Dick Grayson: Robin/ Nightwing/ Agent 37 Appreciation 2021

[Godlike13]

Of course it hurts the brand. I said the same thing, and that DC's Bat wanking hurts everything, including Bruce. My point isn't that treating Dick like a whipping boy is a good thing, my point is that it shows that Nightwing still has a powerful profile. By DC standards, it's when they *stop* doing this to Dick (or Clark) that we should be worried, because it'll mean the character's profile is no longer a metric to measure everyone else by. I'm not saying it's good for business or creativity, only that Dick is still a big deal.

But he's not, and Dick's profile is expendable more so that it is powerful. Thats what it demonstrates. Its a generally known profile, but not one powerful enough that they care to protect, and one they will readily prioritize other characters over. You should be worried about it now, before they get to the point where its too late and he's seen with no worth at all. Which at that point there nothing that can be done about it. Cause that is the edge he's at right now. When you over use a measuring stick, there comes a point audience stop seeing it as a credible measuring stick. And Dick is far beyond that point. No one takes him seriously as measuring stick or a big deal anymore, that's why his book is in the gutter.

As they now try to dig him out of the hole of being deemed worth the likes of Lobdell and Jurgens and the damage that wrought. Asking readers to take a character seriously again in one place, while simultaneously continuing to portray or market him as lesser everywhere else (as a character so and so is going to beat his way through. Even if it doesn't necessarily play out as such they have now implanted the idea of it nonetheless), doesn't work. Dick's character and profile has been so taken for granted that they are struggling to sell his book now. That is the reality the character finds himself in. The more they continue with this inconsistency, its not going to matter what Taylor does, the character will just continue to trend downward.

[Avi]

I wonder if someone's crunched the numbers, and being 22 issues out from a #100 is more profitable than a new #1.


I've not been around as much lately, so sorry if I've missed it - but what do people think about Teen Titans Academy and Suicide Squad being "sister titles". Lots of Nightwing connections on the Squad's roster, Thompson moving to it from Titans, and the Red X story being told across both titles...

On the one hand, it's nice to have a bit of scale. On the other hand, that first Suicide Squad issue fell a way short of blowing me away.

I'm not sure how to feel about Suicide Squad and the Teen Titans getting close, simply because it often feels as if Teen Titans is more Suicide than the Squad, which isn't the direction I want for them, especially not while it focuses on fresh-faced teen characters.

That said, I think the TTA direction and connection to Suicide Squad hold some good opportunities for Dick. They just have to be used.

While I hope Shrike and Talon remember that their beef is with Nightwing, I'm not gonna believe it until I see it. On the more "pure TTA" side of things, I want Sheridan to show more of Dick's time as the first Red X. I need some backstory. I also hope we get to see a revitalization of the Nightwing & Deathstroke dynamic that was already teased in Future State.

I can see Deathstroke Inc. being the second sister title to TTA.

[Ascended]

You should be worried about it now, before they get to the point where its too late and he's seen with no worth at all.

I am. Hell I've been here, lamenting the state of the character right alongside everyone else for years and I can be as cynical as anyone. And a few good issues from DC isn't enough to make me stop worrying or remove the concerns I have about how they've approach the IP from a business and creative standpoint.

But I'm trying to give the new people the benefit of the doubt here. Didio and Harras and all the other guys who put Nightwing in the position he's in are gone (and good riddance!). We don't have much content to judge the new guys on yet, but one FS mini and a single Taylor issue deep, what I see is a big, big improvement. Maybe what we've gotten isn't the big, giant shakeup some of us fans wanted to see, but we have actual *quality* right now, and that's more important than anything else. That's more than DC has given us in a long time, and without quality no new status quo is going to matter.

Maybe the new guys will end up as bad as the old ones. Maybe they'll continue to treat Dick like an expendable asset that's only good for propping up Batman (which is how the old guys treated everybody in the DCU). But so far I'm not seeing it. Not yet, at least. I think we have real, concrete reasons to be optimistic. Maybe my optimism will prove to be misplaced, but so far it hasn't been (but again, three issues isn't much to go on).

If some of y'all just aren't feeling Taylor's first issue and the love letter to the Dixon days, all well and good (a Dixon redux isn't where I want Dick to be long-term either, dont get me wrong). Enjoy what you enjoy. But I feel like a lot of the negativity I'm seeing here...it doesn't feel like it's about what is actually on the page as much as it feels like we've just all fallen into the habit of expecting the worst and seeing the worst in every minor panel and line of dialogue, because DC treated Dick and his fans like sh*t for so damn long.

[Godlike13]

This isn’t the first time the character has seen quality, the point is having consistency across the board so that that quality isn’t undermined like we have seen before. At an especially vulnerable time. Only 3 months in to this new direction and already seeing them sell the idea of serving him up isn’t a good sign. You can give them the benefit of the doubt, and positivity is fine, but nonetheless that’s a rather concerning red flag. That’s not something to be ignored, because we have quality right now.

[Rac7d*]

Happy birthday Grayson
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[HsssH]

What Taylor is doing is definitely an improvement over what we had, but then I finally got around reading Let Them Live! issue and realised that this is what I want instead of whatever Taylor is doing.

I'm sure that some will throw stones at me now, but I found "Ric" premise more interesting that what we are hearing from Taylor so far. Yes, entire thing was executed horrifically, but I'd rather take well executed "Nightwing loses his memory and Owls try to brainwash him" story than another story about Barbara, Blockbuster and death of his parents.

So yeah, Taylor is likely to deliver above average quality of stuff that I don't find very exciting. Is it good or bad? Could be worse, but thats not making me optimistic.

[Pohzee]

What Taylor is doing is definitely an improvement over what we had, but then I finally got around reading Let Them Live! issue and realised that this is what I want instead of whatever Taylor is doing.

I'm sure that some will throw stones at me now, but I found "Ric" premise more interesting that what we are hearing from Taylor so far. Yes, entire thing was executed horrifically, but I'd rather take well executed "Nightwing loses his memory and Owls try to brainwash him" story than another story about Barbara, Blockbuster and death of his parents.

So yeah, Taylor is likely to deliver above average quality of stuff that I don't find very exciting. Is it good or bad? Could be worse, but thats not making me optimistic.

Well put. It was an amazingly written and well drawn issue, but it didn't grab me like that one issue of Freefall did

[WonderNight]

Well put. It was an amazingly written and well drawn issue, but it didn't grab me like that one issue of Freefall did

Yeah because nightwing should be EPIC! I don't get why dc want's "grounded" nightwing so much.

Dc loves the "gods among man" but with nightwing it's "man among gods" for some reason. Maybe because they still view him as a support character?

[dropkickjake]

I definitely feel you. Grounded Nightwing is not my ideal scenario. His most "normal" life was a part of a traveling circus. That said, I'll take well executed dixon-esque Bludhaven over poorly executed/getting jerked around every three months Nightwing that we got under Didio.

We'll see where Taylor takes us. The solicits don't inspire hope that we'll get what I would write or want written, but the quality of the issue is promising.

[Godlike13]

Problem is we got a really poorly executed "Nightwing loses his memory and Owls try to brainwash him" story. So they can’t do a “Ric” again after Ric bombs and was rejected so flagrantly. They have to return to form before they can shake things up.

Lets be honest though, the Owls at this point is as old hat as Blockbuster, Babs, or the death of his parents. The Owls have been probably more overused with Dick in the last decade even.

[Ascended]

I definitely feel you. Grounded Nightwing is not my ideal scenario. His most "normal" life was a part of a traveling circus. That said, I'll take well executed dixon-esque Bludhaven over poorly executed/getting jerked around every three months Nightwing that we got under Didio.

We'll see where Taylor takes us. The solicits don't inspire hope that we'll get what I would write or want written, but the quality of the issue is promising.

That's where I'm at (obviously, since I spend several posts bitching about this).

Like, it's a damn shame y'all aren't getting dropkick and my Nightwing; that's the dark neo-Silver Age, globe trotting, badass and sexy Nightwing every fan could get behind. But I'll take a quality Dixon sequel over what we got the last several years, happily.

Quality is what's most important for me; a great concept with bad execution is what brings us Ric Grayson. A standard concept with fantastic execution is what propels a book forward in a sustainable way, and makes those big status quo improvements more likely to catch on.

[mib86]

Personally i do not believe. to be or not to be grounded is a choice Nightwing has to make.
Nightwing is a very flexible character, you can use him in any kind of story even more than Batman (who works best on dark and night).
You can have an urban mystery in the first arc and a crazy science fiction story in the other, not forgetting Dick's espionage background and all his old friends.
To begin with, though, it's not a bad decision to start over from Bludheaven: Dick needs a city other than Gothan to use as a base and his supporting characters, so the first thing to do is start rebuilding from here.
I also think it might be a good idea to try to recover something from the previous arcs to speed up the work, for example if I remember correctly the other Nightwings of the ric saga were people in the P.D. and in the fire department, Dick could keep those contacts and use them when he needs someone inside ...

[Frontier]

Happy birthday Grayson
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I wonder how they'll handle Kori when/if she shows up.

I wouldn't be surprised if she starts out younger than Dick so it's not even relevant.

[Lady Nightwing]

There's a lot of buzz on twitter about Nightwing appearing in the Harley Quinn cartoon

[Rac7d*]

There's a lot of buzz on twitter about Nightwing appearing in the Harley Quinn cartoon

That be pretty cool