Dick Grayson Fan Club: Bi-Week 5 - Death of the Family: Apr. 12-25

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Happy Easter, @DickGraysonClub! We’re finishing off April just as dark as we started it. For the next two weeks, we’ll be looking at the main Death of the Family run from New 52, as well as Nightwing’s side story. Specifically, we’ll be looking at Batman #15, Nightwing #15-16, and Batman #16-17.

:sunny: :sunny:Spoiler Discussion Starts Now :sunny: :sunny:

Discussion Questions:

  • Honestly, what was everyone’s reactions to the dinner scene? Even if you had already read this before, how did you react the first time you read it?

  • I (@Nightroia) don’t really pay attention to artists and writers as much as I probably should. Please enlighten me on your opinion on the storyline and art for Death of the Family.

If you have any questions, feel free to message either me (@Nightroia) or @A1waysAJ.

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  • Honestly, what was everyone’s reactions to the dinner scene? Even if you had already read this before, how did you react the first time you read it?
  • +1st time, I was like, "WHAT! NO! Can’t be! Wait. I mean, they aren’t dead, it’s just a facial/superficial damage. Mentally, yes, horrible, but they(DC) can still make stories/profit off their IP.

    +And, “oh man! That’s their faces! They did. They did it. Wow. The Death of the Family is this mental scar. Wow.” So, yeah, totally fell for it.

  • I (@Nightroia) don’t really pay attention to artists and writers as much as I probably should. Please enlighten me on your opinion on the storyline and art for Death of the Family.
  • +Storyline was amazing. Snyder is one of my favorites in DC. It was haunting, mentally. Like, Sweet Baby Jesus, Joker is sick. Art, sublime at times, I don’t like how he draws faces. They all look the same to me. Besides the faces, the rest is phenomenal.

How do you feel how Dick Grayson reacted throughout the story?

+Um, mixed. At times, it felt spot on, like, yeah that’s Dick calling out Batman, but still being (relatively) emotionally sensitive. However, I didn’t like how he reacted to Batman at the end. Dick always seems to leap before he thinks. He trusts his gut, and his “gut reaction” to stay felt off.

This was during the time Nightwing wore Red, how do you feel about his design in the Nu52?

+At 1st, I loved it, red is my favorite color. Now, reading the story again, not the biggest fan. It just takes away his uniqueness. All of them really. Jason should be the one who is known to wear Red. Dick should be known to wear blue. Tim should have his own color. Damian should be known to have his own color too. Gray/Green/Gold?

+Thanks for reading. [×]

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@LegionX Oh yeah. When I first read it, I was like “they couldn’t have actually cut their faces off, right? How would they even fix that?” I can’t even imagine what my reaction would be if I saw my own face staring back at me from a tray of ice.

I also agree about the faces looking the same. When I first started reading New 52 Batman and some of the other Batfamily stuff, I thought that Bruce and the boys’ faces looked really similar, especially when they were getting that family portrait done here:

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Honestly, when I first saw the dinner scene, I was absolutely horrified. I thought that the Joker had always been a bit sadistic in the past, but it was something that never went that far. The whole concept of Death of the Family was the Joker trying to show how much the family hurt him, and in the back of my mind, it showed how far the Joker was willing to go to change that dynamic. However, after it was shown what really happened, I was much happier.

I loved Scott Snyder’s run on Batman. He goes down as one of the top five Batman writers for me. I loved Greg Capullo’s art. I thought Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrow’s run on Nightwing was a lot of fun for me as well. It introduced a lot of characters that I liked. Both groups were really hitting on all cylinders at that point in the runs.

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I’ve been trying to read through the entire event, not just the issues you selected, and let me just say that it’s been more of a slog to get through that I remembered. Such irritating grimdark nonsense.

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@AlexanderKnox Yeah, I remember reading through most of the issues (not the Catwoman or Harley tie-ins though) a few years back. That’s partially why we chose those specific issues. That and we didn’t want to overwhelm anyone with the entire arc.

Of course, everyone could always read more than the listed issues. I sometimes do.

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Well, I did read the whole thing, and I was reminded of why I disliked this one less than Snyder’s other arcs: it sticks the landing. It’s the only story of his Batman (2011) run where I actually enjoy it more at its resolution than I did at its beginning. The Nightwing issues were frustrating, though. Did Dick’s supporting cast really have to be killed off for the sake of a crossover?!

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I’m a sucker for the family coming together to suffer and/or build each other up after suffering.

Yeah, the Nightwing issues were…not the best in my opinion. It just made me feel bad for him. New 52 was not a good time for him. Finding out he was supposed to be a Talon and that his first home basically would have sold him out to the Court of Owls. Having old friends from the circus die and then having the whole crew messed up by Joker after taking over (we all knew putting the circus in Amusement Mile was a bad idea, Dick). I’ve read too that the writer’s kind of switched Dick and Jason’s personalities during New 52 because they didn’t like Dick.

Also, Bruce punched him again. For good(ish) reason, but still.

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Hey, my club is covering the Jason Todd parts of this same event, so I wanted to give your thread a bump for anyone who wants to read the main issues of the story!

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Thank you!

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