Nightwing #0; or: why DC is on my last nerve
At this point, I think we have enough evidence to say it: DC fucked up with the reboot. Not just because no one asked for it, or because for some titles it’s not really a back-to-zero reboot but a half-hearted meddling with the existing canon, or because it actually didn’t simplify things. It’s not even the gross and disrespectful treatment of women.
It’s a lot because they didn’t think it through. It’s because it’s clear they’re making things up on the go. It’s because there are no solid bases for authors to work with and to draw from. That’s a big problem and a major sign of how much of a fuck they don’t give about their readership outside of their money, but it’s not even the worse.
The biggest problem, for me, it’s that the DCnU is plenty flashy, but at its core there is an emotional dearth, a soullessness you’re generally likely to find in the eyes of porn stars: they may moan and writhe and cry out “oh yes, please, god, yes!” all they want, but in their eyes you can see they’re really thinking about the lights and that cramp in their leg and the bills to pay.
I have reached this sad conclusion after reading Nightwing #0.
Eerily mirroring its artist, the book offers plenty of good action but miserably fails at honest, touching emotions. Since we’re talking about Dick Grayson, the most emotional member of the Batfamily and the one who makes the others acknowledge and work on their emotions, this is a problem.
It’s also a problem how this book not only fails at emotions - which after all are not everyone’s cup of tea and are mostly valued by those icky girls - but also flounders at logic.
During the Court of Owls arc, we learned that Haly’s Circus was a recruitment ground for the Court and that Dick was to be taken by the Court and trained to be a Talon, with the death of his parents and his subsequent fostering/adoption by Bruce Wayne derailing that fate.
Nightwing #0 shits all over that with crazy abandon.
If Haly’s is that intimately connected to the Court, why the hell is a common heavy like Zucco able to put the shakedown on the owner? Why didn’t Pop Haly just call on his patrons/masters and have them deal with this meddling idiot? You’d think the Court would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone messing with their property.
Afterwards, we’re told that Bruce actually didn’t take Dick in after his parents’ death, but just placed him in the Wayne Care Center. Are you telling me the almighty Court couldn’t nab a kid from an orphanage? I believe they would think that the disappearance of the new ward of Gotham Favorite Son would cause too much noise for the trouble, but a recently orphaned kid disappearing from an orphanage would be considered a runaway with no one blinking for a moment. The interest in Dick by anyone including Bruce Wayne at this point was little more than cursory.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that instead of going this simple, riskless route of kidnapping their chosen one, they preferred to fake the death of runner-up Raymond?
On the other hand, we’re also seriously supposed to believe that a trapeze artist would wear a chunky bangle while performing her number… because everyone knows that what you really need while swinging from a trapeze with only a well-executed hold keeping you from plummeting to your death is a big piece of metal sliding around your arm.
In the “They’re Totally Making Shit Up As They Go” department, we also learn that apparently Dick is incredibly adept at reading people and body language, so good that he’s able to discern that Bruce Wayne is Batman after meeting him in his two personas. It’s an interesting take and one that even makes some sense: after all, Dick spent his life among highly physical people doing highly physical stunts that rested on excellent knowledge of how a human body works.
Unfortunately, we have never seen this ability displayed once before in all New52 issues of Nightwing. Why not having Dick analyze his opponents’ stances of fighting styles? Why not having Dick sensing something familiar about Raymond before the reveal?
Answer: they didn’t think about it. They’re Totally Making Shit Up As They Go.
From my last point to the real crux of my disappointment.
Dick figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman all by himself.
Leaving aside that that’s Tim’s shtick, the fact is that’s how he comes to be taken under Bruce’s wing.
Prior to that, Bruce sympathized somewhat with the kid, enough to place him in a Wayne orphanage he could trust and enough to check in from time to time. There ended Bruce’s involvement.
After meeting Dick on the streets fighting crime, being impressed by his talent and suspecting he might have figured out his secret, Bruce becomes interested by the kid, even if said interest is expressed just by keeping an eye on him and joining his scuffles with thugs so as to make sure he’s not hurt. It’s an interesting dynamic, because Dick is not looking for Batman: he’s after Zucco and stopping as many criminals as he can along his way, but while he’s ok with Batman being around, he’s doing things of his own volition and he would be doing them with or without Mr Wayne giving him some assists while dressed up as a giant bat.
It’s Batman that goes looking for Dick. It’s Batman that meddles in Dick’s affairs and attaches himself to Dick.
Still, even after deciding to involve Dick in his crusade, Batman takes Dick to the cave, not the Manor, he does it while having him keeping his head under a hood, he keeps his cowl on and inquires after Dick’s goals as a vigilante.
Only after Dick lets the cat out of the bag, Bruce decides to take the kid under his wing and even that is done by saying that Dick got “a part-time job at the Manor”.
And that’s the point where I howl in outrage and grief.
Goodbye Bruce empathizing with a kid in a position he knows only too well, taking him in to try to help him as no one could help him when he was a kid and accidentally finding himself with a son and partner. In the old DCU, Bruce’s interest was for this hurting kid who needed someone. Dick finding out Bruce’s secret and wanting in on his crusade was not in the plans.
In the DCnU, Bruce’s interest is mostly professional, it stems from Dick’s vigilante activities. We have a crime-fighter seeing another, up-and-coming crime-fighter who has already identified him and deciding to train him up to snuff while making sure he doesn’t tattle. He doesn’t even offer the kid a home, he makes an “arrangement with the orphanage” so that Dick has the excuse of “a part-time job” to spend time at the Manor.
This Bruce Wayne is an asshole. I didn’t think it could be possible to top old!Bruce for emotional constipation, but they managed it. Sure, in the process they mangled a great relationship and chucked one of Bruce’s best character traits down the drain, but let’s not quibble.
I’m left to wonder what the hell was Bruce talking about in Batman #11 when he said to Dick “The truth is, I didn’t save you from some dark fate, those years ago. You saved me from one.”
Bruce didn’t save Dick period and I don’t see how it could ever seem like he did. Dick was saved by the Court inexplicably not doing something pretty much feasible by even a moderate crook. Had it been for Bruce, Dick would have become a Talon with nobody the wiser.
Dick, in fact, would probably have been totally fine without Bruce. Sure, he might’ve gotten hurt in the mean streets of Gotham, but even as an untrained kid he seemed to be doing pretty well for himself. I can very well envision Dick spending his nights fighting thugs, finding or not finding Zucco, and eventually joining the police just out of a sincere desire to help and find justice. No Batman or tights required.
While this does Dick credit and it’s a perfectly valid and believable interpretation of his character, Bruce ends up looking like a child labor profiteer: “Well, the kid’s good and keen on the job, might as well get myself an assistant.”
It’s a far cry from what we had before. There’s a big difference between ‘adopted son’ and ‘assistant I’m fond of’.
If anything, I wonder how Dick saved Bruce if their relationship wasn’t so much ‘ward and guardian’ as ‘boss/teacher/sensei and employee/student’. I wonder where Dick’s undying loyalty and affection for Bruce could ever come from if this is how they started. Even after Dick run across the city to confront a master assassin on the off chance he might help a poisoned Bruce, we don’t see the mighty Batman worried for this kid who got himself almost killed for him, we see him mightily pissed off that his orders have been disobeyed, to the point that Dick bears no illusion that his tenure as Robin is anything but fleeting.
Where the hell do you get a family from this?
At this point, I’m fully prepared to read that Bruce only adopted Dick because some distant relatives were interested in taking him in and he didn’t want to lose a valuable asset. Or that he didn’t adopt him at all.
It’s a lot because they didn’t think it through. It’s because it’s clear they’re making things up on the go. It’s because there are no solid bases for authors to work with and to draw from. That’s a big problem and a major sign of how much of a fuck they don’t give about their readership outside of their money, but it’s not even the worse.
The biggest problem, for me, it’s that the DCnU is plenty flashy, but at its core there is an emotional dearth, a soullessness you’re generally likely to find in the eyes of porn stars: they may moan and writhe and cry out “oh yes, please, god, yes!” all they want, but in their eyes you can see they’re really thinking about the lights and that cramp in their leg and the bills to pay.
I have reached this sad conclusion after reading Nightwing #0.
Eerily mirroring its artist, the book offers plenty of good action but miserably fails at honest, touching emotions. Since we’re talking about Dick Grayson, the most emotional member of the Batfamily and the one who makes the others acknowledge and work on their emotions, this is a problem.
It’s also a problem how this book not only fails at emotions - which after all are not everyone’s cup of tea and are mostly valued by those icky girls - but also flounders at logic.
During the Court of Owls arc, we learned that Haly’s Circus was a recruitment ground for the Court and that Dick was to be taken by the Court and trained to be a Talon, with the death of his parents and his subsequent fostering/adoption by Bruce Wayne derailing that fate.
Nightwing #0 shits all over that with crazy abandon.
If Haly’s is that intimately connected to the Court, why the hell is a common heavy like Zucco able to put the shakedown on the owner? Why didn’t Pop Haly just call on his patrons/masters and have them deal with this meddling idiot? You’d think the Court would come down like a ton of bricks on anyone messing with their property.
Afterwards, we’re told that Bruce actually didn’t take Dick in after his parents’ death, but just placed him in the Wayne Care Center. Are you telling me the almighty Court couldn’t nab a kid from an orphanage? I believe they would think that the disappearance of the new ward of Gotham Favorite Son would cause too much noise for the trouble, but a recently orphaned kid disappearing from an orphanage would be considered a runaway with no one blinking for a moment. The interest in Dick by anyone including Bruce Wayne at this point was little more than cursory.
Yet we’re supposed to believe that instead of going this simple, riskless route of kidnapping their chosen one, they preferred to fake the death of runner-up Raymond?
On the other hand, we’re also seriously supposed to believe that a trapeze artist would wear a chunky bangle while performing her number… because everyone knows that what you really need while swinging from a trapeze with only a well-executed hold keeping you from plummeting to your death is a big piece of metal sliding around your arm.
In the “They’re Totally Making Shit Up As They Go” department, we also learn that apparently Dick is incredibly adept at reading people and body language, so good that he’s able to discern that Bruce Wayne is Batman after meeting him in his two personas. It’s an interesting take and one that even makes some sense: after all, Dick spent his life among highly physical people doing highly physical stunts that rested on excellent knowledge of how a human body works.
Unfortunately, we have never seen this ability displayed once before in all New52 issues of Nightwing. Why not having Dick analyze his opponents’ stances of fighting styles? Why not having Dick sensing something familiar about Raymond before the reveal?
Answer: they didn’t think about it. They’re Totally Making Shit Up As They Go.
From my last point to the real crux of my disappointment.
Dick figured out that Bruce Wayne was Batman all by himself.
Leaving aside that that’s Tim’s shtick, the fact is that’s how he comes to be taken under Bruce’s wing.
Prior to that, Bruce sympathized somewhat with the kid, enough to place him in a Wayne orphanage he could trust and enough to check in from time to time. There ended Bruce’s involvement.
After meeting Dick on the streets fighting crime, being impressed by his talent and suspecting he might have figured out his secret, Bruce becomes interested by the kid, even if said interest is expressed just by keeping an eye on him and joining his scuffles with thugs so as to make sure he’s not hurt. It’s an interesting dynamic, because Dick is not looking for Batman: he’s after Zucco and stopping as many criminals as he can along his way, but while he’s ok with Batman being around, he’s doing things of his own volition and he would be doing them with or without Mr Wayne giving him some assists while dressed up as a giant bat.
It’s Batman that goes looking for Dick. It’s Batman that meddles in Dick’s affairs and attaches himself to Dick.
Still, even after deciding to involve Dick in his crusade, Batman takes Dick to the cave, not the Manor, he does it while having him keeping his head under a hood, he keeps his cowl on and inquires after Dick’s goals as a vigilante.
Only after Dick lets the cat out of the bag, Bruce decides to take the kid under his wing and even that is done by saying that Dick got “a part-time job at the Manor”.
And that’s the point where I howl in outrage and grief.
Goodbye Bruce empathizing with a kid in a position he knows only too well, taking him in to try to help him as no one could help him when he was a kid and accidentally finding himself with a son and partner. In the old DCU, Bruce’s interest was for this hurting kid who needed someone. Dick finding out Bruce’s secret and wanting in on his crusade was not in the plans.
In the DCnU, Bruce’s interest is mostly professional, it stems from Dick’s vigilante activities. We have a crime-fighter seeing another, up-and-coming crime-fighter who has already identified him and deciding to train him up to snuff while making sure he doesn’t tattle. He doesn’t even offer the kid a home, he makes an “arrangement with the orphanage” so that Dick has the excuse of “a part-time job” to spend time at the Manor.
This Bruce Wayne is an asshole. I didn’t think it could be possible to top old!Bruce for emotional constipation, but they managed it. Sure, in the process they mangled a great relationship and chucked one of Bruce’s best character traits down the drain, but let’s not quibble.
I’m left to wonder what the hell was Bruce talking about in Batman #11 when he said to Dick “The truth is, I didn’t save you from some dark fate, those years ago. You saved me from one.”
Bruce didn’t save Dick period and I don’t see how it could ever seem like he did. Dick was saved by the Court inexplicably not doing something pretty much feasible by even a moderate crook. Had it been for Bruce, Dick would have become a Talon with nobody the wiser.
Dick, in fact, would probably have been totally fine without Bruce. Sure, he might’ve gotten hurt in the mean streets of Gotham, but even as an untrained kid he seemed to be doing pretty well for himself. I can very well envision Dick spending his nights fighting thugs, finding or not finding Zucco, and eventually joining the police just out of a sincere desire to help and find justice. No Batman or tights required.
While this does Dick credit and it’s a perfectly valid and believable interpretation of his character, Bruce ends up looking like a child labor profiteer: “Well, the kid’s good and keen on the job, might as well get myself an assistant.”
It’s a far cry from what we had before. There’s a big difference between ‘adopted son’ and ‘assistant I’m fond of’.
If anything, I wonder how Dick saved Bruce if their relationship wasn’t so much ‘ward and guardian’ as ‘boss/teacher/sensei and employee/student’. I wonder where Dick’s undying loyalty and affection for Bruce could ever come from if this is how they started. Even after Dick run across the city to confront a master assassin on the off chance he might help a poisoned Bruce, we don’t see the mighty Batman worried for this kid who got himself almost killed for him, we see him mightily pissed off that his orders have been disobeyed, to the point that Dick bears no illusion that his tenure as Robin is anything but fleeting.
Where the hell do you get a family from this?
At this point, I’m fully prepared to read that Bruce only adopted Dick because some distant relatives were interested in taking him in and he didn’t want to lose a valuable asset. Or that he didn’t adopt him at all.