Dick Grayson: Robin/ Nightwing/ Agent 37 Appreciation 2021

[sbp1972]

Capullo drawing Nightwing. Dare I hope he’s working on the Nightwing BL book with Scott Snyder?

Just posted another thread about it, but sounds like it's not reality. Snyder said he has an open offer to DC to do a Nightwing book, but nothing is on the table now or anytime soon.

[Claude]

The thing is, while Gotham and Metropolis are reflections of the respective heroes who patrol the city, Bludhaven has always been a knock off of Gotham. If Nightwing has to have his own city then it has to be *his* city and not like some other characters city and Dick shouldn't locked in to just Bludhaven he should also be going to other cities and traveling abroad for missions.

Ha! Too on the nose for Dick's investment of Alfred's money to transform Bludhaven with monorail and high tech new developments until its a Gotham/Metropolis hybrid?

[Avi]

Taylondo were in a position to make Blüdhaven feel as alive as possible by using what was there before, like the Vegas feel the early and mid Rebirth Issues introduced but especially the multitude of characters that fans already liked and wanted to see again.

Instead, they invented a contrived half-sister, made Blockbuster into even more of a Wilson Fisk, brought back Dick's time with the BPD but not what he did there, and Clancy got a cameo in which she barely felt like herself.

Almost makes me wonder if Taylondo aren't allowed to use these characters - allies and villains alike - because DC doesn't want them around Dick. It's pretty clear at least, that they prefer to see his (old) villains go up against other characters. And I don't mean they can't appear anywhere else or fight someone else, it's simply that Dick's history with characters gets ignored or erased or played-down as soon as they are attached to a new most often bat character.

This looks like Gotham Knights Nightwing, and given the Owls involvement, I'm guessing that's exactly what it's for.

I can see it, kinda. So it's most likely nothing more than a cover.

... but if a possible tie-in comic has an Issue focused on every character, I can hope though that Capullo is drawing Gotham Knights: Nightwing #1 with a focus on his history with the Owls. (Who am I kidding, this isn't gonna happen.)

[Restingvoice]

Yeah can someone tell me why is he even in Bludhaven in the first place? If he isn't going to have any space between him and the family then why did he leave Gotham in the first place! What was even the point of him becoming nightwing in the first place? Was he looking for space from the city itself? Or was it Batman and the bat family!

This is why nightwing is stuck at b list.

DC- Dick doesn't want to be Batman, he wants to be his own man!!!

So let's make him street level, give him a mini Gotham and have bat family as his cast!!! Genius lol.

But I'm with Gotham and bat family if Nightwing was more unique and was more independent first and foremost.

It's because he's already independent as a college boy and Titans, the first Batman supporting cast who actually left Gotham and stayed that way for a long time (and apparently sold a lot of books in that era), before going back to the family. So they need to keep the illusion of an independent grown-up man to be consistent with his history (which is quite impressive actually, considering they give **** all to other characters backstory) while at the same time making it close enough to get involved with the family, as his actual brand status is still Batman's supporting cast.

Otherwise, they'd just make him stay in Gotham like other adult Batman supporting cast like Catwoman, who also go out of town every once in a while, but mainly stay in Gotham, or Red Hood, who went out of Gotham because he's supposed to border anti-villain and anti-hero, then go back to Gotham the moment he became a family.

[Grayson - The Dark Heir]

The solution is really simple. Just move Dick back to Gotham and let Gotham be his home and move on from Bludhaven or other cities. Gotham is the only city he has a deep personal connection to that has characters he actually cares about in it and is filled with villains and supporting characters readers are actually interested in. Bludhaven will never be that. It has to drag characters from Gotham to prop itself up because it can't stand on its own. All Bludahven is it a cheap imitation of a Gotham or Hell's Kitchen which makes creators write Nightwing as a cardboard cutout of a generic superhero and creates uninspired stories.

His solo book should be split between him going on missions around the world and him returning "home" to Gotham for more street level stories. That is putting the character in the best position to succeed. He isn't anchored to a city with nothing in it like Bludahven that writers are constantly struggling to flesh out that he has to "protect" and he is free to travel or stay at home where the writer can pick and choose what they want. It allows the character the most mobility, which should be key to Dick's character. His relationship with Babs isn't impeded because Dick isn't forced to be in another city all the time, and all the fans of Dick doing globetrotting stories can get them because Dick isn't forced to be in a city as the sole hero in it like in Bludhaven. Gotham has plenty of other heroes to take up any slack, but it is also large enough where you can write solo stories for multiple ongoing series.

The Young Justice show figured this out. They had Dick be based in Gotham while setting up missions to do around the world. They just made Bludhaven a section of Gotham, which it basically has always been anyway. So if you want to write a story where Dick is trying to uncover some mystery of the Court of Owls in Gotham, or fighting the Riddler, you can do that, and if you want to write a story where Dick is chasing Deathstroke around the world or trying to fight against some global crime syndicate you can to that too all without having to try and reformat these concepts to fit with Bludhaven. To me this is just such an easy solution.

Right on the money imo.

It's not like it's the greatest status quo, but it makes so much more sense for the character. He needs to be in Gotham whenever it's time for a big Bat story. He's always around his family or they're always around him, which brings him back to Gotham regardless.

His best stories as a "solo" character has always been in Gotham. A huge part of that is what you were getting at Badou, sine Gotham just inherently has interesting elements and characters to pull from, and Dick has an inherent reason to care about Gotham specifically (which is also why he's always there anyways, whether he lives in Bludhaven or not).

As it stands now, Dick has two homes according to Taylor's run and all the ongoing Batman books: Gotham and Bludhaven. Only one of them is interesting. If the idea is that he'd be less independent, I have to ask "when has he been independent?" because he clearly hasn't been since he first moved to Bludhaven lol.

[Vordan]

Ha! Too on the nose for Dick's investment of Alfred's money to transform Bludhaven with monorail and high tech new developments until its a Gotham/Metropolis hybrid?

…not a bad idea actually. Still prefer the Rebirth take on it as Las Vegas but Bludhaven as a Gotham/Metropolis hybrid is better than what it is now.

[Avi]

Right on the money imo.

It's not like it's the greatest status quo, but it makes so much more sense for the character. He needs to be in Gotham whenever it's time for a big Bat story. He's always around his family or they're always around him, which brings him back to Gotham regardless.

His best stories as a "solo" character has always been in Gotham. A huge part of that is what you were getting at Badou, sine Gotham just inherently has interesting elements and characters to pull from, and Dick has an inherent reason to care about Gotham specifically (which is also why he's always there anyways, whether he lives in Bludhaven or not).

As it stands now, Dick has two homes according to Taylor's run and all the ongoing Batman books: Gotham and Bludhaven. Only one of them is interesting. If the idea is that he'd be less independent, I have to ask "when has he been independent?" because he clearly hasn't been since he first moved to Bludhaven lol.

What are these best solo stories in Gotham?

[JackJustMetMartin]

What are these best solo stories in Gotham?

In fact I'd argue Nightwing the Untouchable by Sam Humphries, is one of the best solo Nightwing stories, which is set in Bludhaven.

Bludhaven is fine as a concept, but it's horrendously underdeveloped. He needs a cast of characters to play off.

[Drako]

What are these best solo stories in Gotham?

It looks like Higgin's run is retroactively getting good to fit the new narrative that it's better for him to be in Gotham.
Unless he is talking about the time Dick was Batman.

[MakeNightwingGreatAgain]

Right on the money imo.

It's not like it's the greatest status quo, but it makes so much more sense for the character. He needs to be in Gotham whenever it's time for a big Bat story. He's always around his family or they're always around him, which brings him back to Gotham regardless.

His best stories as a "solo" character has always been in Gotham. A huge part of that is what you were getting at Badou, sine Gotham just inherently has interesting elements and characters to pull from, and Dick has an inherent reason to care about Gotham specifically (which is also why he's always there anyways, whether he lives in Bludhaven or not).

As it stands now, Dick has two homes according to Taylor's run and all the ongoing Batman books: Gotham and Bludhaven. Only one of them is interesting. If the idea is that he'd be less independent, I have to ask "when has he been independent?" because he clearly hasn't been since he first moved to Bludhaven lol.

He was quite independent in his best reviewed runs such as Tomasi, Higgins, King/Seeley and Wolfman. Dixon is really only credited as be the definitive Nightwing writer because he got to write the first Nightwing solo. Besides, if anyone should be the definitive nightwing writer, it should be Wolfman (even though he too had his problems). Being definitive also does not mean being the best imo. The best Nightwing writer to date is still Tomasi and he had only like 14 or so issues. And in Tomasi's run, one of the most praised decisions was taking Dick to NYC. The batfam was still present, but you could tell Tomasi was writing Dick as independent from them as possible. I'm not sure if Tomasi knew before hand that he would have to give Dick up to Grant Morrison to be batman, but you could tell, like always that towards the end of his run, the status quo came back and that's when Dick once again looses his agency as a character.

Grant Morrison's DickBats was great, but it came at the expense of an amazing direction to take Dick that really could have propelled him forward. But instead, we got everything Tomasi had Dick do by learning to leave the past behind and build a new life for himself nuked and placed everything Dick was moving on from back to the forefront like Tomasi's version of Dick was a fever dream. Dick in my mind isn't a legacy character. He is a hero who created his own mantle, partnered with batman, moved out from under his shadow and then created a new mantle to define himself as an adult shedding his past. Dick was never meant to be Batman, he was meant to be Nightwing/Agent37.

Its 100% ok for Dick to interact with Batfam, be in Gotham and consider Batman and co part of his family. Its the same thing with the Titans. Its ok for Dick to interact with the titans, be in Titans tower and consider Titans part of his family. But Dick's home and family was always wherever he was in the moment and whomever he was with at the time. The whole world is his home and anyone living on earth can be considered his family. I really wish writers would lean into this narrative with Dick that was established with his parents being travelers in the circus. He was always on the move since birth. He is robin because he soars the skies like a bird. He is always up in the air and never firmly planted on the ground. Dick doesnt need to be grounded, he needs to be able to fly. His family needs to be able to fly with him or stay grounded without him and understand his decisions. Its not that he is leaving them, but he needs to keep moving. Gotham, Titansfam and Batfam will always be there for him when he gets back, he doesnt always need to be with them or in Gotham.

[John Venus]

Ha! Too on the nose for Dick's investment of Alfred's money to transform Bludhaven with monorail and high tech new developments until its a Gotham/Metropolis hybrid?

I mean, the city got blown up. I know there has been a few Crisis but it was a missed opportunity to revamp the city into something different. Say, a group of rich landowners bought most of the land to build casinos and sky scrapers and drove out the survivors and grieving family members of the people who originally lived there. Dick fighting a group of rich, corporate elites would be an interesting take on him.

In fact I'd argue Nightwing the Untouchable by Sam Humphries, is one of the best solo Nightwing stories, which is set in Bludhaven.

Bludhaven is fine as a concept, but it's horrendously underdeveloped. He needs a cast of characters to play off.

Yep, Bludhaven doesn't need to be abandoned. It just needs to be better developed.

[Restingvoice]

Bludhaven has too cool a name for me to abandon completely... but that's not a city name I'd give to Dick. Bludhaven sounds like a city you give to... Azrael, maybe. The edgier Batman.

It's a very 90s name I feel

[Godlike13]

What are these best solo stories in Gotham?

The Batman stuff im guessing.

[WonderNight]

The Batman stuff im guessing.

Well nightwing is the ultimate sidekick lol

[dietrich]

Well nightwing is the ultimate sidekick lol

Dick Grayson made Robin the most Iconic sidekick in comics and pop culture [I corrected that for U ]

Nightwing isn't a sidekick. He is part of Batman's Franchise yeah but that's not all he is.

It's unrealistic and unwise to divorce him from the Bat franchise when he's such a critical part of mythos.

DC just needs to do better balancing between Gotham, Blud, Titans and the larger dCU.

Nightwing should connected to all 4 just like Dick Grayson once did