I’ve had a revelation. I’m tired of seeing the term “Batboy” being used in relation to Nightwing. All it does is perpetuate a regressive narrative DC has been pushing since the 90s (Thanks Chuck Dixon ).
Nightwing may have been the first Robin, but his entire character development was leaving an abusive father and his toxic enablers, assemble a team of heroes which would become his found family, and growing out of the Batfam ultimately to become Nightwing. Am I right or am I right?
DC to this day advertises Nightwing as this independent hero who grew out of Batman’s shadow. But yet, somehow he hasn’t been as let alone more independent solo as he was in New Teen Titans in the 80s!
Chuck Dixon in the late 90s retconned his entire character development into a Batfam story which ultimately put Dick right back to being just one of NUMEROUS sidekicks again and relied heavily on the Batfam which has not changed since. To this day Nightwing’s entire character, stories, and title is determined by the Batfam and whatever is going on with them. Nightwing has not gotten a single arc without them in some capacity since BEFORE New 52 in 2011. Hell, since before Battle for the Cowl! That was TWELVE years ago!
We have been in a “flowing timeline” where “everything matters” since Rebirth in 2016 but somehow Nightwing’s character development and narrative history still doesn’t seem to matter and has been lost to people including DC.
So TBH calling Nightwing a “Batboy” while correct in terms of portrayal is nothing more than a regressive label that works against his own narrative - a narrative that’s still very much touted about today by DC and I’m tired of seeing it. I can longer stand to watch people tag this label onto him. Nightwing is not a “Batboy” he is so much more than that and I think it’s time everyone acknowledges and accepts it, including DC. It’s time for Nightwing to be officially removed from the Batfam and unshackled from the Batfam line of comics to FINALLY allow the character and the title to completely stand on it’s own.
Are there any narratives that you’re tired of in the DCU?
oh no x charcter goes evil for reasons and must be fought by (usually) main charcter like the amount of times this happens you would batman would have martian manhunter put in some type of gaurds against mindcontrol for at least superman
Yeah they do this far too often nowadays. Especially with Superman, it’s almost as if DC is unhappy with Superman being a hero. I would say it also extends to villains who become popular cuz then DC forces them to be Anti-heroes which are never portrayed or written well. Have yet to see it.
i know like its a bit of a plot hole when you think about it, there are all these super-smart people and actual mindreaders working together and superman arguably the most powerful being on the planet gets taken over every three months and no one has even tried to prevent it from happening???
Superman as an evil dictator and Batman is the only one who can stop him. Whether it’s Red Son (even though that didn’t really pan out for Batman) or Injustice, maybe even Kingdom Come depending on how you view it, what it really comes down to is writer’s not liking Superman, thinking he’s too powerful and “should” be a dictator and using Batman as their analogue for taking him down because Batman is “better” This stems from The Dark Knight Returns and sadly, we haven’t seen the end of it since.
Superman’s “angry red eyes of anger”. It used to be when you saw the red eyes, you knew you were in trouble. It was a visual representation of Clark being pushed to the brink. Now it’s become a shorthand for making Superman look dark and edgy. It’s overused.
The Geoff Johns event comic that often ignores the main event you came for so he could focus on side characters he wants to tell. I’m looking at you Forever Evil and Doomsday Clock.
I almost always see number 2 used to say Clark is evil. I love the rare time it is used to show him being heroic instead like in Reign of the Supermen.
CW sexual assault
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As a survivor I am not saying having a female Superheroes origin story be overcoming rape/ assault trauma but it seems that EVERY other female hero/ villain has this origin. It is beginning to seem like lazy writing. We can lose our parents in alleys/ have our SO murdered/ get hit by lightning too writers!
Having so many story arcs revolve around what men have done to women making them feel helpless seems to be an outdated concept. That’s why I am so pleased with Catwoman from the '66 show . She embodies a quote from Injustice 2 (I see it, I want it, its mine).
Bringing back the silver age version of the characters because the writer had a preference for them.
Post-Crisis/Post-Zero Hour, we had Kyle Rayner as Green Lantern, Wally West as The Flash and Connor Hawke as Green Arrow; not to mention the Matrix Supergirl, the Kon-El version of Superboy.
Somewhere along the way we had Hal Jordan come back as Green Lantern which didn’t push Kyle out completely, but it was now all about Hal. Oliver returned from the dead and Connor slowly got phased out. Barry came back as The Flash and we hardly saw Wally…then Flashpoint happened, then the New 52 and Wally, the man who earned his time as The Flash was gone. The Matrix Supergirl gave was to the Kara Zor-El version. I’d say out of all of them, Superboy fared the best as he was still a half Kryptonian/half human clone, but for some reason his human genes changed from Paul Westfield to Lex Luthor.
I enjoyed the Post Crisis/Post-Zero Hour DC universe because they were passing the torch to a new generation organically. Wally got to become The Flash to honor Barry. Kyle had the Green Lantern ring given to him and for a long time he carried the torch all by himself while trying to get out of Hal’s shadow. Connor lost his father and was becoming his own Green Arrow. We saw Matrix come from an alternate universe, learn what she could about this world and became Supergirl. But, because the writers had their preferences and wanted “their” versions back, a lot of these characters were replaced and sidelined. Part of the appeal, at least for me, if this era of DC was they were moving forward. Bringing the classic versions of these characters back wasn’t a bad idea per say, but it felt like things were taking a step backwards.
Totally understand that. When something is copied so often it becomes unoriginal and less unique. And when speaking about characters it loses its value, becomes less special than just having that one character you can relate to.
Eh. I understand. And I partially agree. I don’t think getting rid of Matrix Supergirl and Connor Hawke were bad things tbh. Kon-El’s genetics being changed might be because of Young Justice which Imo adds an extra dynamic to his character which isn’t a bad thing. But overall, I agree because in doing this the universe has yet to grow and is in the same place it’s been for a few decades now. So I totally get it the frustration of writers going backwards because of their own personal preferences instead of doing what’s best for the universe. It’s like the one writer having Superboy punch a hole in reality just so he can bring Jason Todd back from the dead after he was voted to be killed off by fans out of unpopularity. It’s selfish and has proven to be a hindrance to the universe.
Wally got it the worst. After Flash: Rebirth, the only other time I saw him was in the Flash Secret Files that came out shortly before Flashpoint happened. After that, I didn’t see him again until Rebirth. For all the time he spent as The Flash and how we got to see him grow into the role, it sucks that he got pushed aside because Johns wanted Barry back.
That Luthor reveal always bothered me. I know some people love it because they think it’s a cool twist to have Superboy be part Luthor, but in the end, aside from him learning about it and confronting Lex, what does it add?
I remember when they revealed Westfield as Conner’s human donor. It was a gut punch because here was the person who’d been hunting him since he escaped Cadmus and now he finds out he’s partially responsible for his creation. You’re enemy is a part of you.
With the Luthor reveal, all it does is tie it back to Superman and Lex’s feud. Conner isn’t dealing with his own enemy, he’s dealing with Superman’s enemy. He’s a pawn in someone else’s game. With Westfield, it was more personal. With Lex, it’s a story beat. Nothing more.
I hope the good job Dan thing is sarcasm cuz… Dan Didio is the reason the universe has been so f’ed up since new 52 I mean he and Jim Lee couldn’t think ahead so they had to fix the timeline and relaunched every 5 or so years which has only truly made it worse and more convoluted.
No he went too far because he let his hate erection for legacy characters get in the way of building the universe because like it or not they’re the future of the DCU so nerfing them and/or paying them dust or even trying to kill off certain ones every chance you get is too far. As the person in charge he shoulda put what was best for the universe and each and every character in it before his own selfish opinions. He went too far. It goes back to what I said, not thinking far enough ahead. It was oh this is gonna shock people and get people interested for the right now with no regard for the repercussions of the story and how much they’re burning down along the way. You don’t get stable/reliable readership by burning everything down once a year in some wild cross over especially when you’re not really building or growing anything in the universe in between because then you’re only burning your essentials. Like would you throw your supplies in the fire during a camping trip? No you need that ■■■■!
