In Defense of Seeley, King and NIGHTWING #30

[Agent 37]

Yes, things do seem to be rushed, don't they? I won't speculate on the behind-the-scenes events, except that, since DC is full of human beings, I suspect that office intrigue exists in spades same as everywhere else. If is even possible that professional rivalries and office politics played a role in Hetrick releasing the images when she did. Then again, maybe not. As you say, best just to stay as positive as possible without surrendering one's critical faculties.

What we can say from events "within" the DCnU is that a Crisis appears to be coming. It would seem that it is going to hit in April and probably extend through the summer of 2015, with September's issues being a good chance for all the titles to review their status coming out of whatever the event is. If they are operating on a Crisis countdown, they may be scrambling to get all the characters where they need to be before April. Also, it is widely speculated that the first "uber-arc" of Grayson will culminate with that title intersecting Batman Eternal just before the Crisis arrives, so once again making it imperative that everybody stick to the timetable.

The creative team gave their pitch for Grayson. It's been talked on podcasts, interviews, forums and websites repeatedly. I don't think it's their fault DC didn't end Nightwing properly. It seems like they (Seeley/king) we're put in a tough position to try and do both (end nightwing and preview Grayson) in one issue for whatever reason. Not their fault IMO.

Good point on the upcoming crisis. The time table for Grayson hopefully is being rushed for a good reason. I hope you are right and Dick Grayson earns a big role in this event!

It should be interesting!

[dropkickjake]

Yes, things do seem to be rushed, don't they? I won't speculate on the behind-the-scenes events, except that, since DC is full of human beings, I suspect that office intrigue exists in spades same as everywhere else. If is even possible that professional rivalries and office politics played a role in Hetrick releasing the images when she did. Then again, maybe not. As you say, best just to stay as positive as possible without surrendering one's critical faculties.

What we can say from events "within" the DCnU is that a Crisis appears to be coming. It would seem that it is going to hit in April and probably extend through the summer of 2015, with September's issues being a good chance for all the titles to review their status coming out of whatever the event is. If they are operating on a Crisis countdown, they may be scrambling to get all the characters where they need to be before April. Also, it is widely speculated that the first "uber-arc" of Grayson will culminate with that title intersecting Batman Eternal just before the Crisis arrives, so once again making it imperative that everybody stick to the timetable.

I'll say this as far as office intrigue and professional rivalries go, Seeley praised the unreleased issue, both script and art, on his twitter. He even provided a link for it. Class move, office politics or not.

[Dzetoun]

I'll say this as far as office intrigue and professional rivalries go, Seeley praised the unreleased issue, both script and art, on his twitter. He even provided a link for it. Class move, office politics or not.

Yes, he is definitely a class act, no doubt about it.

[Neowing]

I think they had trouble figuring out how to hype it to the media because the media doesn't care about "Nightwing". People don't know who that is. It would work if they knew he was Robin. Killing Robin sounds way bigger than killing Nightwing.

Nightwing is bigger than ever now thanks to Young Justice and the Batman Arkham games. Plenty of people know who he is now and it shows in the new52 Nightwing title that he can produce money even with an average ongoing.

[JasonTodd428]

Nightwing is bigger than ever now thanks to Young Justice and the Batman Arkham games. Plenty of people know who he is now and it shows in the new52 Nightwing title that he can produce money even with an average ongoing.

Sure he's had more screen time of late in both cartoons and video games and that's gone a long way toward making him recognizable to the public that are fans of those media, which is nice. I still maintain, however, that if you were to ask the common joe on the street if he knows anything about "Nightwing" you'd probably get a confused look but if you said "Ya know "Robin" they'll know who that is right away, mainly because "Robin" has been around far longer than "Nightwing" has.

[ReverseReverseFlash]

Sure he's had more screen time of late in both cartoons and video games and that's gone a long way toward making him recognizable to the public that are fans of those media, which is nice. I still maintain, however, that if you were to ask the common joe on the street if he knows anything about "Nightwing" you'd probably get a confused look but if you said "Ya know "Robin" they'll know who that is right away, mainly because "Robin" has been around far longer than "Nightwing" has.

Robin was part of their youth in the 60s. He's a pop culture icon.

Nightwing is an 80s thing, he's more part of our generation. He's also never been in a hit live-action tv show or movie.

Also, no one watched Young Justice. People shouldn't inflate the relevance of their interests, average Joe isn't into this crap.

[JasonTodd428]

Yeah, the average joe will recognize the name "Robin" because it's iconic and connected to another iconic character: Batman. "Robin" has made several appearances in media over the years: from live-action serials in the 1940s to the '66 Batman tv series to various cartoon iterations in addition to the character existing for almost as long as Batman himself has. (It's not just Dick Grayson that has existed that long but also the mantle of "Robin" that has after all.) "Nightwing" by comparison has appeared in very little media over the years of the character's existence so the name is simple not as recognizable to most people who are not already either comic or gaming fans or who are long standing Dick Grayson fans.

[Dzetoun]

Nightwing is bigger than ever now thanks to Young Justice and the Batman Arkham games. Plenty of people know who he is now and it shows in the new52 Nightwing title that he can produce money even with an average ongoing.

In terms of the general public, and particularly if we are thinking in terms of Warner Bros and putting Dick in the Justice League movies, I don't think this is right. Yes, Nightwing is much bigger than when he first appeared in the New Teen Titans. However, the circle of people who read comic books, and even the circle of people familiar with Young Justice or the Arkham games, is quite small compared to the audience to which a major movie has to be pitched. And for most people in that potential audience, when you say "Dick Grayson," they are going to say, "oh yeah, Robin." Conversely, if you ask that same audience who is Robin, they will probably say "Dick Grayson." Jason, Tim, and Damian just don't exist on the radar the same way -- and for the majority of people that Warner Bros would want to attract to a Justice League movie, they don't exist at all.

Now, that isn't to say they wouldn't bring Dick in as Nightwing, if DC can make a strong enough case, if the producer or director happens to be a Nightwing fan, or if Nightwing were to appear on Arrow and be well received. Otherwise, I think to most Hollywood types "Robin" would the the obvious way to go.

[Bruce Wayne]

Also, no one watched Young Justice.

Except that is untrue. YJ was one of CN's top highest rated shows. It beat out some of their top shows such as Ben-10 and Star Wars in terms of ratings. So clearly people were watching it. It's just its toyline bombed no thanks to Mattel, which necessitated cancellation.

[Conway]

In terms of the general public, and particularly if we are thinking in terms of Warner Bros and putting Dick in the Justice League movies, I don't think this is right. Yes, Nightwing is much bigger than when he first appeared in the New Teen Titans. However, the circle of people who read comic books, and even the circle of people familiar with Young Justice or the Arkham games, is quite small compared to the audience to which a major movie has to be pitched. And for most people in that potential audience, when you say "Dick Grayson," they are going to say, "oh yeah, Robin." Conversely, if you ask that same audience who is Robin, they will probably say "Dick Grayson." Jason, Tim, and Damian just don't exist on the radar the same way -- and for the majority of people that Warner Bros would want to attract to a Justice League movie, they don't exist at all.

Now, that isn't to say they wouldn't bring Dick in as Nightwing, if DC can make a strong enough case, if the producer or director happens to be a Nightwing fan, or if Nightwing were to appear on Arrow and be well received. Otherwise, I think to most Hollywood types "Robin" would the the obvious way to go.

Even by that standard though, if DC issued a press release that said "We're going to kill Dick Grayson" the only two names that could get a bigger reaction are Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. There is no way that a Dick Grayson funeral issue wouldn't sell. It might not sell like The Day Superman Died, or Spider-Man #700 but it would sell a lot better than Nightwing #30 did, probably as well as Robin R.I.P. did. There is no way to spin this where DC didn't drop the ball on thousands of $$$.

[Dzetoun]

Even by that standard though, if DC issued a press release that said "We're going to kill Dick Grayson" the only two names that could get a bigger reaction are Bruce Wayne and Clark Kent. There is no way that a Dick Grayson funeral issue wouldn't sell. It might not sell like The Day Superman Died, or Spider-Man #700 but it would sell a lot better than Nightwing #30 did, probably as well as Robin R.I.P. did. There is no way to spin this where DC didn't drop the ball on thousands of $$$.

As I just said on another thread, I wonder if Badou is not partly in the right about this. That is, I suspect one reason that Seeley and King had to redo the Nightwing volume is that having a funeral for Nightwing would put pressure on the Batman Office to acknowledge the unmasking and face its implications, which is something I am beginning to suspect they just do not want to do. After all, that storyline did not originate in the Batman Office, but with Johns and the Justice League Office, as Badou points out, and it creates an enormous problem if they acknowledge it, since every child in Gotham should now know who Batman is, especially since over the last several months they have been re-emphasizing the ties between Bruce Wayne and Dick Grayson. So far in the Bat books we have gotten only two passing mentions, one of them just a note on a whiteboard, and they may be determined to keep it that way.

So far, the only real fallout we've seen has been in Forever Evil and Justice League, and the Batman editors may have the attitude that "Geoff Johns and the Justice League Office got us into this mess, let them figure out how to handle it." Realistically, the only way the Batman Office could handle it, if they were to face it squarely, would be to have a major story arc of some type involving strategy undertaken by Bruce to divert attention from his identity as Batman. What with Eternal, Zero Year, Robin Rising, coordinating with two other weeklies, and a looming crisis, I could see them saying that they just don't have the time, and if Johns wanted so badly to make this a point with Luthor, then he will just have to deal with it in his own panel space. Unfortunately, we have seen this kind of thing from the Batman Office before. One reason Jason Todd was such a mess for almost a decade was that, following Under the Red Hood, the Batman writers, which is to say ultimately the Batman editors, more-or-less willfully refused to squarely face the issues that story put on the table.

I don't think the whole idea of Dick becoming a spy arose as a way of dealing with this. The spy idea feels too developed, and the fact that the editors were ready to ask for pitches suggests that this is a direction they have been kicking around for a while. It isn't as if people haven't been talking about the need for a revitalization of Nightwing/Dick Grayson almost from the start of the New 52. But it wouldn't surprise me if part of the guidance Seeley and King got was "Just keep him away from the Bat Family for now. We don't care how you justify it, just do it. We don't need anybody's attention drawn to the unmasking while we have all this other stuff to deal with."

[Dzetoun]

Alexander Luthor, on another thread, brings up the problem that every member of the Justice League should also know Dick is still alive. After all, he was standing right there when they exited the Firestorm Matrix. I think the danger is that the whole "dead to the Bat Family" thing is really starting to look like an unbelievable contrivance. It's a contrivance that the creative team did not originate, but one that they must find some way to justify. It does not help that, except for Alfred, we have seen no real reactions from the family. If this thing is going to be sold as having any truth at all, as opposed to totally manufactured drama, then we actually need to see a Bat Family that really has experienced the traumatic loss of a grandson, brother, and lover. So far, the treatment of this in the Bat books has been disappointing to the point of actual anger.

[oasis1313]

Alexander Luthor, on another thread, brings up the problem that every member of the Justice League should also know Dick is still alive. After all, he was standing right there when they exited the Firestorm Matrix. I think the danger is that the whole "dead to the Bat Family" thing is really starting to look like an unbelievable contrivance. It's a contrivance that the creative team did not originate, but one that they must find some way to justify. It does not help that, except for Alfred, we have seen no real reactions from the family. If this thing is going to be sold as having any truth at all, as opposed to totally manufactured drama, then we actually need to see a Bat Family that really has experienced the traumatic loss of a grandson, brother, and lover. So far, the treatment of this in the Bat books has been disappointing to the point of actual anger.

At least they're not all dancing around with glee; I guess no reaction is better than the whole family being joyous at the prospect of Dick being dead. "Let's have a moment of silence for poor Dick . . . nah, let's go eat."

[Dzetoun]

At least they're not all dancing around with glee; I guess no reaction is better than the whole family being joyous at the prospect of Dick being dead. "Let's have a moment of silence for poor Dick . . . nah, let's go eat."

That has to be one of the most ... unusual ... images I have seen on these boards. Yes, we all know you are unhappy with the New 52 in general and the writing of Dick Grayson in particular. Many of us share your unhappiness. But that does not justify outlandish accusations that have absolutely no support in the New 52 or any other continuity. Like the constant complaining that Dick never really knew Bruce, would not be welcome in the family plot, and other completely unsupported and unsupportable statements, this is an absolute falsehood that has no relationship to any fact save that of knee-jerk depression.

[wvchemteach]

Alexander Luthor, on another thread, brings up the problem that every member of the Justice League should also know Dick is still alive. After all, he was standing right there when they exited the Firestorm Matrix. I think the danger is that the whole "dead to the Bat Family" thing is really starting to look like an unbelievable contrivance. It's a contrivance that the creative team did not originate, but one that they must find some way to justify. It does not help that, except for Alfred, we have seen no real reactions from the family. If this thing is going to be sold as having any truth at all, as opposed to totally manufactured drama, then we actually need to see a Bat Family that really has experienced the traumatic loss of a grandson, brother, and lover. So far, the treatment of this in the Bat books has been disappointing to the point of actual anger.

Actually Batgirl #30 had Barbara reflecting, but refusing to dwell on what happened to Dick. However, there hasn't been a reaction that I know of from Red Robin or Red Hood.