)

[oasis1313]

Right now the Bat office is more dependent on Dick to use for Batman and the other Bat family members, be it as fodder or as a tool, then he is on Batman or any of its franchises’ characters. I mean when’s the last time Batman was shot in the head just so he can feel sad, or Nightwing randomly beat the **** out of another family member just to show readers what an awesome fighter he was. While marketing wise the Bat association helps, but narratively speaking under the current Bat office the Bat franchise is actually hurting him. And outside of comics he has more going on with the Titan franchise right now.

It's pretty pathetic when Dick has more going with the Titans--another book he's been written out of.

[Aahz]

Right now the Bat office is more dependent on Dick to use for Batman and the other Bat family members, be it as fodder or as a tool, then he is on Batman or any of its franchises’ characters. I mean when’s the last time Batman was shot in the head just so he can feel sad, or Nightwing randomly beat the **** out of another family member just to show readers what an awesome fighter he was.

A lot of Fans were complaining about Batman being used to prep up other characters in Tynions TEC run. And we had an amnesiac Bruce in Snyders run and a "dead" Morrisons, which both cases lead to much bigger roles for Dick.

[Godlike13]

Dick wasn’t in Tec except for that time they needed to feed him to future Tim, and Grayson wasn’t necessarily a "bigger role". It was actually a way for them to keep him away from Gotham and Batman during Bruce’s amnesia, thrown together last minute after FE where he was use to create bigger stakes for Batman and Owlman. And as soon as he was brought back to Gotham the first ting they did with him was feed him to the Bat family member they were reintroducing. Who of course would then go on to do big things (not). We just got lucky with Grayson and it ended up being good, but they didn’t even let it finish before they moved most of its creative team too Batman. Even when it comes to creators on Dick, he acts as a stepping stone and vetting process for new creators for Batman. Morrison’s Batman was good to Dick, but that was almost 10 years ago, not under the current Bat office, and still did nothing for Nightwing or Dick after. At the end the day it was still a just one part of Morrison’s Bruce story.

[kjn]

All characters have to progress.

That seems a pretty blanket statement. Do you really think that should be the case with every fictional character? Because I can think of some that don't progress and that's just fine by me.

I'd rather phrase that as no character should regress.

If a character is in roughly the same spot story-wise for a long time, that's no trouble. But once they have moved out of that spot, that change needs to be respected.

Babs is probably the most illustrative example why this is a bad idea. The decision to put her back into the Batgirl suite not only meant erasing Cass and Steph, it also threw her entire personality and role in the DCU into chaos. It also made the Birds of Prey go from an international spy-and-heist team into another group of masked vigilantes stalking Gotham.

[Aahz]

Dick wasn’t in Tec except for that time they needed to feed him to future Tim,

I know that Dick wasn't part of it, I just wanted to point out that Batman is also treated like this from time to time.

and Grayson wasn’t necessarily a "bigger role".

He was the lead in an 26 issue biweekly series (B&RE) and a smaller event (Robin War), that wouldn't have happened without the amnesia. Yeah these series were not that great, but that happens.

Grayson stared btw. almost a year before Bruce lost his memories.And in the finale issue of the previous Nightwing Run they had Dick beating Bruce in fight.

[oasis1313]

A lot of Fans were complaining about Batman being used to prep up other characters in Tynions TEC run. And we had an amnesiac Bruce in Snyders run and a "dead" Morrisons, which both cases lead to much bigger roles for Dick.

Since when does the fans' opinion count for anything? DC just uses it as an excuse if they want to do something rotten.

[Godlike13]

He was a reader view point in B&RE, a tool to help Cass and Harper’s story. Him being the lead was a sales lie. Another example of him being used as a tool to help serve others in the Bat franchise. The first thing they did with him in that book was feed him to Cass, and even his time as Robin was just undermined for Harper. Ya it fell to him, after he wasn’t in the first Eternal, because Bruce had amnesia, but this was after the new Batman was established and he didn’t need to be off the table anymore.

And Grayson still served to take him off the table, something they put together last minute, after FE killed Nightwing and used Dick for Batman and Owlman. Dick’s "fight" with Bruce, was Bruce rebuilding his confidence after he was bitched out to the world and killed for Batman and Owlman’s story in FE. So ya, Batman helped him out there but only after he was brought so low for him in FE.
Again we just lucked out with Grayson. It still more or less came about the same way hobo Ric did. Him and his current world being laid to waste just to create stakes for one of Batman’s current stories. Grayson just made it worth it, where with Ric it’s just embarrassing.

[oasis1313]

HHe was a reader view point in B&RE, a tool to help Cass and Harper’s story. Him being the lead was a sales lie. Another example of him being used as a tool to help serve other in the Bat franchise. The first thing they did with him in that book was feed him to Cass, and even his time as Robin was undermined for Harper.
And Grayson still served to take him off the table, after FE killed Nightwing and used Dick for Batman and Owlman. Dick’s "fight" with Bruce, was Bruce rebuilding his confidence after he was bitched out to the world and killed for Batman and Owlman’s story in FE.

Maybe Dick should take on a new identity if they take Nightwing away from him to give it to Timmy Wimmy: "Sacrificial Lamb."