I'm just laughing at the list of people Melinda Zucco connected to Dick now
I'm just laughing at the list of people Melinda Zucco connected to Dick now
Just stumbled upon Bookdepository's listing of the first volume by accident and hard agree, there is no leaping to see.
steppingintothelight.jpg
But, srsly, who wrote that as stepping instead of leaping?
The reveal was as awful as I was expecting. Long lost siblings/family members are some of the worst tropes in all of comics, and here it is no different. Every time they try and do stories like this they are generally terrible. I have no interest in seeing Dick have some sister, especially at the expense of throwing dirt on Dick's parents and their marriage. It isn't worth it to me. I don't think there is anything wrong with them having a happy simple marriage. Not everything needs to be so complicated. It's kind of sad that no one knows how to make interesting characters for Dick without trying to tear up his past. The Court of Owls, Raptor, and now this sister character. The part of the Court of Owls thing I didn't like was how it turned Dick's childhood into a nightmare where the circus wasn't what he thought it was, even though the Court added in some interesting things too, but now introducing this new sister who is the daughter of Dick's dad from some prior relationship, or him cheating on his wife, feels so needless. Regardless it makes Dick's dad look awful if he never told Dick about having a sibling. Then if the reason Tony Zucco killed Dick's parents was because of some lovers quarrel with Dick's dad that is going to be beyond fucking awful.
Maybe Taylor will do something dumb like Dick's dad never knew he knocked up some woman, but then what is the point in having her even be related to the Graysons in the first place. Although what make this whole thing even worse is how convoluted it is. So Dick has some long lost sister which is already dumb and unwanted, but not only that she is also the apparent adopted daughter of Tony Zucco! The man who killed Dick's parents! So Dick's dad had some previous involvement with the woman that would marry Zucco for some reason. But wait, there is more! She is now also the mayor of Bludhaven and working with Blockbuster! It is one of the most forced and convoluted situations I've ever seen in comics. I get what Taylor is trying to do. Dick has zero real connection to Bludhaven so he created this dumb sister and jammed her into every aspect of Bludhaven he can to try and give Dick that personal connection to it, but it feels so incredibly forced.
Hopefully it turns out to just be a fake-out and Melinda isn't really Dick's sister, or if she is she is quickly retconned or forgotten about like so many other sibling stories. Instead of trying to make Melinda into an interesting character first she is completely propped up on just being Dick's sister. There is nothing else to her character. It's the completely wrong way to go about introducing a character like this. Taylor could have taken his time to try and make us interested in her first, but he didn't and just used the drama of her being Dick's long lost sister to sell her to readers, which never works.
Honestly, long lost sibling characters I find even worse than pointless love interests like Bea. At least with a Bea you knew she was pointless and would be forgotten about or sent to limbo as soon as the run was over. Both had zero actual character beyond their connection to Dick too, but at least her creation didn't ruin other characters or Dick's past. Now Melinda is going to be an anchor on this entire run dragging it down. Overall I just find the whole thing so annoying and a waste of Renondo's amazing art.
Also I still find it annoying how incompetent Taylor writes Dick. It's been a constant theme for 4 issues now that Dick doesn't come across as a capable hero. He is constantly getting beaten up or being made to look like a fool. I get trying to make your hero more venerable to try and make them likeable, but I feel like Taylor isn't balancing it well. Dick gets a concussion from Heartless, who after 4 issues is a bland villain with no real interesting hook so far, and then gets beaten up and captured by Melinda's henchwoman. It's just constant and makes Dick look pretty pathetic. Then Dick who is supposed to be a master detective had no idea who Melinda is despite her being related to Tony Zucco and in a position to be mayor. You'd expect him to at least know some important details about the city he supposedly cares so much about.
Issue was a 10 out of 10 just because of Babs shirt LoL
Liked the issue. Not the biggest fan of the second knock out but I thought Nightwing came off as pretty good in his fight against Heartless. Very obvious he had the edge until Heartless escaped. Speaking off Heartless, seems like a pretty unique villain, I am digging him so far. Liked that it was due to Dick`s quick thinking that the kids were saved. Illustrated what makes Dick special. So far Melinda seems interesting. Being connected to the Maroni family and having a large FBI file is a good start. Excited to see where this will go.
Big fan of introducing Dick Grayson specific characters that expand his world. Probably the first time I have been sold on Bludhaven since Dixon.
Last edited by Iclifton; 06-15-2021 at 11:09 AM.
For me bigger issue is that Zucco has kids that Dick doesn't know about. You'd think that Batfamily would do an extensive research on people like Zucco and Melinda having a long list of documented (and now redacted) offences would be put her on a Batfamily's "watchlist".
Yes, I know that this is a common trope and many writers used it, but it just doesn't make sense to me considering how Batfamily operates.
These days it's hard for me to believe there aren't contingencies in the Bat-Family's mask so that they don't get removed without their permission.
Like certain media have shown Batman has contingencies in place so no one can take the cowl off in case he gets knocked out or is indisposed.
Whelp. I already knew about the twist before the issue dropped and I wasn't a fan of it. And now that I've actually read the issue....I'm still not a big fan. Loved everything else (especially Barbara's shirt) but that ending...yikes. I'll chalk up Dick getting so easily knocked out to his previous head injury like the book was already implying. But that sister twist...man, I don't know how to feel about it.
And yeah, at this point, there should be some kind of failsafe in place so those masks don't come off easily.
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That’s a fair point. I guess, though, just because the Bat Fam (that is Bruce) knows something doesn’t necessarily mean Dick does. I could see Bruce, and for that matter Alfred, taking the line that Zucco is in jail and there isn’t anything to be gained by encouraging Dick to continue thinking about him. Not so much withholding information as simply quietly filing it in the proper place and never bringing the subject up.
Yeah, but then we move back to old "Batfamily is mad at Bruce for keeping secrets" plot point that nobody likes either.
Got to the end of the issue and just said "Huh."
Okay? I like tropes and it's not the trope itself that's pinging my "uh, right?" thoughts. It's just with a character as extensively covered as the 80 year old Dick Grayson, pulling this off is a massive uphill battle even for a Legendary Writer, let alone a Tom Taylor, who is capable and has been around a minute, but we'd even be giving a Grant Morrison or somebody grief for this (See: Damian existing, which took Legendary Writer levels of work to make anyone buy into and not everyone has). Barring that chance, there's immediate digression into the sort of "other two narrative possibilities", which are the "This is a lie" (Leading to A. Dick vehemently and correctly discredits it no matter how hard the character tries to verify, or B. Dick's gullible and OOC) or the alternate "This could be true" (In which case either A. The writer/editorial chicken the frick out and won't really confirm the validity or B. They try to sell it way too hard with no merit to the value of the addition.)
It immediately calls to mind Scott Snyder's Lincoln March (ergo, they can claim until the cows come home that he really is Bruce's brother but none of us care, because he's not, or they can chicken out on the confirmation (which they did, and never even utilized the Owl Eventual Link to the Dark Multiverse to give him a Real Origin)) as well as ... well, Scott Snyder's James Gordon Junior ... as well as, I'd say, well, Geoff Johns' Three Jokers (a story with ramifications so unacceptable that I optimistically read it thinking "oh man how is he going to pull this premise off?" and ended the whole thing thinking "Gosh that had pretty art ... Please never let Johns write another Batman thing.")
So yeah! There we are. A big dumb shock reveal that raises questions that are fairly impossible to answer. A "Oh actually Blofeld was your Foster Brother the whole time, Mister Bond!" capital-R Retcon but perhaps with emphasis on the -Con.
Now that being said; could this be fun? Yes. Am I curious to see if he can pull it off, subvert expectations, play some of the tropes for kicks or like a fiddle, do something interesting with that cliffhanger beat, make lemonade? Yes, actually I am. Because the issue is otherwise fine. You know, first new villain scrap does the breakaway to do more whatever and build to Round Two, Tim and Babs make for great supporting roles, gorgeous art, steady hand at world-building, yadda yadda. The Trope Drop itself doesn't ruin the momentum or run for me on impact - it'll take "Mishandling" after the Trope Drop for that to happen. But this "COULD" go interesting. I don't know what the odds are. 90/10? But I feel like even a newer, less epic writer has to know those odds when they pitch something this Stupidly Bold and you'd hope an insane amount of homework has been done to try to pull it off, and that's the stuff I'm curious about now.
Retro315 no more. Anonymity is so 2005.
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So lame villian, no supporting characters of his own and an alrady used bat plot. Oh but just wait this COULD get good, eventually, maybe, improbably, but it could. But it's a slow burn, it's seding for future plots and did you see Babs' t shirt. Who cares if it's not fun to read right now?
In the meanwhile Dick gets knocked out and unmasked. Again.