Dick Grayson: Robin / Nightwing Appreciation 2020

[WonderNight]

Bludhaven, as it is, is the same as the JL would be. Nightwing emulating the Batman and the Batman formula. Bludhaven is just spectacularly less impressive then the JL. JL at least comes with bragging rights, but beyond that I don’t see it doing much for Dick.

I've come to accept how DC views nightwing (don't care for it but accept it) so if DC wants nightwing to be a city street level hero as his status quo than all I ask is that they return bludhaven back to Vegas haven and for dick to open and run halys circus again.

Both Bludhaven and Halys circus are the only things dick has that's uniquely his that actually sticks around in his mythos. So put a Vegas bludhaven and Halys circus together and build from there.

[AmiMizuno]

I've come to accept how DC views nightwing (don't care for it but accept it) so if DC wants nightwing to be a city street level hero as his status quo than all I ask is that they return bludhaven back to Vegas haven and for dick to open and run halys circus again.

Both Bludhaven and Halys circus are the only things dick has that's uniquely his that actually sticks around in his mythos. So put a Vegas bludhaven and Halys circus together and build from there.

I agree both can work. In a weird way. I do think Nightwing can protect the city and travel. I mean with the entertainment side people might not want crimes to always happen in Bludhaven. Leading things to be taken to other places.

[Godlike13]

The whole protecting a city formula is formula made famous with characters like Batman. So while Bludhaven is "his" it serves to facilitate the Batman formula. What more thanks to the lazy out of touch creators they tapped to take the book over, it has reverted to the the pre-Seeley mini Gotham. So its his, but its his mini Gotham.

[Badou]

Bludhaven, as it is, is the same as the JL would be. Nightwing emulating the Batman and the Batman formula. Bludhaven is just spectacularly less impressive then the JL. JL at least comes with bragging rights, but beyond that I don’t see it doing much for Dick.

Wouldn't the Titans be the Bludhaven equivalent? A Justice League-lite team like how Bludhaven is Gotham-lite. Dick being part of the JL would be like him operating in Gotham. It will never be "his" city (which I think is an outdated concept anyway), but he will have substantially more resources to draw from for stories even if he is in a box with a lot of other competing heroes. I'd prefer the Gotham scenario as I want a place with more utility as opposed to a Bludhaven that is a wasteland of nothing regardless of how writers try to dress it up.

[Godlike13]

Titans done wrong, done right Titans pivots away from Jr JL. As Nightwing should pivot from Jr Batman. As out of favor as it might be Titans still has more upside for Dick then JL would. Nightwing is in a weird position where being in the JL isn't going to bring with it a solo he doesn't already have. At best he'll get to stand around in events maybe, but even that is something he already does. And it would have no benefit outside of comics. Where they are telling the stories isn't really what matters but how they are telling the stories. The current creators on Ric pulled every Gotham resource they could. Whether borrowing toy's from Batman's toy box, or playing in Batman's toy box. Both equate to the same thing. As long as they have Nightwing try to emulate the same formulas he's going to come off as Batman-lite.

[WonderNight]

So then what direction can nightwing take? It sounds like damned if you do damned if you don't. What to do with nightwing.

If nightwing is in bludhaven he's batman lite but put him in Gotham you than defeat the very point of nightwing in the first place, got make him robin again at that point.

The titans have always been the kids in town. But fans seem to not want nightwing on a new team. At this point DC should have just left him with spyral, send him to another franchise or just retire him because the same old same old ain't working and most fans don't like new and different.

[Godlike13]

Directions that’s change the kinds of stories they tell and how they tell them. Part of what made Grayson so refreshing was not just what they had him doing, but how they went about doing it. It was a different formate with a unique creators situation. Instead of 4-6 issue drawn out arcs we were getting single issue stories telling an overarching story. It would switch off between King and Seeley so no issues would read the same as the one before, but they were still in sync with one another so they never felt out a place either.
They need to change how they go about Nightwing comics. They can shoot him in the head, and strip away every thing that made him likable, but as long as they bring in these lazy creators that just mindlessly abuse the same old formulas nothing actually seems genuinely different or new. Nightwing will just continue to come off as a lesser imitation of characters that popularized those formulas, and who are far better supported. They tried to change everything about Dick, except for how they went about things. So the whole idea immediately just fell flat on its face. Cause underneath it all was just effortless crap being told in the same and usual ways. He might have been different but what he was doing and how he was doing it was just more of the same. Completely formulaic and Batman dependent.

[Mr. White]

Directions that’s change the kinds of stories they tell and how they tell them. Part of what made Grayson so refreshing was not just what they had him doing, but how they went about doing it. It was a different formate with a unique creators situation. Instead of 4-6 issue drawn out arcs we were getting single issue stories telling an overarching story. It would switch off between King and Seeley so no issues would read the same as the one before, but they were still in sync with one another so they never felt out a place either.
They need to change how they go about Nightwing comics. They can shoot him in the head, and strip away every thing that made him likable, but as long as they bring in these lazy creators that just mindlessly abuse the same old formulas nothing actually seems genuinely different or new. Nightwing will just continue to come off as a lesser imitation of characters that popularized those formulas, and who are far better supported. They tried to change everything about Dick, except for how they went about things. So the whole idea immediately just fell flat on its face. Cause underneath it all was just effortless crap being told in the same and usual ways. He might have been different but what he was doing and how he was doing it was just more of the same. Completely formulaic and Batman dependent.

A very well thought out post and one I agree with.

Said it a fair few times that Grayson and generally keeping Dick far from Batman (and by extension the Batfamily/ Gotham/ Bludhaven/ etcetera) was/is the best way to go and this post supports the why.

On a side note, not generally a fan of teams but Nightwing's Outsiders (Winick) worked well (which followed the concept of "Bat distancing" for a while.

Of course in typical DC fashion, Batman came and pissed on that bonfire.

[Digifiend]

Well, at this point who knows? Rebirth continuity hasn't actually touched on ages, for the most part. But in the New52 yeah, Dick was 21 or 22 or so. Tim was 16. Damian turned 13. Beyond that I don't know if anyone had their age established.

Tim was said to be 16 in Rebirth's 'Tec run as well.

I think at this point it's best to just forget ages; it didn't make sense in New52 continuity and it makes less sense in the current continuity, which is still half N52 and half "post-Crisis' second cousin."

In my head, Dick is in his late 20's (26-28), Babs in her early-ish 30's (33-35), Jason in his mid 20's (23-25), Tim his very early 20's (21-22), and Damian's 13, with Bruce being in his early-mid 40's (41-44).

There's been some aging up going on. In Robin 80th Anniversary, Tim age in Detective Comics Rebirth was retconned. He told Dick he wasn't 20 yet. He'd have said 18 if he was 16, surely? Sounds like he's now 18 or 19. Which also matches an upcoming Young Justice solicitation which mentions Tim, Conner and Bart growing up into adulthood.

Dick and Babs have both also aged up. After Dick was shot, he said he lost nearly two decades of memories... and he remembers up to his parents' deaths. That would make him late 20s at least. Babs is still the same age as him, so presumably she also aged up when she got rid of the Burnside costume.

[Aahz]

That's about where I'm at too. My head canon doesn't have Jason much younger than Dick at all.. 2 years maybe.. both of them on the older end of these ranges.

By pre Flashpoint comics Dick should actually be roughly 7 years older than Jason, and Jason should not be much older than Tim (and Younger than Cassandra Cain).

[Ascended]

There's been some aging up going on.

Oh good. Glad they started adjusting that.

[Aahz]

Big Question is just if the there is some coordination by the editorial behind this, or if that's the writers using the ages they feel are right.

[AmiMizuno]

Okay, so Dick is part of the JL? This is one thing that I often wondered since they generally have him be more in TT. So if we go with Haley Circus do we want him to be the owner of it?

[Restingvoice]

Big Question is just if there is some coordination by the editorial behind this, or if that's the writers using the ages they feel are right.

There is coordination though the age themselves can change and some people may be given the wrong information.

When New 52 first started, Greg Capullo was told by the editorial that Dick was 19. That's why he drew him so short in that one panel in the first issue of The Court of Owls. They updated him with the very next issue.

No problem in Higgins-Barrows issue though, they drew and wrote him as in the early twenties.

Once they established he's 21 it's all the same across the board. Same with Superman and Wonder Woman, who were officially 25 and 23 in New 52. Even if some writers may write them older or more mature for their age and some writers write them like freshly graduated college students, the official age was the same.

[Aahz]

Don't know I have somehow the feeling that since Rebirth (or maybe even since DCYou) there is less control by the editorial and the continuity is even less clear than during the New52.

At the moment as long as I don't see an age really consistently referenced, I see just as something the writer made up.