#and is dick being romani still canon or was that retconned? | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nightwingmyboi · 4 years

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Hey so I was wondering about Dick's Romanian heritage. Is it mentioned a lot in comics or media? Is he dark skinned in any adaptations? Is it true he originally went to Juvie after his parents died? Where would I go to find this stuff out? Thanks!

Sure! So, Dick’s heritage is a pretty complex topic. I think it’s best to leave the explanation to [this post]. Since I know not everyone will click the link, just to briefly clarify something: Dick is Romani, not Romanian. Being Romanian means being from the country of Romania. Romani people are scattered across the world. Also, Dick is typically depicted with light skin in canon...him being Romani would not conflict with this, because the Romani people have a large range of skin tones. Not at all opposed to him being depicted with darker skin, but just so that you know. Very, very strongly recommend checking out the post for the whole story (edit: and checking the reblogs for the counterpoint to said post!!)

Robin (1993) Annual #4

As for your other question...in one version of Dick’s origin story, following his parents’ deaths, Dick was sent to Gotham’s Youth Center. This center was essentially a juvenile detention center; most of the kids were sent there for committing what are described in comic as “adult crimes.” It was a very rough environment for Dick, especially in the aftermath of his parents’ deaths.

Dick going to the center after his parents died is technically a retcon of his origin (ie it was something added later). I know for some reason certain people hear the word retcon and immediately are like “then it doesn’t count!!!” but I think that is very much the wrong approach. True enough, some retcons are bad--that is, those that completely ignore previously established characterizations or plot points, and in doing so often radically change the story for the worse. It’s fine if people want to ignore those bad retcons, I do so myself. But, that’s not true for every retcon lmao. I’d say the juvie origin retcon is a great example of a good retcon. It really helps to clarify and enhance the original story, and I don’t think it should be dismissed. Hear me out here:

1.) The juvie origin doesn’t replace any previous origin story--it really only adds to and improves upon the timeline of Dick’s original origin.

For the most part, in previous tellings of the story, Dick’s origin went pretty much straight from his parents dying to him and Bruce in Wayne Manor. It’s a pretty sudden, jarring jump; the in-between was largely left to the reader’s imaginations or implied to not exist at all. And I’ll be real...the pacing and immediacy of events is pretty wonky and unreasonable. In one of the most extreme speed runs through Dick’s origin I’ve seen, Dick’s parents die and Batman immediately swings down from the rafters and tells Dick that he’ll solve the case...while Dick’s parents’ bodies are still cooling a couple feet away (Batman #436). Yeah, that is absolutely ridiculous lmao, as is the idea that Bruce just immediately adopted Dick the day his parents died. I think that the juvie origin very nicely slows things down and helps to organically fill in the gap of time that would and should exist between Dick losing his parents and being taken in by Bruce.

2.) The juvie origin helps to rationalize Bruce’s reasoning for taking Dick in.

In previous origin stories, Bruce’s main motivation for taking Dick in is that he saw his own suffering reflected in Dick and wanted to help him. I dig the parallels between Bruce and Dick...but this is very flimsy reasoning to adopt someone lmao. With all the tragedy that occurs in Gotham, you cannot tell me that Bruce had not run across some orphans before. Bruce sympathizing with Dick certainly should be part of what motivates him, but there needed to be something more. If there is not some immediate, urgent reason to adopt Dick, then it makes zero sense that Bruce would try to raise him honestly. Why would Bruce tear Dick away from his remaining family and friends at the circus? Why would Dick want to leave? And even if Dick could no longer remain at the circus, why wouldn’t Bruce allow Dick to go to a good foster home, especially since Bruce is so laser focused on his solo crusade against Gotham’s crime that he doesn’t even allow himself to have a steady girlfriend half the time? Lots of plot holes here!

The juvie origin fixes a lot of these issues! Staying at the circus is not an option for Dick, not because Bruce just snatches him away, but because legally Gotham Juvenile Services says that the circus is an inadequate environment for raising a child. Dick is sent to juvie, and the comic makes a point of showing Dick nearly being beaten to death almost immediately upon arriving.

Dick is in danger and he’s lost in the system, so there is no longer a possibility for him to land in a good home. Initially, when Bruce goes to find Dick, he’s still tracking him down only with the intention of getting justice for Dick by solving his parent’s murder. But Bruce is a good person at heart. When Batman finds Dick trying to escape from the juvenile hall, beaten to hell, he intervenes. The next morning Dick is taken in by Bruce Wayne.

So now, taking in Dick isn’t Bruce tearing Dick away from the chance of having a loving family and throwing him into the dangerous life of a crime fighter; taking Dick in is Bruce saving Dick from a horrible situation, possibly even saving his life. The only way to get Dick out of the potentially deadly situation he was in quickly was for Bruce to take him in as a foster parent. Bruce’s actions actually make a lot of sense! And Bruce is forced by necessity to take on a fatherly role that he does not feel suited or prepared for, rather than him adopting Dick on a whim. The juvie origin gives this scenario the urgency and necessity that it desperately needed.

3.) The juvie origin has been around for a long time, and pretty successfully adds nuance to Dick’s character without completely altering or changing who he is.

The juvie origin is a retcon that has been established for about 25 years, fyi. Robin Annual #4, which is where this idea first came into play, was released in 1995. There are also references to this origin story in Nightwing Vol. 2, and that comic series ran from 1996 to 2009, so it’s not like the juvie origin is completely baseless or totally removed from the narrative.

Nightwing (1996) #11

Also...Dick Grayson has been around for 80 years. In DC comics, I’m pretty sure he is predated only by Superman and Batman. You are inevitably going to have to add nuance to his character as time goes on. The juvie origin adds a very interesting complexity to the character and his fight against crime, considering he himself has been in the system...there’s so much untapped potential there!! So yeah, I feel like the juvie retcon is a very valid addition to Dick Grayson’s origin story. Plus, Robin Annual #4 is just a very well written and well thought out comic book that really fleshes out Bruce, Dick, and Alfred’s initial relationships to one another in a realistic way, and more people should check it out.

What I’m saying...is that more people need to get on board and accept the juvie origin guys!! It’s my favorite origin for Dick, hands down. Thanks for giving me an excuse to talk about it anon.

As for where to go for more info…well, you can always check out Dick’s DC wiki, or anyone else’s, for basic summary info. For me, I always like going straight to the source. You could find a comic rec list that focuses on what you’re interested in and just dive in and build your knowledge that way. Sometimes if you google around, you can find neat creator interviews that address questions like the ones you asked. If nothing else, I’m sure there are people on tumblr (like me :D) or elsewhere online who are willing to help you out and point you in the right direction if you’re curious about something in particular. Idk if other people know of a good resource for things like this?

#thanks for the ask anon!#ask #dick grayson #robin #bruce wayne #batman #alfred pennyworth #juvie hall #meta #romani #romani dick grayson

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ecoamerica · 2 months

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sinnhelmingr · 3 years

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7. Have you ever regretted a ship, romantic or otherwise? // @untamedtempest

lights up a cigarillo dissolves into my couch

christ haven’t i.

earliest instance of this i can name is during the old cod fandom predator uproar when i had two ship partners lose their god damn heads. the first decided to side with the pedo. that was the end of one ooc friendship and all ic interaction bc she prioritized the friendship with the creep over the safety of minors, despite trying to present herself as a cool woke ally to victims. the other ship partner who took a turn is more the one i regret bc she seemed more reasonable and had already largely broken her friendship with the freak in question. we stayed mutuals for a short while, largely driven by ships we had developed between muses.

then she started stealing bits and bobs of other people’s characters. not like coincidental things, either, i’m talking whole swathes of characterization and backstory. she had one oc basically replace a friend’s canon in his relationship with the main villain, then her oc aligned with the same faction started becoming more and more a pastiche of my own oc. i played a romani take on a canonical sniper, how coincidental she retcons her own already established sebastian stan-as-a-sniper oc to be romani. i will give you all a moment to process that. she then proceeded to start playing the canonical sniper, claiming she wanted a more ‘canon’ and ‘accessible’ take on him in what was a miniscule fandom. the main differences between mine and hers besides fcs was that hers happened to be white and heterosexual to mine being poc and bisexual.

(there’s a lot more examples than these but these are the primary things involving my characters. she did the same with a lot of my friends and their muses, too, to the point the skype chat to discuss the fandom creep soon turned to reassuring one another that yes, this person’s latest headcanon or reworking of her character sounded a lot like something already said about an established blog in our little corner of the internet.)

it was a nightmare of her trying to bully the entire fandom about how what she was doing was ok and the plots she was pushing onto us were going to be written, that we were all still going to interact with her despite just blatantly stealing or reworking characters out from under us. she eventually decided to stop pushing her luck and moved her frankenstein monstrosities to a fandomless ‘original lore’ multimuse, where i can safely say the saddest statement i have ever conceived: somewhere out there, someone is ripping off call of fuckin’ duty and claiming it as an original work. i don’t think you can get less creative than that. i regret every moment i poured into interacting with this woman, let alone letting her try to say good dick or receiving love from one of her ocs would heal the many deep and sexually-based traumas my own oc had been struggling with for two decades.

that was all in the early-mid 2010s, however. i have not had contact with these people in as long, thank fuck, though i have seen the asshole that sided with the creep was still active as of 2020 and was still going strong with her absolute shitshow of a stereotyped native oc and yes, is still trying to present herself as a 100% woke ally who is better than anyone who criticizes her shockingly stereotyped and sexualized diverse casting and characterization uwu. and yes, she is white.

more recently, i had a former partner who got obsessed with several of my muses in other fandoms. like, very uncomfortably involved with them. to the point they started trying to define them for me, or at least the narrative around them. their defining relationship better be with this person’s character, and if i tried to talk about ships these characters had with other partners or even canon characters -- not even romantic, necessarily, if i so much as talked about other dynamics within a fic i was writing about an oc this happened too -- then i got guilt tripped or the other ship got talked down to build up what we had between our muses. their favorite ship in particular, from hindsight, was very obsessive and abusive, all of it being framed as romantic by my partner. it’s all honestly very fresh and some other stuff i realized about my relationship with this person is very upsetting to me, so i’d prefer not to dwell on it except to say it was genuinely problematic material presented in such a way that i didn’t recognize it at first and i feel manipulated by the whole situation.

i’m trying not to give a lot of details in case the person checks my page, but i think i regret this more than the situation above. that was just silly character stealing form someone my followers might giggle about as they read. this is where i’ve felt a little violated realizing i was used to write concepts and themes that personally trigger me.

#untamedtempest #out of mist #drama //#I WANTED TO DISCUSS THE REASONS BEHIND THEM SO STORY TIME W KADI AND A LITTLE VINTAGE DRAMA.#mostly to make up for lack of details on the later incident

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milfcodedvillain · 3 years

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Hey! This is an answer for your Romani Dick questions. Originally he never had a set ethnicity, he was just vaguely white/European ancestry. Devin Grayson was the first to introduce Dick and his father being Romani in the Nightwing solo, and it was very stereotypical, and the writer was one of the first to start overtly sexualizing him or making him a womanizer. She wasn't the first though. That being said though, while Devin Grayson retconned Dick to be Romani she isn't the only to bring it up, I believe it was Taylor or King who brought up how Dick is Romani still in a tweet a few years ago and in the beginning of Rebirth Nightwing there are some pretty big hints to Dick's Romani heritage and Mary being Romani. That being said, it doesn't negate the racism of how this heritage was brought in. But Dick still canonically is Romani, it hasn't been retconned out as of yet so he IS ethnically Romani

wow, thats so messy. thanks for answering!

#ask #dick grayson #dc

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bigskydreaming · 4 years

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Agreeing with Tarzan anon, we know very well who popularized this idea, who lit that bulb in everyone's head. Not just Tarzan, it's also a little bit of Aladin although, for that ship definitely it's Tarzan/Jane. It's very much embedded into everyone's head that Dick was the exotic circus guy whose main trait was acrobatics. I've seen DB fic writers compare him to /monkeys/. Nothing against the animal but. That's racism. The fandom is racist. The canon is racist. It's blatant and everywhere.

And oh god the tone policing in case you dare to call them out! If you ask a content creator to be mindful about their content having racist undertones or harmful for a community that's not theirs be it a different race or sexuality or gender identity, there will be so much excuses and justifications and "You could have said it nicely" "We should be kinder" "I'm making content for my own enjoyment" You know it well. Racism is the biggest problem of this fandom and probably the industry as well.

Yikes, I’ve been fortunate to never see anyone compare Dick to a monkey myself, not that I’m doubting your word or the racist bullshit any fandom is capable of trotting out there, because....YIKES. Wow, people.

And y’know, while we’re on the subject, PSA for other white people who need to hear this: Lose the word exotic from your vocabulary, and any variations of it. THAT I do see a lot, references to Dick and Damian and Cass’ exotic-ness and NOOOOPE. This is racism, guys. It doesn’t matter HOW you mean it, or even if you think you’re being complimentary by doing so, whether you’re referring to features or customs or heritage or whatever.....

Exotic, and other words of that nature, are MEANT to indicate the ‘other.’ The default setting of that form of description is standardizing whiteness, and white experiences and cultures, as empiricial “Normal” and the more you ‘deviate’ from normal white experiences, the more ‘exotic’ you are.

And that is, flat out, racism. Even if you THINK you’re saying nothing but good things about that character, you are still prioritizing whiteness as the ‘true’ human experience, and all others as innately being outliers or exceptions to the rule of whiteness.

That’s gotta go.

All fandoms have their problems with racism, but one I’ve noticed being pretty distinct to Batfandom is that Batfandom likes to think its not that racist because so much of its racism is unconscious and “nice” racism. As in, nobody’s trying to be mean or saying anything all that mean, surely, its just.....observations about various strangeties about various characters that just so happen to all have not being white in common.

Racism does not HAVE to be born of the intention to put others down, it literally just needs to be born of untrue bullshit formed at some point by racist ideas or preconceptions elevating one race above others. Meaning.....the fact that you don’t think saying something that others call racist can really BE racist, because you didn’t INTEND to be racist, you don’t have any problem with people of this race or that race, and thus how can you be racist towards this character when actually you LIKE this character.....

That doesn’t mean anything, because none of that means that the people who FIRST coined that particular racist saying or thought or idea that was then perpetuated enough that you’ve since passed it on without considering all the implications.......just because YOU didn’t intend to be racist by saying it, doesn’t mean that THEY didn’t intend to be racist when they said it FIRST.....just that enough time has passed without enough people calling it out as such, that by the time it got to you, you took it for granted that there couldn’t be any harm in it, surely, because otherwise how would it ever have become this normalized, this common a thought or thing to say, without people objecting.

Well....they did object, probably. Just not enough to drown out the people saying “hey this isn’t racist, stop saying it is” OR just as likely....their objections were met with you or others who said it for similar reasons to you just hearing the word racism and immediately kneejerk defending yourself with BUT I CANT BE RACIST IM A GOOD PERSON.....when that isn’t even the ISSUE. Its “this thing you said was racist” and now you’ve got everybody just weighing in on whether or not you’re a good person and thus racist or not, instead of....whether or not this thing you said was racist.

Which is just one of the MANY reasons tone-policing is utter bullshit, and why I (as some may have noticed lololol) consider tone-policing utter bullshit and am not here for it ever, just FYI).

So like I was saying, a big part of the problem with Batfandom and racism in particular, is enough people are fans of Dick Grayson that they think there can’t possibly be any racism regarding Dick Grayson, when....no. That logic doesn’t track, because again, you don’t actually have to hate or even dislike someone to say something racist about them....you just have to....say something that regardless of intent, is actually racist.

But because its not the OBVIOUS and aggressively offensive form of racism, people are like, we don’t see what the problem is, where the harm is....thus there can’t be any harm. And thus it all loops around and self-feeds this self-assured perception that thus....no racism here exists.

And that’s not how any of that works.

Course, another big facet of it with Dick in particular is how often people retreat into “but Dick Grayson is barely even Romani in canon and all the writing of him as such is racist anyway so how can people be racist towards him when really he’s white” and....I just....don’t really know how to parse that properly, lol, so all I have to say on that subject is y’know, I’m not Romani so its not my place to speak towards how well or not he represents Romani people and thus should he or should he not be considered representation, or whether Romani fans would have been better off if Devin Grayson had never retconned him as being Romani in the first place......its not that I don’t have an opinion on any of that, its that similar to how I could have an opinion on whether or not I think the sky would just be prettier if it were green instead of blue, that doesn’t make that opinion RELEVANT.

So instead, I’ll just say on that front that its just interesting to me how many people jump to protesting that Dick’s basically white anyway because we all know it was just a writer being racist that canonized him as being Romani, so her opinion doesn’t count.......

When many of the people I see trotting out that defense whenever mention of racism in regards to Dick Grayson is brought up.....many of those same people have completely of their own free will....written stories or headcanons or read and recommended and commented on stories where Dick Grayson’s Romani heritage is referenced and made a thing.....completely voluntarily.....

And that’s just....

Hmmm.

Interesting.

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sour-teeth · 4 years

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I’m pretty sure most fans who are super gung-ho about “Dick Grayson is Romani and POC and you are Racist if you disagree” have never actually read the source material for it (Nightwing 96) because it is VERY bad. Like, irredeemably bad in terms of stereotyping and racism.

When BoP came out, SO MANY people were defending Cassandra Cain’s disability getting erased because “her character is racist!!!!1!” but no one mentions how Dick being Romani is racist. And honestly, Dick getting characterized as Romani is WAY worse because:

1. Cass has always been Asian and Dick being Romani was retconned literal decades after his character had been established.

2. Cass started out as a racist trope, but if you pick up (almost) any issue of Batgirl 2000 you’ll see that she was developed well beyond that. Dick was made Romani in a way that was racist, and idk if anything productive/progressive/even interesting has come about from him being Romani.

3. Kelley Puckett (one of Cass’ creators) said in an interview that he made Cass half Asian because he has a half Asian daughter and he wanted her to see herself in a character. That’s at least SOMETHING, because Devin Grayson probably went “let’s make Dick Romani because… racism.”

(Also, just so we're clear, Cass having a disability is not inherently racist, but saying that it IS is ableist.)

And I get that not everyone in fandom reads comics - which is fine - but it really sucks to see fans care way more about a male character who was white for most of his existence (and whose characterization as a POC is VERY racist (AND who is still functionally white)) than about a female character who has ALWAYS been POC (who also gets ripped to shreds when her CANONICAL DISABILITY gets erased).

Like, with regards to "Dick Grayson is Romani" I’m willing to cut some slack to fans who are younger and/or POC, but damn if that still doesn’t leave a bad taste in my mouth.

#dick grayson #cassandra cain #bop movie #this is going in main tags bc i'm mad and tired of this shit happening consistently #this also isn't even going into romani=/=POC necessarily #but that is a different discussion #also i love dick grayson! i do!#but like... if you wanna explore POC characters PLEASE pick an actual POC character #and PLEASE read batgirl 2000 before yelling about how erasing disability is good actually bc racism

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skalidra · 7 years

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Just throwing my opinion out there

So the tag is an enormous mess, and I just wanted to throw a little fact checking and positivity out there.

Alright, so, the majority of people in the tag that are upset are upset because the actor who’s been cast to play Dick Grayson, Brenton Thwaites, is white, and as at least most of us know, Dick is canonically Romani.

Well, actually, no. He’s part Romani. At most, it was one grandparent and he’s a quarter Romani, and it could be less than that because no specific relative was given (but we know it wasn’t either of his parents, directly).

He’s also only been Romani since Devin Grayson’s run, which was in 2002. It is widely agreed to be a terrible, racist, run that badly misrepresents the Romani people and was an awful way to add something beyond ‘white boy’ to a character. But hey, it mostly stuck. It’s almost never referenced, but it has stuck around as background mentions and such. So, Dick has been Romani for 15 years now. Dick was introduced in 1940, so he’s been Romani for 15/75 years; there were 60 years where he was not. I understand for younger fans this is what you know, but it’s a very recent development in context.

Another thing to note is that Dick has little to no knowledge of this heritage. He doesn’t know the culture, he doesn’t know the language, and he has never presented any real interest in learning when offered. Now, this doesn’t particularly matter except to illustrate that Dick was not raised in this culture, nor was it an important enough thing in his life for it to really influence him at all. That heavily implies that he wasn’t clearly-not-white enough to get asked about his heritage.

Which brings me to my main point here, which is is that you know what Dick has never been? Drawn as anything but white. He has always been a white guy, even after he was retconned into being part Romani. So canonically he’s a Romani, which is what everyone loves to focus on, but canonically he’s a 1/4, white-passing Romani. (And yes, there are light-skinned Romani. And I’d bet the number gets high when you add in 3/4 white to the mix.)

Would it have been neat to have a darker skinned, actually Romani actor play Dick Grayson? Yes. But you know what? I see nothing wrong in an actor being cast that is exactly what Dick has always been drawn as. White. And I’m pleased that he’s 28, and not a major actor already. Let’s people come into the character fresh.

So how about we all wait, and see how the man actually performs the role?

(And hey, maybe they’ll still work him being part Romani into the show. I mean, white-boy Dick was retroactively made Romani, why not in the show too?)

#Dick Grayson #Brenton Thwaites #It's a live action Titans #Let's give it a chance before you start crucifying people

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goodluckdetective · 7 years

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Iz Explains Stuff So You Don’t Have to: The Nightwing Debacle.

Hey guys! As promised, here’s a write up of what’s currently making waves in the DC/comic fandom today. Given that this subject somewhat related to the Hydra-cap nonsense, I thought it should be something I cover as well, just to sorta give non-comics fans/DC comics readers who might see this and want some context.

1. Who is Nightwing?

You guys know Robin, Batman’s sidekick who they almost always leave out of movies? This is the first (yes there’s more than one, but that’s a topic for another day) and possibly most iconic one to pop-culture. Named Richard “Dick” Grayson, Dick is the son of the flying Grayson’s , two circus acrobats who died due to mob interference during a show (he also has Romani heritage (which the comics often ignore) This will be important later). Bruce took Dick in and the rest is well history.

Dick probably has the most screen time over any Robin in film/tv adaptations, including Teen Titans, Young Justice, The Lego Batman movie, the original Adam West series, and Batman Forever. He’s arguably the best known Robin to non-comic’s readers.

Because time does pass in comics occasionally, Dick grew up and after a series of events that have been retconned so many times it’s not worth getting into, ditched the Robin mantle. He would later take up the title of Nightwing.

2. Why the name Nightwing?

Dick is a HUGE fan of Superman (no really, Superman is pretty much his uncle) and after he ditched the Robin title, Superman and him had a talk where Superman told him of two legendary kryptonian heroes Nightwing and Flamebird. Inspired by the story, Dick would take on the name of the former (the latter name has a much more varied history).

3. Okay, so what’s the big deal besides the Robin thing?

To compress a lot of history into a paragraph, Nightwing is the one DC hero that like almost every other DC hero trusts and likes. Most of the Justice League has known Dick since he was a little kid and trust him implicitly for both his general good nature and reputation of being like, a really fucking good guy. Like a really good guy. A good enough guy that when Batman was told to let his own world die to let a better more “ideal” world survive, he asked if Richard Grayson was in it to make his choice on if it actually was a better world. (Dick was not in this world, which made Batman hard pass on that shit. Really. This is a thing that happened.)

Dick has also led multiple successful superhero teams, worked on the league himself, and donned the Batman title for awhile.

4. Okay, got it. So what’s going on?

Today DC announced a new six issue limited series in an elseworld (which is a world that takes place outside of canon. Think an AU.) This is the summary:

NIGHTWING: THE NEW ORDER is the story of a future world without “weapons”—where superpowers have been eliminated and outlawed. The man responsible? None other than Dick Grayson, a.k.a. Nightwing, now leader of a government task force called the Crusaders who are charged with hunting the remaining Supers. But when events transpire which turn the Crusaders’ aim toward Grayson’s own family, the former Boy Wonder must turn against the very system he helped create, with help from the very people he’s been hunting for years—the last metahumans of the DC Universe.

5. OH NO IS THIS HYDRA CAP ALL OVER AGAIN?

Yes and no. So far, it’s safe to say that this series does echo Hydra Cap in a paragon for good and justice becoming the figurehead of a fascist regime. However, everything else is kind of more murky.

For one, this series is an elseworld, which means unlike Hydra Cap, it doesn’t take place in the regular DC universe. This is not the fate of the Dick Grayson we know and love, nor is it him; it’s a version of him in a different universe. It’s also a limited run, so we got an enddate on this sucker off the bat.

Second, this is more general fascism instead of nazi brand fascism. The first cover echoes other fascist/oppressive regimes but it applies to multiple besides the Nazi party. In the DC universe, metahumans aren’t coded as a minority group (though smaller subsets are, like the Superfamily being coded Jewish), so it’s more sci-fi than an allegory for real life oppression (though if depending on the details of this event, that remains to be seen. The writer took to Twitter to state there is absolutely no genocide here in this book but the first few pages imply otherwise and long story short, I’m not convinced). The group Dick works with is also entirely new and unlike Hydra has no link in history to the Nazi party, making the claim that they’re a general “evil fascist villain” hold water.

Third, unlike Hydra Cap, this book is branded as Dick learning the error of his choices rather than a long saga to try to convince us he has a point. I doubt we’ll see the same extent of “we should feel bad for Dick oppressing all these people” that we see in Hydra cap. However, this also remains to be seen. Long story short, it’s never gonna try to get us to root for the bad guy.

6. So it’s fine?

Now I wouldn’t say that. Making an iconic character a fascist is still something to side eye, and a lot of my above caveats can change if the story itself decides to make those connections (i.e if there are prison camps for example). It’s also important to note, that making a Romani character a fascist, and one under the label of “crusader” is in terrible taste, considering the Romani people’s history with both.

The writer is also someone I don’t have a ton of faith in when it comes to nuance. (though to his credit, he is assuring and validating concerns on twitter rather than laughing us all off as SJWs).

What I’m saying is that it’s gonna be hard to figure out exactly this is going to play out until I see the first issue. I think the storyline and the advertising is something we should be critical of, but a lot still depends on how the book approaches it. This isn’t to say you should “give it a chance” only that we might want to hold off from saying DC is promoting fascism until we see if they’re gonna take this from a “feel bad for Dick angle, not all fascists are bad” or a “Dick fucked up hard” angle. We can just say this storyline is at the very least insensitive given current events and Dick’s ethnic roots.

Plus, Dick turning on Superman is just weird, and the preview pages are not helping my concerns.

So be critical of the concept but be careful not to declare what the narrative is trying to say until we know what the narrative is.

7. And if it does come out to be “feel bad for Dick, not all fascists, narrative supports the fascist regime for just wanting the best for us” angle?

Then go crazy guys. Though even if it does go that way, it still won’t be as Hydra cap. Because at least it’s still only a elseworld. Which is like the worst consolation prize ever.

#nightwing #say no to hydra cap #nazi cw #the spencer saga #nightwing the new order

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bigskydreaming · 5 years

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In the vein of Dick’s feelings about his first family, pre-Bruce, that’s another reason why ‘Ric’ Grayson bugs me. Other than, y’know, everything about that stupid storyline BUT WHATEVER.

Anyway, I know Rebirth and nu52 before it both have tweaked Dick’s origin considerably, so who even knows what the current ‘canon’ take is, not this guy that’s for damn sure. But until he lost his memories, he was still going by Dick, so unless otherwise specified, his reasons for going by Dick should be just as true for ‘Ric’ Grayson....since he’s still supposed to remember up through Bruce taking him in after his family died. It was only everything after that point that became foggy or whatever.

But Dick only goes by Dick instead of another variation of Richard, because Dick is what his dad called him. And the REASON Dick’s dad called him that, is because Dick was named after his Uncle Richard, his dad’s brother. And his uncle’s preferred nicknames were Rick or sometimes Rich.

And although most adaptations like cartoons and movies and one-shot origin issues streamline the events of Dick’s origin, and go with the idea that it was just his parents who died that night....pre-Flashpoint, it was canon that the Flying Graysons act was never just Dick and his parents. It also included his Uncle Rick and his Aunt Karla, and their son, his older cousin Johnny. Dick was the only one not performing in the final act. It was Dick’s parents AND his aunt and cousin who all died that night....and his Uncle Rick fell too, but survived. However, he ended up with brain damage and has been in an assisted living facility ever since, and that’s why Dick had no legal guardian.

But yeah, the real reason Dick goes by Dick, is because as far as he and every one in his family, every one in the circus was concerned, it was his Uncle Richard who was Rick or Rich. Everyone called him Dick so there was no confusion. And that’s why Dick has never been willing to entertain the idea of going by a different version of his name - his only other living blood relative already has claim to the other variations, in Dick’s eyes.

Tangent - the only vaguely interesting about the amnesia plot actually is the one angle they kinda unintentionally laid out, but haven’t done anything with. The difference in personalities between Dick and ‘Ric’, with Ric being angry and abrasive and just taking a job as a taxi driver and not wanting anything to do with being a superhero....given that he supposedly now has no clear memories of anything after his first few months living with Bruce, his personality change actually makes a lot of sense with his pre-Flashpoint origin at least. Again, I don’t know what the ‘official’ canon is these days, but with the pre-Flashpoint origin, the one where Dick ended up in juvie after his parents died and was only taken in by Bruce after he’d already spent a month there....Ric’s new personality fits that perfectly. It was not an easy transition, originally. Like the way its presented in cartoons and one-shots, as though Bruce just instantly decided Dick was going to come live with him because he bonded with him over their shared tragedy.....that’s not how it played out in the comics.

In origin stories like Robin: Year One Annual and others, yes Bruce was there the night Dick’s family died. Yes, he felt a connection with Dick because of the similarity to his own tragedy. Yes, he comforted Dick that night, because of that. But then he left Dick in the hands of the case worker who showed up to take custody of Dick, and that was that. Bruce had ZERO intention of taking Dick in himself at that point. He did believe Dick about Zucco having sabotaged the trapeze and started looking into it as Batman right away...but THAT was how the ‘connection’ he felt with Dick manifested for him. He did what he felt Dick would want, would help him the most, get closure for him...the same thing as Bruce had wanted himself, after his parents were murdered. And that was as far as it went.

Even a lot of readers and fic writers who do acknowledge the juvie part of Dick’s origin treat it as though he was stuck there for a few days while Bruce had to navigate through red tape to get custody of him, but again, that’s not how the actual comics detailing that period depicted it. In that annual I mentioned, he was in there for a month, and it was established that he basically had to fight to survive against bigger boys every single day he was in there. His first night, three guys beat him so badly he was convinced he would have died if the guards hadn’t stopped it. And eventually, after a month had gone by, using his acrobat skills, he escaped. (After Devin Grayson retconned Dick as being Romani, the couple times Dick’s talked about this period of his life since then, he mentions that his English was not very good at the time, and it was this combined with his heritage and circus background specifically that led his racist case worker to decide that obvsly, he was destined to wind up in juvie anyway, so no need to waste a bed elsewhere on him. There he mentions being in juvie for closer to three months, but the takeaway that whatever the actual length of time he was in there, it was definitely somewhere between 1-3 months).

But after that, he had enough of getting the shit beaten out of him every day and was convinced the promises of a new family and getting out of there at some point were all just lies, so he parkoured his way out of the yard and over the fence at night.

And ran into Batman on the rooftops.

Yeah. Batman was just out doing Batman stuff, and he ran into Dick Grayson running around Gotham’s rooftops with no shoes and detention center-issued clothes. He told Dick he believed him about Tony Zucco and was looking into the case, and then told him Dick couldn’t be of any help to him as a fugitive, and convinced him to go back to the JDC and he’d make sure he got out another way. (Dick btw, cynically thought ‘yeah right, why should I trust a guy who doesn’t even show his face’, and pretty much only goes back to the JDC because he’s sure Batman would just drag him back there anyway if he didn’t.) The very next day, Dick’s case worker showed up for the first time since she’d left him there and led him outside, saying someone had volunteered to take him in, and basically just handed him over to Alfred who was waiting with a car.

So...yup. Bruce had felt a connection with Dick that night and empathized with him....but that hadn’t led him to just decide ‘hey I’m gonna take in this traumatized kid, I’m obviously the best candidate for that.’

Bruce took Dick in himself because he felt GUILTY.

Because he hadn’t even known Dick was in juvie. Hadn’t thought twice about checking up on the kid after that night, focused totally on just building a case against Zucco, as well as his other cases. I think there was a reference in an issue where Dick said something about how Bruce had made sure his family’s funeral arrangements were paid for, but that same issue Dick said he hadn’t even been allowed to GO to the funeral, so its not like Bruce was there with him like a lot of headcanons and fics depict it. DICK wasn’t even there.

Nope, it was good old fashioned guilt that motivated Bruce to take a personal hand in Dick’s well-being. Because he just happened to run across Dick on a roof randomly one night. THAT’S the pre-Flashpoint origin of the Batfamily. Random coincidence and a guilty conscience.

And it goes a long way towards explaining a lot of Bruce’s later actions in canon. He met Jason when the latter was stealing his tires, when Bruce missed Dick and quite probably felt guilty about driving Dick away. And he runs into this homeless kid who reminds him of Dick that SECOND night he met him, and who is actively engaging in criminal activities and thus could easily end up in juvie, the very place that had traumatized Dick so much because Bruce had just trusted the system with him back then. Its not surprising in that context that Bruce made the leap to thinking he was a better option than leaving Jason in CPS’s hands or with someone who might’ve been less patient with him, less motivated to make sure he stayed out of the JDC, no matter what that took.

I’ve always felt it explains everything about Dick’s choice to make Robin his persona. In one issue, when Dick’s sketching out possible costume ideas, Alfred asks him why not something like Batboy, or some variation of his mentor’s name. Dick said that he wanted something that was completely his, that Bruce didn’t give him. That’s why he picked Robin, his mother’s nickname for him, and why his costume was just a version of what he’d worn in the circus, a reminder of when he was happiest.

But IMO its also why he’s always insisted on being referred to as Batman’s partner rather than his sidekick. Because Robin was never meant to be an extension of Batman, a part of HIS mission. Robin was Dick’s own mission. Because for all that he and Bruce had the murder of their parents as a shared tragedy, a connection.....it didn’t motivate him in the same way it motivated Bruce, because for Dick, that was only PART of the tragedy. Everything that came after that traumatized him, shaped him just as much. His trauma didn’t start and finish with their murder, and bringing in Zucco could never bring closure for everything he’d been through because he fell through the cracks of a flawed system. So Robin was never meant to be an extension of Batman, something to help Bruce fulfill his personal crusade. Robin was more about using Batman to fulfill his own crusade.

Bruce created Batman for the criminals who caused tragedies like the one he’d been shaped by. Dick created Robin for the people left behind after those tragedies, like he’d been. Just as everything about Batman was meant to frighten and intimidate the people he focused on, everything about Robin was meant to cheer up and comfort the people HE focused on. Bright, happy colors to help soothe a shaken victim while Batman dealt with the perpetrator. Light-hearted jokes and laughter to remind people that even after something terrible happened, there were still good things in the world.

Dick designed Robin to be everything Batman WASN’T. To do everything Batman didn’t do for him.

So, just saying....as much as I hate the Ric Grayson storyline and still think it was a mistake....it COULD have been an interesting examination of nature vs nurture. How much of Dick Grayson is just innate, and how much would he be different if his experiences were different, like he never remembered being Robin.

Because a Ric Grayson who had no clear personal memories after his first few months with Bruce would absolutely be as bitter and angry as Ric was first shown being at the start of the amnesia plot. Because in those first months with Bruce, Dick had been very, very angry indeed.

Being Robin is what changed Dick, helped him heal. And not just because it let him put away Tony Zucco. Because even after he’d endured terrible tragedies, it could still remind him that he’d been happy once, and he could be happy again. And as Robin, he reminded other people of that too.

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