GRAYSON is a success - does that mean we'll never see Dick as a costumed hero again?

[gwangung]

Yeahhhhhhhh.

All these desires to see Dick back in the costume AND to see Helena in one, too, shows the moribund, festihistic nature of comic fandom these days. Can't see a viable approach if it bit them in the butt.

[OversizedLoad]

Yeah, probably around 2 years they will try to make him Nightwing again. It isn't like Grayson's sales are amazing like a Harley Quinn's where they are completely rebranding the character to fit that book. So I can see the concept not lasting very long. They are good but it will be selling close to where Nightwing was after an arc or two probably. Plus with DC trying to make their comics match their TV properties him being Nightwing in that Titans show will pressure them to make him Nightwing again too.

That being said I think Nightwing is a dead end for the character as long as he doesn't have the history and importance anymore to make Nightwing viable and interesting, especially since Jason, Tim and others basically fill the Nightwing role now. The reboot essentially made Nightwing irrelevant and I don't see that changing any time soon.

Except that kind of synergy is the exact opposite of what the CCO has proposed and reiterated when asked in interviews.

Nightwing has been a dead end for stories since 2009 arguably before that. The New52 Nightwing suffered from a lack of a real hook and any kind of narrative follow through. Agent 37 gives Dick the opportunity to stretch his legs out and cut loose. Grayson has the quality and legs to go the distance in print, film, TV, video games etc.

Jason, Tim & Luke are doing the "Nightwing" thing and it's not working for them at all. Tim has the Terrible Teen Team Adventures Vol 1 & 2. Jason has weird adventures with the Not!Titans, which include vague references to a 'team' who had past adventures with Dick. Luke is a solo hero in Gotham struggling to define himself with angst via daddy issues, lady troubles etc. Put them all together and you get a pretty rough outline of Dick Grayson's Nightwing publication history.

Harley Quinn is an unholy sales monster, a complete anomaly not a benchmark. Sales numbers should be viewed as relative to the broader market. Johns & JRJR on Supermanonly sold 4682 more print issues than Janin, King & Seeley on Grayson last month. Does that make Superman a sales flop? Are we going to see a more Man of Steel-esque shift post Convergence? Morrison and Quitely put together a masterclass of comic book storytelling with Pax Americana but only outsold Grayson by 3540 print issues. Is that a sales flop or a reflection of market preference to certain publishers thirteen-million event books a month strategy. You should really adjust your scope when you look at these numbers.

[cranger]

I imagine he will be back in costume as soon as they establish enough other legacy characters for him to have a reason to be Nightwing again.

[FanboyStranger]

I'm sure he'll be back as a superhero at some point, but I have to admit that this is the first time that I've been excited about the character since the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans. It's about the time that Dick got removed from the Gotham grind and did his own thing. (I consider his time in Bludhaven to be part of the Gotham grind.)

I did like him as Batman during Morrison's run, but that was more because of the relationship with Damien and the mostly excellent artistic work.

[M L A]

Never again?

Probably not. Though I suppose people were wishing he'd go back to being Robin after he become Nightwing, and look what happened. lol

Though if Grayson's quality stays this high or near it and he's himself then I wouldn't mind him staying a spy.

[colossus34]

Not hurting for sales but definitely lacking in quality.

That's really the story of nightwings entire career though isnt' it? He needs an A list writer and a real push by DC to really cement himself regardless of what his codename is.

[brucekent12]

Not a betting man, but I figure its 50/50 on whether or not Dick becomes Nighwing again. If sales on his spy adventures remain high, he'll stay a spy for the foreseeable future. If they drop and Titans is a hit series where fans call for more Nightwing, he'll don the costume.

[Badou]

Except that kind of synergy is the exact opposite of what the CCO has proposed and reiterated when asked in interviews.

Nightwing has been a dead end for stories since 2009 arguably before that. The New52 Nightwing suffered from a lack of a real hook and any kind of narrative follow through. Agent 37 gives Dick the opportunity to stretch his legs out and cut loose. Grayson has the quality and legs to go the distance in print, film, TV, video games etc.

Jason, Tim & Luke are doing the "Nightwing" thing and it's not working for them at all. Tim has the Terrible Teen Team Adventures Vol 1 & 2. Jason has weird adventures with the Not!Titans, which include vague references to a 'team' who had past adventures with Dick. Luke is a solo hero in Gotham struggling to define himself with angst via daddy issues, lady troubles etc. Put them all together and you get a pretty rough outline of Dick Grayson's Nightwing publication history.

Harley Quinn is an unholy sales monster, a complete anomaly not a benchmark. Sales numbers should be viewed as relative to the broader market. Johns & JRJR on Supermanonly sold 4682 more print issues than Janin, King & Seeley on Grayson last month. Does that make Superman a sales flop? Are we going to see a more Man of Steel-esque shift post Convergence? Morrison and Quitely put together a masterclass of comic book storytelling with Pax Americana but only outsold Grayson by 3540 print issues. Is that a sales flop or a reflection of market preference to certain publishers thirteen-million event books a month strategy. You should really adjust your scope when you look at these numbers.

That synergy is happening though. They have already made the Green Arrow book more like the TV show version and they recently deaged and changed Deathstroke's hair color to match the TV show version as well. Flash is seeing changes too. After Grayson's sales fall low enough they will probably give the OK to make the character more like his TV counterpart. I just wouldn't be surprised if they do that. Maybe when King and Seeley leave they will make the switch.

I just don't see 'Grayson' having a huge life beyond the comics. Nightwing is too firmly entrenched. By the time the Titans show gets going Grayson's sales will have dipped quite a bit and also you have the big Batman Arhman Knight game where Nightwing will probably be part of that too. Given that Nightwing will probably be in some more animated movies as well I don't see how Grayson as a spy can make up that ground unless DC decides to give the character and spy direction a lot more promotion.

[WonderScott]

Yeahhhhhhhh.

All these desires to see Dick back in the costume AND to see Helena in one, too, shows the moribund, festihistic nature of comic fandom these days. Can't see a viable approach if it bit them in the butt.

Haha... I wouldn't say moribund or fetishistic, but more a real possibility of that particular outcome after Grayson runs it's course. Grayson is a great book, I love it, but Nightwing Returns is probably too great a story not to tell at some point, based on who Dick Grayson is and his relationship to Bruce, Babs, etc.

[Godlike13]

He could go back to Nightwing. This is comics. Not that i want him too right now, im enjoying Grayson, and the have pretty bastardize Nightwing, but Nightwing is always there as a fallback. Plus it does already have some legs in other media. So im not gonna rule it out.
Though as long they don't put any effort in being creative when he's Nightwing, or trying anything new, then Nightwing is always going to be a dead end for Dick. U get what u put it.

[gwangung]

I'm sure he'll be back as a superhero at some point, but I have to admit that this is the first time that I've been excited about the character since the Wolfman/Perez New Teen Titans. It's about the time that Dick got removed from the Gotham grind and did his own thing. (I consider his time in Bludhaven to be part of the Gotham grind.)

I did like him as Batman during Morrison's run, but that was more because of the relationship with Damien and the mostly excellent artistic work.

The point, I think, is that Dick Grayson's life is informed by Batman...but it's not defined by Batman. Whatever he does, it shouldn't be something that could be done by Batman. If Batman is linked to his city, Grayson should be linked to the world.....and so forth....

[Dzetoun]

He'll return to Nightwing at some point - I say in two to three years if Grayson stays as solid as it has. They good thing about Spyral (or Leviathan for the that matter) is it pretty seamlessly fits into Batman's world of costumed super heroics. Nightwing will return at some point and the new Bat family, including Bluebird and Lark, etc., will be made whole. It'd be great to see at the end of the run a crossover with Bat titles that reveals Dick is not dead and gets us a costumed Helena Bertinelli too.

Well, I don't know that they would put Helena in costume. It could certainly work, but they seem to have the character oriented in another direction. For that matter, I wouldn't be very quick to assume we will see a return to Nightwing, at least not as a regular thing. The death mess will get resolved, I agree, although I certainly hope they don't drag it on for two more years, as any return after that amount of time would be pretty pointless and probably fall as flat as west Texas (and for anybody who hasn't been there, that is eerily, disturbingly flat). But even when the death plot is resolved, I wouldn't assume it would mean picking up the mask again. Unless Didio and Doyle are totally blowing smoke, the spy direction has powerful support at DC, and it would likely take a sales collapse to change that. I could see where he might put on a costume from time to time,however, if only for narrative variety.

[gwangung]

Haha... I wouldn't say moribund or fetishistic, but more a real possibility of that particular outcome after Grayson runs it's course. Grayson is a great book, I love it, but Nightwing Returns is probably too great a story not to tell at some point, based on who Dick Grayson is and his relationship to Bruce, Babs, etc.

Honestly, the problem with Nightwing is that writers tend to use him as Batman lite. It's a failure of imagination, because there are ways to use Nightwing as a costumed hero that doesn't make him into Batman-lite (e.g., he's the guy EVERYONE can work with in the hero world...he's the guy you want in the field who can improv and direct teams on the fly...he's the one can hook you up to the hero you need the most, etc.).

I think it's best to take a looser, more creative approach and just ask a question: since Dick is Batman's unquestioned success, how does a Batman-trained hero go about fighting for justice in a superhuman world?

[K. Jones]

I don't wonder that he couldn't do both.

I mean being a Superhero whose secret identity is being a Superspy is pretty nice on a resume.

There's certainly enough to explore in Grayson and uncovering all the spy game angles of the DCU for it to last a while, so personally I'm hoping it runs the standard "new direction length" that we seem to get these days from like the various Marvel # 1s or even more comparably, the "Dick Grayson Batman" period. That was two years, I'm hoping we get three or four out of this, a good 50 issues or so counting annuals, specials and the inevitable crossover.

I'm not adamant about the whys. I think it's satisfactory (or at least it would be if he'd get better showcases) to have Tim Drake filling the "grown up Robin" role in Gotham and doing the "daring domino masked" thing on all the Teen Titans teams, while Jason Todd does the outlaw/outsider/not mainstream team thing and Damian does the classic Robin-ing.

Certainly there'll always be room for Nightwing, but like they're exploring now, what that really means is there's always room for Dick Grayson. The superhero persona is less important than the man wearing it and his history with Batman.

We'll see him in a pop-crimefighter performance again. Here's hoping his next Nightwing costume design incorporates a hint more bird/owl stylized motifs into it. (This just popped into my head and seems baffling in hindsight - after all that set-up with the Court of Owls ... Tynion launches "Talon" starring newcomer Calvin Rose to get to the root of the Court and expose them. It seems strange to me that Dick Grayson wasn't given the Guillem March beefcake artwork and the job of exposing the Court. I like Calvin though and the fact that he was an unknown obviously gave Tynion all that freedom to make some bold decisions without fan outcry. But it even would've made more sense from the point of view of Forever Evil if Grayson had become Talon, and that added to why Owlman was so obsessed with him.)

[Deniz Camp]

Honestly, the problem with Nightwing is that writers tend to use him as Batman lite. It's a failure of imagination, because there are ways to use Nightwing as a costumed hero that doesn't make him into Batman-lite (e.g., he's the guy EVERYONE can work with in the hero world...he's the guy you want in the field who can improv and direct teams on the fly...he's the one can hook you up to the hero you need the most, etc.).

I think it's best to take a looser, more creative approach and just ask a question: since Dick is Batman's unquestioned success, how does a Batman-trained hero go about fighting for justice in a superhuman world?

Right. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the Nightwing identity. It's a distinct, unique moniker that is very literally a merging of Dick Grayson's two primary influences; Superman and Batman. It's a solid branding for the character that separates him - at least in concept - from Batman and the Batman universe of things without completely cutting ties.

I've never been happier with Dick Grayson as a character than I am right now; this is the strongest work ever done with him, outside of Morrison (and, as Fanboystranger mentioned, much of that was about the friction and synergy between him and Damian, where as this is much more about exploring the foundational elements of Dick Grayson himself). We're seeing a lot of great stuff here.

That said, I can see a point where it might reach a natural end. The primary friction is with the Spyral organization's shady practices, and with the amoral nature of the espionage arena in general, and Dick Grayson's superhero traditionalist values. It's a great friction, brilliant, but at a certain point Dick Grayson is going to have to win; Spyral will have to change, or Spyral will have to be dismantled.

I suppose Dick Grayson could just remain an adventurer for some period of time, an 'independent agent', a freelance spy, but much of that friction is gone then, and the difference between such a status quo and the Nightwing status quo is largely semantic. Furthermore, I imagine that cuts down a little bit on branding potential (Nightwing logos, action figures, etc vs a dude in a suit).

That isn't to say I want this to end anytime soon. My hope is that we get at least 3 years of stories here; I figure the Paragon stuff will be done by 12, the first season, then further dismantling of the Spyral organization/uncovering Mr. Minos identity subsequently for the next 12, then trying to reform/taking control over the organization for the next 12. And if they continue for the next 5/10/20 years, I'll be fine with that too, so long as the stories are good. But I can see why they'd want to eventually go back to Nightwing, and I don't think it would necessarily be a regressive move.

I'm just happy that the dialogue is now "should he go back to Nightwing" rather than "should he go back to Robin" or "should he stay Batman, even as Bruce Wayne is also Batman". The former is undoubtedly a regression, the latter a recipe for underachievement.