As I’ve mentioned, Dick Grayson is my all-time favorite superhero. Growing up, I always thought he was the greatest. He had the keen uniform, the cool motorcycle, a crush on a much older Batgirl, and a group or superpowered teens to goof off with. I also make it no secret that I consider the Marv Wolfman/George Perez New Teen Titans to be one of the greatest superhero comics ever (well, for about 60 issues or so). When they got the chance to take Dick Grayson to the next logical level, I was quite nervous. They were tampering with a legendary comic book creation.
I shouldn’t have worried. When they introduced Dick’s new identity as Nightwing, it was perfect: at the time, the name was a tribute not only to his mentor, Batman, but also to Superman (who, along with Jimmy Olsen, would use the names Nightwing and Flamebird while in the shrunken Kryptonian city of Kandor). The costume, while currently derided, was, to me, perfect for the character. More importantly, Wolfman and Perez had deftly set up the whole thing a year or more in advance. Their Robin matured and evolved for 4 years before he came to the realization that he no longer needed to be Robin. He gave up the name and costume that had defined him because it no longer did define him. Let me stress this: Dick Grayson gave up being Robin. It was his decision.
Unfortunately, by the time he became Nightwing, Wolfman and Perez were coming to the end of their partnership on the Titans: while the series went on for over 50 more issues, nothing matched the first 50.
But through all that time, Nightwing was one of DC Comics most popular characters. It was actually rather insulting when they gave the Tim Drake version of Robin his own comic before Nightwing got his own. Hell, even the new Batgirl got her own comic faster than Nightwing did. Sure, there were some lame Nightwing mini-series and the like, but considering his popularity, Nightwing got shafted.
Now, after Nightwing was introduced, various retcons were made that had Batman fire Dick Grayson, rather than having Dick quit, and the whole Superman connection to the name no longer existed either. Wolfman’s writing of Nightwing in the Titans comic was just awful, too (one need look no further than the issue promising a Nightwing/Starfire wedding to see how far the mighty had fallen). But his popularity was still high.
Finally, though, Nightwing was getting his own comic. Ideally, it would have been nice for Wolfman and Perez to do the honors, but Perez was busy on other projects and Wolfman’s star had faded. So Chuck Dixon did the writing honors. And for some reason, people liked it. I’m not really sure why. It was a competent comic, certainly. Unfortunately, the Nightwing of Dixon’s series had little resemblance to the Nightwing I recall. You see, one of the reasons Nightwing gave up being Robin was so that he could more effectively lead the Titans, having finally stepped out from the shadow of Batman. But Dixon’s Nightwing was little more than Batman Lite, living in a Gotham Lite, fighting a Less Filling number of grade B villains. In fact, Dixon seemed more intent on creating bad villains than giving life to any of the other characters in the book. His take on Dick Grayson in Robin: Year One was just a four-issue exercise in creating another lame Nightwing villain (and the requisite Robin/Batgirl romance beginnings, of course).
I kept buying the Nightwing comic, though, hoping for something other than the exact same plot every issue: Nightwing dodges bullets, hops over shit, beats up lame villain, has short conversations with the cardboard cutouts called the supporting cast. Really, look at any random issue of Nightwing and you get the same crap as every other issue. But the disappointing thing is that no writer since Wolfman has ever been able to get past the Nightwing used to be Robin trap. Dixon certainly doesn’t: the doubting Dick Grayson, desperate to win the praise of Batman was long long gone by the time he became Nightwing, yet Dixon apparently never read any of those issues. In fact, the best Nightwing story of the past few years didn’t happen in his own comic: it happened in an issue of Batman Adventures, based on the excellent Batman animated series.
So, in a very roundabout way, that brings us to Nightwing: Year One, written by Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty, drawn by Scott McDaniel and Andy Owen. I started buying the single issues when they came out, but stopped after the second part. Now DC Comics has released the trade paperback collecting all six issues, so I decided to give it a second chance.
And I still didn’t like it. I know its tantamount to heresy, but I didn’t like it. It added nothing and took away more from the story of Dick Grayson than any of the other retcons.
Now, I understand that Dixon was trying to get away from showing Nightwing’s time in the Titans during this series: I think the official line was that those stories were already told, so there was no reason to rehash them. That was a good move. Unfortunately, Dixon pretty much fumbles the rest of the way, since the entire reason Dick Grayson became Nightwing was tied into his Titans experience.
Let’s start with some of the more annoying things. We get yet another retelling of the story of Batman firing Dick Grayson as Robin, this time because Dick wasn’t at his side when he needed him (previously, Batman had fired him for getting shot by the Joker). Blah. I’m not sure why the editorial folks at DC think that having Batman fire Robin is better than Robin deciding to give up the role (except that it just adds fake tension to everything). Advantage Wolfman and Perez.
Now, in the comics timeline, Dick Grayson was in a very serious romantic relationship with Starfire (another Teen Titan) at the time of Nightwing: Year One. This was a relationship, again, built up over 4 years of comics. But it is yet another thing that Dixon just chooses to ignore or gloss over, in order to push the boring Batgirl/Nightwing relationship (I much preferred the old issues of Batman Family, in which Dick Grayson, as Robin, always had this crush on the much older Batgirl, and she was just amused). And when the hell did Batgirl get retconned into being another of Batman’s partners: in this comic she’s willing to trick Nightwing at Batman’s command. It’s an unpleasant characterization, and doesn’t really mesh with the Batgirl I recall. So we have a Dick Grayson seriously dating Starfire, yet also hitting on Batgirl. I’m sorry, that’s just not Nightwing.
I’m also not fond of the revisionist “Nightwing tests out his costume in Gotham” stuff. Seems to me that Dixon and Company aren’t fond of the original Nightwing costume. So much so that they decide to give him a pre-costume. Seems a little silly for him to use said costume while performing as Dick Grayson in the circus. And his visit to the Joker is just stupid stupid. And while I know that Dixon is fond of escrima sticks, they are weapons that Nightwing NEVER used until Dixon got a hold of him, so its a little annoying to see them here.
We also get the overused “return to the circus” storyline, but it seems oddly truncated. Seems like it was just an excuse for a new costume: Dick doesn’t really find any enlightenment that I can see (unless one counts Deadman being used as Yet Another Batman Spy enlightenment).
Sure, there was some good stuff. Dick talking to Superman is always good fun (and while Dixon had previously reintroduced the Superman connection to the Nightwing name, I always felt that it was a bad afterthought). Some of the dialogue is pretty fun, as well. And McDaniel’s art is always good. But overall, I just can’t recommend this.
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