Thoughts on the current Batfamily line? Things you like? Things you’d change?

[Frontier]

‘TEC Rebirth actually seemed to overall be a pretty strong success because it dares to feature a team of Bat-family characters, even if Tyrion fumbled a bit with Tim and Steph, ironically. Turns out that managing an adequate-to-good Batwoman interacting with an adequate-to-good Cass, an adequate-to-good Azrael, and adequate-to-good Batwing, and a heroic Clayface was a good recipe for success.

A Gotham Knights book of some kind seems like to should be more likely to succeed than not.

'Tec Rebirth was a strong book in terms of concept even if I think Tynion didn't nail the execution for it more often then I'd like.

I'd like to see a Batman team book that, for once, doesn't devolve into everyone's personal problems or issues with Batman or that makes Batman look like a failure of a leader and patriarch.

[The Cheat]

I don't ask for much from Detective Comics. Simply Batman being a detective. Sadly, I haven't had this for a long time.

[Godlike13]

Together these characters are especially awful. They were not created to compliment one another. They just take generic traits and try to play them up as if they are a boy band. He's the smart one, and he's the tough on, he's the jumping one, ect, ect. They completely dumb the characters down when they are together, and have bad habit of feeding the the more popular ones to the less popular ones in attempt to get them over.

[the illustrious mr. kenway]

I liked the idea of Anarky being a former Robin so I'd do that in a potential reboot.

For Tim I'd just send him to college for a bit in order to bring back the everyman angle everybody talks about. Having Tim take a break from superheroing to do some soul searching feels apt. You could have him be a plainclothes vigilante like what Daredevil every so often. For 5G I wanted him to be a "special case" detective working for the police like Looking Glass from Watchmen(2019) so I'd seed that in here. In Tynion's run of detective comics he got a letter from Ivy University so he'd go there. If the sales tank or the writers just get bored you could just have him quit etc.

I prefer Dick as Agent 37 than nightwing so I'd recreate that with some of the other characters. For example Bette becomes a rookie agent of Checkmate or ARGUS etc.

[godisawesome]

Together these characters are especially awful. They were not created to compliment one another. They just take generic traits and try to play them up as if they are a boy band. He's the smart one, and he's the tough on, he's the jumping one, ect, ect. They completely dumb the characters down when they are together, and have bad habit of feeding the the more popular ones to the less popular ones in attempt to get them over.

Again, I got to disagree - though not just in principle, but in practice.

A bunch of these characters *are* designed to complement each other, or grew to do that - Stephanie Brown was introduced as a complementary character to Tim, grew to become one with Cass, and then one with Babs as Oracle. Damian Wayne wound up becoming part of several successful team-ups with Dick and Stephanie, while his initially antagonistic rivalry (similar to your claim of popular characters being fed to unpopular ones) morphed into an engaging foiling relationship. Tim was constructed to serve as a complement a Batfamily with a grown up Nightwing and suffering the loss of Jason and Babs’s injury, and did so very well, even into the day and age of Damian’s rise to Robin.

At the same time, sticking these characters together *does not* guarantee differentiation - the Arkham series has all three of the main Robins, but keeps all three fairly bland and interchangeable in characterization (save for Jason’s brainwashing).

You *do* get things like having Batwoman punch Batgirl’s nose for the sake of trying to prop up Kate, and Damian got to sucker punch Tim to help establish his character, and other examples. But we also get stuff like “The Boys” story in Nightwing with Tim and Dick, Cass and Steph’s partnership and friendship throughout Cass’s run, Gates of Gotham, and the renaissance Pre-Flashpoint.

[Godlike13]

Damian and Steph are exceptions, not the rule. The majority of the newer Bat family characters were created as replacements, and even with Damian and Steph there are members they don't compliment. Cause again a lot of them weren't built for it and haven't really grown to adapt. Stuff like “The Boys” isn't actually common, and Cass and Steph’s "partnership" and "friendship" throughout Cass’s run was rather one sided. It was actually rather insulting and degrading in regards to Steph. Its not really surprising when she became Batgirl Cass was given the boot. Cause who really needs a friend that punches them out when they deem things too serious. From the newer members perspective sure its great to watch their predecessors kiss their ass and tell readers how awesome they are, but the members on the other side of that rarely actually get anything from that.

[Caivu]

You *do* get things like having Batwoman punch Batgirl’s nose for the sake of trying to prop up Kate,

You do know that was written by Gail Simone, yes? Who was writing Batgirl at the time? That's not a case of propping up anyway, but especially not with that taken into consideration.

[godisawesome]

You do know that was written by Gail Simone, yes? Who was writing Batgirl at the time? That's not a case of propping up anyway, but especially not with that taken into consideration.

Yeah. I was just looking for examples where I thought you could argue a newer character was getting propped up by getting something over on an older character (since I’d say Kate is a genuinely different enough IP than Kathy to make that point.) I didn’t actually mind it, but I’m also the same way about Damian sucker punching Tim in the end.

...I will add that the punch was one of a litany fo things I felt was showing how New 52* Batgirl was ultimately a bit of a downgrade in terms of respect for Babs compared to Oracle, but that’s a measurement of a single character, not multiple.

*(To be clear, this is me saying the particular type of Batgirl the New 52 ushered in; conceptually speaking, there was nothing preventing them from just having Oracle!Babs get her surgery, retake the field, and be the total package.)

Damian and Steph are exceptions, not the rule. The majority of the newer Bat family characters were created as replacements, and even with Damian and Steph there are members they don't compliment. Cause again a lot of them weren't built for it and haven't really grown to adapt. Stuff like “The Boys” isn't actually common, and Cass and Steph’s "partnership" and "friendship" throughout Cass’s run was rather one sided. It was actually rather insulting and degrading in regards to Steph. Its not really surprising when she became Batgirl Cass was given the boot. Cause who really needs a friend that punches them out when they deem things too serious. From the newer members perspective sure its great to watch their predecessors kiss their ass and tell readers how awesome they are, but the members on the other side of that rarely actually get anything from that.

I’d actually still argue there are plenty more examples of character working well together rather than tripping each other up; there’s a lot of reasons why Dick is included in everyone’s “why I love watching my character interact with this family member” group, but why you also *do* get most Cass, Steph, and Tim fans being simpatico and excited and invested when those character interact with Damian, and why Tim‘s “best frenemies” relationships with Jason and Damian genuinely are missed in the DCAMU.

And to put it this way... Steph fans never seemed to mind Cass and her interactions, so what’s the problem?

There’s also the part where Dan Didio/DC Editorial had prevented itself from actually seeing stuff like all three Batgirls interacting, so I don’t think that can be used as any kind of argumentent against them.

Now... I would say that Harper May offer better examples of where you can argue about dilution; the similarities between her rough story, placement in the family, and relationships to Cass in comparison to Steph in particular perhaps undermined her as a character, since it acted a bit similar to Pre-Crisis Jason being a Dick Grayson clone.

Overall, though... the Batfamily has generally been far healthier than its contemporaries for expanding than those contemporaries have been for retracting.

The Batfamily in DC is the equivalent of X-Men sub franchise at Marvel. That’s not a bad thing.

[Aahz]

Stuff like “The Boys” isn't actually common,

Arround that time (= when Chuck Dixon was writing most of books) you had actually quite often interaction between the different Batfamily members, and those were mostly quite well handled.

And Dick and Tim had a several team up stories and Tim being a replacement was never a problem.

In current comics the biggest problem with the cross overs are imo that they put to many characters in one story and have nothing to do for all of them, or that they write some of these characters not that great.

[Godlike13]

I’d actually still argue there are plenty more examples of character working well together rather than tripping each other up; there’s a lot of reasons why Dick is included in everyone’s “why I love watching my character interact with this family member” group, but why you also *do* get most Cass, Steph, and Tim fans being simpatico and excited and invested when those character interact with Damian, and why Tim‘s “best frenemies” relationships with Jason and Damian genuinely are missed in the DCAMU.

And to put it this way... Steph fans never seemed to mind Cass and her interactions, so what’s the problem?

There’s also the part where Dan Didio/DC Editorial had prevented itself from actually seeing stuff like all three Batgirls interacting, so I don’t think that can be used as any kind of argumentent against them.

Now... I would say that Harper May offer better examples of where you can argue about dilution; the similarities between her rough story, placement in the family, and relationships to Cass in comparison to Steph in particular perhaps undermined her as a character, since it acted a bit similar to Pre-Crisis Jason being a Dick Grayson clone.

Overall, though... the Batfamily has generally been far healthier than its contemporaries for expanding than those contemporaries have been for retracting.

The Batfamily in DC is the equivalent of X-Men sub franchise at Marvel. That’s not a bad thing.

It makes sense Dick is a often included, he's DC's resident bitch boy and is usually the first to be offered up to them. Except for when it comes to Damian he himself though tends to get very little back from these characters, and instead finds himself left deemed redundant as his history, connections, and reputation are divvied up. Many of his fans want him to get the hell away from the Bat umbrella, and honestly its hard to argue.
And what? Sorry, but i do not see most Cass, Steph, and Tim fans being simpatico or excited to see the likes of Damian, or Harper, or Duke. And Batgirl fans are the first to turn on the other Batgirls as they fight over that bone.
The Batfamily is a bloated mess, with a bunch of dogs fighting over table scraps and bad ideas. In small pairs there are moments were they sometimes make each other better, but as the family gets bigger those moments just get fewer, and the characters themselves just get simpler and dumber in lazy attempts to try and accommodate them all.

[Godlike13]

Arround that time (= when Chuck Dixon was writing most of books) you had actually quite often interaction between the different Batfamily members, and those were mostly quite well handled.

And Dick and Tim had a several team up stories and Tim being a replacement was never a problem.

In current comics the biggest problem with the cross overs are imo that they put to many characters in one story and have nothing to do for all of them, or that they write some of these characters not that great.

A time when Tim was still Robin, Jason was dead, and Damian didn't exist. 2 was easier to manage then 4, and thats just the Robins. And while im a big Dixon fan he was the originator of oversimplifying the characters to play up general traits. He kind of started the whole boy band classifications.

[Aahz]

A time when Tim was still Robin, Jason was dead, and Damian didn't exist.

But his dynamic with Dick should still work in the same way as back than, and Jason and Damian are pretty different from Tim.
And at the time you had also Azrael and Huntress quite frequently around.

2 was easier to manage then 4, and thats just the Robins.

But that's only becomes really a problem when you put all of them in one story without having something to do for each of them.
Back tham they had in the smaller stories usually only two Batfamily characters team up, and in the larger events they usually managed to handle at least 5 or 6 Batfamily members.

[Restingvoice]

Together these characters are especially awful. They were not created to compliment one another. They just take generic traits and try to play them up as if they are a boy band. He's the smart one, and he's the tough on, he's the jumping one, ect, ect. They completely dumb the characters down when they are together, and have bad habit of feeding the the more popular ones to the less popular ones in attempt to get them over.

Writers problem. Change the writer and keep changing them until you get the best one. In the meantime, they don't have to meet more than 2 at a time. This is why I offered a rotating cast for Detective Comics.

The following are the dynamic that has fans but I don't know how many
Bruce and Dick - Classic fans
Dick and Damian - modern dynamic duo fans
Tim and Jason - New 52 fans mainly
Dick and Jason - New 52 also
Dick and Tim - Dixon eras fans have been asking for it
Steph and Cass - Batgirl Cass era fans
Cass and Babs - The same
Dick and Babs - Shippers
Tim and Steph - Same
Cass and Tim and Steph - Dixon era fans
Harper and Cass - New 52 fans
Kate and Renee - Classic fans
Dick, Jason, Tim, Damian, Cass, Duke, Steph - Sitcom Batfam fans (Li'l Gotham fans)

Note that the Sitcom Batfam fans don't care about the problem you mentioned, how they have been boyband-ed, they're just happy they're together and act funny or cute. lore and plot matter less than fun interaction.

Luke and Jean have not been on-page long enough recently with the others for me to conclude that there are fans that keep asking for them.

Oh there's also some Jason/Babs shippers but they're much smaller

Duke and Cass have been in a series together so there's no starvation of interaction

Helena, I don't think she's very popular...

[godisawesome]

Thinking about it some more, a comprehensive editorial switch-up really could work to consolidate storytelling focus *while also* allowing for expansion and diversification... but would probably need to abandon the idea of more truly unbroken monthly books.

Think about something like this-

January-May: The Expansion/spin-off period

* Batman runs with a single creative team headlined by the closest thing the brand has to a lead writer (a Snyder/Morrison/King type).
* Detective Comics runs concurrently as well, but exists to act as the seed for a later consolidation/crossover story, while also acting as a general “mystery”/“what’s up in Gotham” gadget-book - think something like Paul Dini’s Streets of Gotham, or Paul Dini’s Detective Comics.
* A number of spin-offs run concurrently with their own writers and artists, and cooperate with the main Batman book, but still predominantly tell their own stories. These spin-offs would vary and switch between different leads, depending on what the overall gameplay is: you could have Nightwing, Robin, Batgirl one year, Gotham Central, Harley Quinn, Huntress the next, or Red Robin, Black Bat, Nightwing and Robinor do something like Robin, Batgirls, Arkham Asylum... point is, here, you want to embrace the size of the family and use all IPs, but do so by allowing skilled writers to flip between properties and focus on them one at a time (maybe more, but only if you’re capable of a Chuck-Dixon-in-the-90’s type of workload.)

Jun~July: The Consolidation/crossover period

* One book... but a weekly version, more akin to a Batman Eternal or 52 type of experience. So it’s constructed as a crossover, with the writing team working as one unit, and artists doing so as well, telling one continuous, large cast story. This book could be anything from a finale to a Detective Comics story that’s been percolating below the surface, a No Man’s Land-style status quo change, or anything else. But the overall idea is to bring all the books together into one book, with an easy to distinguish title that makes collecting and following the story easy, and where the pace allows for things to develop rapidly and for the story to be a busy but consolidated experience. This doesn’t mean the monthly books end; they simply come together and pause in their numbering.

June-November: The Spin-off/expansion period. Again.

December~January: The Consoldiation/Crossover period. Again.

And so on.

[qwazer07]

Knowing Nightwing fans, they want to get the fuck out of the Bat family line. But I also know they would never be satisfied. And the moment DC sideline Dick in the Bat family, they would riot to bring him back. Nightwing fans are in an abusive relationship with DC. LOL