The Appeal Of Dick/Babs

[John Venus]

I thought this warranted it's own discussion thread instead of clogging up others.

What is the appeal of Dick/Babs? Why do writers/fans like to see them together? What do the characters see in each other?

As a Dick/Kory fan I can see the appeal of them being together. Kory helped Dick open up his emotions and move away from the Batman's training which focused on making him cold, logical and emotionless. In turn Dick admires Kory because she is someone who survived a very harsh life yet still very warm, friendly and yet still ferocious as a fighter. Dick's relationship with Kory represents a life outside of Batman's shadow for him.

So in turn what is it that makes Dick/Babs tick?

If you want to argue why they don't work then this is the thread for it too.

[phonogram12]

Honestly, it wasn't until Tom Taylor's current run on Nightwing that I really saw the appeal. Previously (especially post-Crisis), I just thought they were far too similar to each other, not only in the good ways, but also the bad, which is why during that time I preferred Dick with Kory. Like you said, she just brought out a side in him that he was almost completely neglected being raised by Batman. On the flip side, I always liked the idea of Babs and Ted Kord for exactly the same reason. It should go without saying that the trauma that Babs suffered at the hands of the Joker was life altering to the point where it almost seemed like she cut herself off nearly as much as Bruce. Who better than half of the Blue & Gold team to help her break out of that? Plus, they already had all that tech stuff in common, too.

With Taylor's run, though, for the first time I see them as complimentary to each other. They've both gotten past their issues and are supportive, playful, and patient with one another. I hope it sticks, personally.

[Darkspellmaster]

Babs brings out the best in Dick and he does the same for her. They challenge each other in a way that Kory and him don't. Babs is super smart so Dick is always upping his interests and intellectual game to make her do the same, in turn Dick is really physical and charming in and out of costume, so Babs has to up her physically and charming game. Same as MJ drawing the more confident Peter out of his shell, I think Dick does the same for Babs, and she draws the quieter more introspective side out of Dick.

Also great chemistry when written right and very cute too.

[Restingvoice]

Oh, I just go with what the story gives and the current story just happens to be Dick Babs, after years of not dating. I didn't read NTT, watch TT 2003, or the current Titans. So Dick Babs is just automatic and I don't feel the need to ask what is the appeal, if anything it's what's the appeal of the others.

I like Sonia because of the whole your father killed mine thing
Helena seems to be used when they want Dick to go the dangerous life and destined to not be with Dick so I'm not invested
Shawn they rushed it so I wasn't as interested
Kori seems to be the most... their story seems a story designed for love. It's passionate, romantic, and physical. It's intense. Including the jealousy parts.
Whereas Dick Babs seems like a slow burner. Like really slow. Not dating for 10 years in and out of story slow.

I guess one appeal is because they've retconned Dick Babs to be childhood friends, it feels more familiar to me as a manga reader. They got loads of those. The less physical and intense it is also more familiar, compared to the more passionate one with Kori. I'm used to relationships not going anywhere for 25 volumes of manga. This is familiar territory.

---

This one's not about the romance and more about character trope or story, but it does affect how I consume media: because Kori's an alien, her initial story involves fish out of water moments, naive newcomer, innocent miss fanservice, those are the tropes that I'm already tired of seeing in anime and makes me cringe a lot. That includes characters like Thor, Wonder Woman, any mermaid or god characters, and so on. Any character/story with that situation is auto-avoid.

I prefer those characters after they're familiar on earth so I can cringe less, and every time they make them undergo that situation again, even though they're not supposed to anymore, like the DC You Starfire series, I was like, gosh no. Stop. Skip.

[Godlike13]

Reverse Spider-Man. It’s not always about Dick’s perspective. Especially when it comes to Oracle.

[Frontier]

Part of it is that they were the original two sidekicks for Batman and that Robin used to have a crush on her (and that kiss was pretty impactful in that issue where they fought ghost Presidents), and then Chuck Dixon expanded and developed it a lot across multiple books.

[AmiMizuno]

The same is said about Kori doing the NTT when he wasn't part of the Batman editoral. So I lot of what DickBabs is also the same with Dick Kori before Batman editors took him back. Kori also brought out the best in his. Dick and Kori is much quick and not slow burn. The issue with Dickbabs relationship is the slow burn because Babs puts the blame on Dick or that she is jealous for no reason. Like Dick broke her heart when it wasn't his fault. At times it gets too much with Slow burn but I'm very happy that Tom found a way to make it work and make Babs lovable.

I love both Dickbabs and Dickbabs. It's just Dc many times turns me off Dickbabs due to how Babs acts and Dicks acts. Babs thinks he is always cheating not confident in their relationship

[AmiMizuno]

Dc could also have said no to having the two break up. So I often feel like they never really have a reason to break them up when they keep pushing for them. Them they keep continuing the pattern. So I never think we will ever see a wedding.

[WonderNight]

Man dick could have a great relationship with almost any woman so that shouldn't even be the main point. The thing people seem to forget is that these characters are also brand ips, I don't believe dick's love interest or best friends should be members if the batfam.

The bat family is dick's family, They don't have to be his supporting cast, best friends and love interest also! It hurts the nightwing brand by increasing his dependency on all things batverse and Gotham.

Dick is becoming less his own hero and more batboy the sidekick! A little more space won't hurt.

[John Venus]

Babs brings out the best in Dick and he does the same for her. They challenge each other in a way that Kory and him don't. Babs is super smart so Dick is always upping his interests and intellectual game to make her do the same, in turn Dick is really physical and charming in and out of costume, so Babs has to up her physically and charming game. Same as MJ drawing the more confident Peter out of his shell, I think Dick does the same for Babs, and she draws the quieter more introspective side out of Dick.

Also great chemistry when written right and very cute too.

This gives me more sibling vibes than romantic vibes.

[Rac7d*]

This gives me more sibling vibes than romantic vibes.

I never get the siblings comments. They met at 13, began working together at 16,17.

Tim is a sibling Damian is a sibling, their under the same roof, same father. Babs was the first outsider and Bruce did not take to her immediately. While yes she is a core memeber today that took time and work to build that trust. Not like today where a new kid comes along every two years. While yes she is a big sister figure for Cass and Steph not dick. They we’re friends, coworkers, lovers.

[Marilee]

I never get the siblings comments. They met at 13, began working together at 16,17.

Tim is a sibling Damian is a sibling, their under the same roof, same father. Babs was the first outsider and Bruce did not take to her immediately. While yes she is a core memeber today that took time and work to build that trust. Not like today where a new kid comes along every two years. While yes she is a big sister figure for Cass and Steph not dick. They we’re friends, coworkers, lovers.

Really... Cause literally in that early image that got butchered in the godforsaken Nightwing annual, Dick literally referred to looking at Barbara as a big sister.EarlyDick-Babs05.jpg... So yes, there is precedent for a person saying they can see them as siblings (some of us have been around long enough to have read those issues when they first came out).

[MakeNightwingGreatAgain]

I never get the siblings comments. They met at 13, began working together at 16,17.

Tim is a sibling Damian is a sibling, their under the same roof, same father. Babs was the first outsider and Bruce did not take to her immediately. While yes she is a core memeber today that took time and work to build that trust. Not like today where a new kid comes along every two years. While yes she is a big sister figure for Cass and Steph not dick. They we’re friends, coworkers, lovers.

Actually, this is a retcon. Babs was originally 5 or 6 years older than dick and met him when she was a congresswoman. Her development as a character was retconned every time to make her closer to Dick’s age. Babs was originally a Batman love interest which is why she shares a lot of the same ideas and traits at Batman. And why she appears more sibling like to the robins. It’s the truth. DickxBabs came from the idea that dick needed a reason to stay with batfam and to take him away from Titans. It’s only there to serve as a way for Dick to be needs by batfam editorial.

[Fridays]

This gives me more sibling vibes than romantic vibes.

I get the same vibe also. Writers may feel differently because they tend to play on young love tropes.

[John Venus]

They didn’t actually retcon much to make it work. The retcons were added to enhance the romance, but it would work fine just on what was already there. Dick and Babs only ever have full on committed dated as Nightwing and Oracle. And it didn’t just happen because they loved it each other as kids. They courted back and forth for year as adults, leading to them eventually entering into a relationship. They went through the paces as adults in addition to the added retcons.

Also DC has had Babs dating a lot as Batgirl. Just none of them make much of an impact.

Not really, Dixon's Batgirl: Year One and Nightwing: Year One showed that Dick and Babs had sexual tension even back when they were Robin and Batgirl. Dick even kisses her in the former and in the latter he flirts with Babs even though he was in a committed relationship with Kory at the time and was adamant on being in a monogamous relationship. Even the current run showed them as school mates which is new.

I want to mention that infamous Nightwing annual where Dick sleeps with Barbara before his marriage to Kory but I honestly can't tell whether it wanted me to root for Dick/Babs or hate it. lol But even that story plays on the notion that both characters were always holding a torch for each other.

I wouldn't mind if writers played them as friends who later became lovers but that's usually not the case. Writers want you to believe that Dick/Babs is always meant to be and that even if both of them are dating different people they're still pining for each other and none of their other romances matter.

I bring up Wally because while yes he was different when Wolfman was writing him (as all the characters would inevitably be), that was the era where Dick/Kory was most important. And it's very YMMV if any of the romances from that era were every really a strong point in that run to begin with. It all comes down to personal taste, especially for us as readers who were born after it was coming out and are reading it from a modern perspective. For better or worse, that run as a whole is the main thing the Titans IP has going for it, it's never really branched out into anything different that works on the same level. So Dick and Kory always seem like they're just rehashing the stuff from that era every time they hook up and inevitably drift apart again.

The NTT run, the 2003 cartoon and even the animated Nu52 movies plus the Titans show have given the pairing some kind of boost over the years. So I don't think the NTT run is the only thing the pairing has going for it and you got to ask yourself why the pairing keeps resonating with so many people despite DC's efforts to bury the Titans during the Didio era.

I disagree that a lot of retcons had to take place to get Dick/Babs to work. At most they retconned her age to be younger (but still older than him), but like Godlike said they didn't really commit to the romance until he was Nightwing and she was Oracle anyway (I believe as a response to their ship teasing in stuff like BTAS). Most major romances do tend to take place within the IP itself, and considering the Batman mythos is Dick's original home and will always be more important than the Titans to him (since the latter is so unstable and DC has difficulty doing anything of substance with it), that isn't really a bad thing.

See my reply to Godlike above.

The lack of any great output DC has with Babs as Batgirl in the main canon again is kind of irrelevant to the topic of her being with Dick. It's a valid issue, but a separate one.

And regardless of fan debates, Dick's true love is going to depend on which IP is more relevant to him at any given time. Both romances are going to be annoying because of the big outside factor of DC not wanting to end the "will they/won't they" crap and no romance can avoid becoming annoying when that comes into play. Depending on the fan, both relationships can believably be long term or destined to fizzle out. And I don't think a fan who finds appeal in one is ever going to be convinced of the appeal of the other.

Actually, I think they are connected and it just hit me, there is a parallel here to Spider-Man/OMD.

Ok hear me, out after OMD I stopped giving a **** about Spider-Man after he sold his marriage to the Devil. Like why should I give a **** about any of growth or romantic interest if it's going to have a cut off point and it will be undone?

Same thing with Babs after Nu52. Whether it's Simone's Batgirl or the Burnside Batgirl or whatever they're doing now, it's hard to give a **** when the character's been deaged and infantilized. Even her romance with Dick isn't going to go anywhere really because they want her to be perpetually young and never grow up.

Just like with Spider-Man, writers have this idealized nostalgic version of their heads and they don't want this version to grow up, ever. Even though for some of us, the entire appeal is seeing them grow. In the comics, Babs was never this soft, innocent little girl going on cutesy little adventures that Batgirl Year One and the Burnside Batgirl tried to tell us. She was a more grown up, mature, serious hero who didn't go by 'Batwoman' only out a technicality of there already being a 'Batwoman' (albeit retired). Even Killer Moth was a more serious villains in the old 60's comics while later writers turned him into a joke. On B:TAS, Dini said they didn't want to scale down any the threats just because Batgirl was there and it's true, they had her fighting DCAU Skynet is her intro episode and her Batgirl episode had her fighting Big City Corruption. Even in the follow up series, the threat level never went down or became sillier just because Babs as Batgirl was there.

And while I agree that ultimately the ones in charge of the IP gets to decide what to do with them and the current Nightwing run is a nostalgic throw back to Dixon's Nightwing run, I think they still need to do what's best for the character and do more than harken back to nostaglia.

I never get the siblings comments. They met at 13, began working together at 16,17.

Tim is a sibling Damian is a sibling, their under the same roof, same father. Babs was the first outsider and Bruce did not take to her immediately. While yes she is a core memeber today that took time and work to build that trust. Not like today where a new kid comes along every two years. While yes she is a big sister figure for Cass and Steph not dick. They we’re friends, coworkers, lovers.

A lot of that probably from their bickering in 'The Batman' show. But even in the comics, there have been moments where I got that sibling vibe.

That one is the most simple. Their fans either grew up with the '66 show, the 70's comics or BTAS/TNBA.

Once the animated TT generation takes over these books, expect a lot more Dick/Kori stories than Dick/Babs.

The animated TT generation and the B:TAS generation are largely the same. I now since I'm one of them.

Nobody came out of the '66 show wishing for more Dick/Babs after seeing West/Craig's on screen chemistry.

I came to Batman comics via Batman: The Animated Series, where Dick and Babs fancied each other. When I got into the books, Dixon started planting the seeds of getting them together and later writers fleshed that out into a decent pairing. Pretty much anything prior to TAS gives them a very different relationship but that's where I started.

I still think they work better than Dick/Kory but I can't say a part of that isn't always going to be informed by my introduction to the characters in the comics.

I grew up with both B:TAS and 2k3 Titans. Spent most of the Didio editorial era going through back issues of older comics. I used to root for Dick/Babs but I think over time I changed my mind and started rooting for Dick/Kory. I think the latter just has more going for it while Dick/Babs feel like it's there because the editorial/writers want it and not because it feels organic for both characters.


At this point, I think Dick, Barbara and Kory all need to date different people. Not new characters but established characters. Build their characters up individually for a bit. Have them date them date other people and then figure out who they are most compatible with in the end.