It's Only the End if You Want it to Be
Posts tagged dick grayson
To friends and to friendship! Long may it last!
it was all so beautiful.
-Tales of the New Teen Titans #4
Why does DC hate beautiful and perfect friendships :(
You know what I love about this?
So often with team books like this, or any situation where the writer wants to create a strong relationship, you see these relationships more or less emerging out of nowhere. They’ve known each other for two issues, and all of a sudden you’ll get these really extreme statements, like “YOU ARE THE ONLY PERSON WHO’S EVER BEEN THERE FOR ME” or “THIS TEAM IS THE ONLY FAMILY I’VE EVER HAD”, and it always rings pretty false, because we haven’t seen that relationship develop, and more often than not these extreme statements are just contradicting previous history.
What I love about this team is that it’s so sweet and touching, but it’s understated. It makes sense for where the team is at this point. Some of these teammates know each other from before, of course (Dick, Donna, Wally), but as a whole they’re still getting to know each other, like Dick says here. And there’s a bond that’s starting to form, but it’s not as strong as it’s going to be someday.
Eventually, you see the Titans get to the point where they refer to the team as their family, and at that point, it has weight - because we’ve truly seen them loving each other and supporting each other as a family. We’ve seen those relationships develop.
But here, we’re not at that point yet. Relationships don’t start with “You guys are like family to me”, out of nowhere. Relationships don’t start with “I love you”.
Relationships start with “I really like all of you so much. As friends.”
(Source: kelleycarries)
108 notes (via fyeahdickgrayson & kelleycarries)
Top 13 Favorite Teen Titans Episodes: #9 Haunted (S3 Ep31)
Hard as I try to pick the more lighthearted and adventurous episodes, I guess I am just attracted to the darker ones. Maybe it’s because they have some of the best character development overall.
Slade has been out of the picture for a while since they saw him do a back flop into a chasm of magma/lava at the season 2 finale. The Titans have moved on from Slade. All except for Robin, who just can’t seem to shake the feeling that Slade is not actually gone. After a criminal named Cinder block stirs some trouble, Robin begins seeing Slade, the problem he is the only one who can see him. Has Slade really returned? Or is Robin’s obsession making him suffer a mental break?
When I think about it, Robin never got too much development. If he did it wasn’t really anything too deep. Not to say that he didn’t come across as a complex or even a 3dimensional character by any means, but I feel that more could have been explored. At the same time I feel like for this incarnation of Robin enough was said and showed to make him a good character and a good leader of our team. That being said, this episode was a great one in terms of fleshing out Robin’s complexities.
Robin is kind of hard to pin down in terms of what kind of person he is, though that might have to do with whoever was writing the episode at the time. One thing I noticed though that was consistent is that Robin has the tendency to be an obsessive recluse, especially when it came to Slade. Not hard to see why, considering everything that has transpired between them over the course of the series thus far. Also, considering that Robin was raised by the master of being a brooding, obsessive recluse, it is no surprise that his behavior is the way it is.
Yet the most interesting part I find about this episode is that it shows the damage that this behavior can do to oneself and to others. Obsession can destroy the mind and the relationships around you. Also that one must learn to let go in order to move on and become stronger or else you give the object of that obsession power over you.
I feel like what happens here is kind of made pointless by later events in later seasons but as a stand alone episode it has a great atmosphere and a great message. Definitely give this one a watch sometime :D
*If anyone wishes to reblog this, please do it as a text post so it wont be cut off. Thank you*
7 notes (via misstimelordlover)
I’ve been thinking a lot about Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, and their skills as detectives. Now, for the most part, Tim Drake is shown to be a better detective (or at least, the potential to become a better detective) than Dick, and that’s fine. But this sadly seems to come with a lack of emphasis…
The Dick Grayson I grew up with WAS logical and intelligent. Of course he was. He was a detective, trained by the Batman since he was 8 years old until he was old enough to leave the nest.
If you can read “Who is Donna Troy” from the New Teen Titans series, the man basically tracked down Donna Troy’s biological mother with evidence (a rag doll) found in the remains of the demolished apartment building firemen found her in as a baby.
Dick Grayson is even shown using a laboratory.
All through his association with the Titans, he was written as having a logical mind and detective skills. He didn’t have any super powers, but he was the leader of the team because of his amazing mind.
^ This. If you read New Teen Titans, Dick was always very much characterized by logical intelligence. If you read this interview from 1998, for example, Marv Wolfman even talks about “Nightwing’s logical approach to life” being an essential part of the character that he took into account when conceptualizing the Titans.
I think what tends to happen is that Dick’s characterization fluctuates depending on the characters he’s surrounded by. Among the Titans, he (along with Vic and Donna) was “the logical one”, as opposed to characters like Kory, Gar, Roy and Wally who are all more emotional. And sure enough, even in later years, when you see Dick surrounded by the Titans he once again falls back into the role of “the logical one”:
(This scene is from Devin Grayson’s Titans run, and while we all know I have plenty negative to say about Devin Grayson, one thing she almost invariably gets right is her ability to portray Dick as someone who is both logically intelligent and emotionally expressive. Something you see even in this scene, I think - at first you see Dick very much in “Batman mode”, all steely logic and focus… and then he cracks a joke, and you’re reminded that he’s not Batman, he’s Dick. Very good characterization, IMO.)
But when Dick is surrounded by the Batfamily, as opposed to the Titans or a similar group, that side of him tends to get emphasized far less. Why? Because the Batfamily as a group are all defined by being logical - they’re detectives. It’s what they do. And that’s especially true of the members Dick interacted with most (until Damian came along, anyway) - Bruce, and Babs, and Tim. All characters who are defined by being highly intelligent and highly logical. So if you play up that aspect of Dick when he’s with them, there’s no contrast. Dick can’t be “the logical one” when he’s interacting with characters who are equally logical.
As a result, when you see Dick interacting with those characters, he tends to fall into the role of “the emotional one” as opposed to “the logical one”:
An important thing to understand: These are both legitimate sides of Dick’s character. He is both highly emotional and logical, and if you lose one of those aspects, his characterization is going to come out skewed. A good writer is able to balance both sides of his character; a bad writer focuses too much on creating false dichotomies between him and other characters, and ends up ignoring large aspects of who he is.
With Dick and Tim specifically, this idea of them as The Emotional One and The Logical One actually took quite a bit of time to evolve. If you look at some of their earliest interactions, you see Dick very much in the role of The Logical One:
Which makes sense, because Tim was still honing his detective skills here, and Dick was teaching him. Therefore, it makes sense to emphasize Dick’s logical side. It’s also relevant that this is NTT-era Dick, written by Marv Wolfman, and Dick was always characterized more as a logically intelligent character in that era, as I’ve explained above.
By the time you get to Nightwing #6 (1997, written by Chuck Dixon), you see their roles evolving:
Tim is now the “more cerebral” one, being contrasted with Dick’s “streetsmarts”. (If any of the Robins are particularly street-smart I would’ve said it was Jason and Steph, but ok.)
But, note that Tim also tells Dick that “I’m not half the detective you are” - an interesting comment, considering that in recent years Tim is generally acknowledged as the best detective in the Batfamily after Bruce, with the potential to outstrip even him.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Tim was a character defined by being cerebral from the start, and it makes perfect sense for his detective skills to be where his character truly shines - even to the point where he eventually outpaces Dick.
The important thing here, though, is that Tim’s skills evolving shouldn’t make Dick’s magically regress, and when writers forget that Dick can think logically or has detective skills just because he happens to be standing next to Tim (or Bruce, or Babs), we have a problem.
As requested, my request drawings have been made rebloggable, but I’m going to group a bunch of them together so I don’t spam up your feeds and my own tumblr.
Wonder Girl and Robin goofing off together, as requested by luanna225
*squeals with excitement* Thank you so much for drawing this for me!! And thank you as well for making the drawings rebloggable, like I requested. :-)
This is absolutely adorable! I love how Dick is just nonchalantly reading while Donna has him up in the air like that, haha. And yay for Donna being a strong and powerful Amazon in every sense of the word!
This is wonderful! <3
36 notes (via buccillustrations)
Dick Grayson: Giving every single guy he comes into contact with an inferiority complex since 1940.
(OK not literally but sometimes it sure does seem that way.)
(Jason isn’t even included in this post because Jason is an entirely different can of worms.)
(Further thoughts after the cut.)
From Robin: Year One.
I was just remembering that I saw a panel just like this with Damian?
Yep! It’s from Streets of Gotham #10:
And for comparison, here’s the full scene with Dick:
I’m not sure if it was an intentional reference (it probably wasn’t), but the two scenes are very similar, most definitely.
30 notes (via the-art-of-obsession)
![apocalypsey:
fyeahdickgrayson:
dorkery:
[Batman and Robin #9]
Dick, you have no right to be this pretty.
I never get tired of Cameron Stewart’s Dick Grayson.
God he’s so gorgeous
*nodnod*](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lklf4aOJfq1qzsyego1_500.png)
[Batman and Robin #9]
Dick, you have no right to be this pretty.
I never get tired of Cameron Stewart’s Dick Grayson.
God he’s so gorgeous
*nodnod*
173 notes (via apocalypsey & dorkery)
Impromptu Cameron Stewart’s Art Appreciation Post. Because of reasons.
Note that he is one of the few artists to remember the ethnicity of the Al Ghuls - it even shows clearly when he draws Damian in black-and-white (upper left picture), which I find truly impressive.
Also note Dick’s face. (There isn’t an intelligent comment there. Just… Dick’s face.)
You weren’t at the funeral. People asked about you.
Dick really fucked up with Jason. Both Bruce and Dick did, in a sense. I think that’s why he was such a good brother for Tim.
Uh, how did Dick fuck up again? For one thing, he was on another planet when Jason died, and for another, Bruce even didn’t tell him about Jason’s death.
# i want to type out a long rant but I have to head out in a few minutes # i can’t recall where these particular panels are from though
They’re from New Titans #55. (The issue where Dick finds out about Jason’s death. Also the infamous Bruce-punches-Dick issue.)
And thank you! I was going to comment on this myself, but it’s nice to see that my work has been done for me. :-)
Frankly, I’ve always been amazed that Bruce actually had the nerve to try and turn this around on Dick, when he was the one who, y’know, couldn’t be bothered to tell Dick that his little brother had died, let alone when the funeral was. (Not that this was an isolated incident - in this time period, Bruce seemed to love trying to blame Dick for situations that he himself had created, which tends to make me distinctly uncomfortable when you consider that transferring blame is one of the key signs of an emotional abuser. And when you add in the fact that this scene ends with Bruce punching Dick in the face and throwing him out, the abusive undertones here become… well, not really undertones anymore. I could go on for quite a while about how disturbing I find all of this, but, uh, I should probably stop here.)
I mean, I get that Bruce was grieving, but the way he acts throughout this entire issue just makes me cringe. (Which is the point, of course… but that doesn’t make it less painful to watch.)
I think we have to attribute this to poor writing and a HORRIBLE editor who let something like this get past him/her (I don’t know who the editor on this title was at the time and I don’t care to look it up). The whole point of a comic editor, in my opinion, is to make certain that a) continuity is maintained, and b) characters are written in a consistent manner, with the same development throughout various titles, within arcs, etc.
If that is the case, then the editor is DEFINITELY at fault for allowing such an outlandish plotline. Dick was OFF-PLANET - and, even if Bruce didn’t know that, how could he have expected Dick to know if he didn’t bother to leave a message?!
…Maybe I am giving too much power/responsibility to editors, though!
Unfortunately, this one can’t be put down to a simple continuity error/editing gaffe, as not only did this all occur within one series (New Titans), in the same issue we see Dick at Jason’s grave, talking about how Bruce never even tried to call him (he didn’t know Dick was off-planet, but nevertheless didn’t try getting in touch), before flashing back to how he found out about Jason’s death when he returned from Tamaran. And then, still in this same issue, we have this scene with Dick and Bruce. So this isn’t a continuity problem, or a problem of different writers being fed different versions of the story. It all happens within one issue, and it was clearly written as Bruce knowing full well that Dick hadn’t known about Jason’s death.
Now, you could argue that within the story it’s out-of-character for Bruce to act quite this horrible, and I personally do prefer when Bruce is written as less full-on jerk than he is here. But it’s not an issue of bad continuity or a negligent editor. For better or worse, this is the story that was intentionally written.
213 notes (via sea-dilemma & varlandgear)
You weren’t at the funeral. People asked about you.
Dick really fucked up with Jason. Both Bruce and Dick did, in a sense. I think that’s why he was such a good brother for Tim.
Uh, how did Dick fuck up again? For one thing, he was on another planet when Jason died, and for another, Bruce even didn’t tell him about Jason’s death.
# i want to type out a long rant but I have to head out in a few minutes # i can’t recall where these particular panels are from though
They’re from New Titans #55. (The issue where Dick finds out about Jason’s death. Also the infamous Bruce-punches-Dick issue.)
And thank you! I was going to comment on this myself, but it’s nice to see that my work has been done for me. :-)
Frankly, I’ve always been amazed that Bruce actually had the nerve to try and turn this around on Dick, when he was the one who, y’know, couldn’t be bothered to tell Dick that his little brother had died, let alone when the funeral was. (Not that this was an isolated incident - in this time period, Bruce seemed to love trying to blame Dick for situations that he himself had created, which tends to make me distinctly uncomfortable when you consider that transferring blame is one of the key signs of an emotional abuser. And when you add in the fact that this scene ends with Bruce punching Dick in the face and throwing him out, the abusive undertones here become… well, not really undertones anymore. I could go on for quite a while about how disturbing I find all of this, but, uh, I should probably stop here.)
I mean, I get that Bruce was grieving, but the way he acts throughout this entire issue just makes me cringe. (Which is the point, of course… but that doesn’t make it less painful to watch.)
213 notes (via graydaughters & varlandgear)
- The New Titans 60
The Titans are looking for Dick. Several things to note about this:
- They’re really putting in an effort to find him!
- Dick’s a slob. People who are very tidy in their heads tend to not be so tidy with the things around them. Super-smart detective equals slobby cleaning tendencies.
- I have too high thoughts about Tim and don’t want him to have taken something from Dick’s safe, but he is the only one who can have done it.
- Roy! Nice seeing you again. :)
Interesting about the slob thing. I’m smart, but my brain is like a pinball machine, so I try to keep my living space tidy so that SOMETHING is organized. :)
I don’t actually think there’s one way that all smart people are, but in Dick’s case, his messy habits are well-established canon, going back to the days when he was living in the Manor and Bruce would complain about it:
(Scan from Batman #217, 1969, which was the issue where Dick left for college. I always think this scene is precious, because it’s just so utterly parental that even when Bruce is getting all emotional about Dick leaving, he’s still commenting on how messy his room is, haha.)
Tim is also canonically a slob, BTW, despite the fact that I sometimes see fans headcanoning him as some kind of neat-freak:
(Scans from Robin #43 and #45 via fragileicicle, who is my go-to source on all things Tim Drake.)
Are any of the Batkids actually neat? It would be funny if it actually turned out to be, like, Jason who was the neat one or something.
26 notes (via molliehaswords & yellowcape)
“Dick has so many connections to other characters. In many ways, even more than Superman or Batman, Nightwing is the soul, the linchpin, of the DCU. He’s well respected by everyone, known to the JLA, the Titans, the Outsiders, Birds of Prey – everyone looks to him for advice, for friendship, for his skills. He’s the natural leader of the DCU.” - Phil Jimenez
~Casually reminds people that Dick Grayson is both The Heart and The Leader of the entire freakin’ DCU and if you don’t think that’s awesome then frankly I don’t even know what to do with you~
Dick, you’re so spoiled.
#honestly dick #i mean really #he’s such a rich kid though #like he’d totally deny it because he’s from the CIRCUS #but in reality he’s basically been a billionaire since he was eight #damian is the most spoilt no-one can argue with that #but i think dick and tim really do take being incredibly rich… well #not exactly for granted #but they’ve never had to worry about money themselves ever and that obviously gives a certain perspective #on life you know #obviously they’re batkids they’re hardly sheltered #but it wouldn’t really occur to them that having no money is a thing that could happen to them #(jason is a whole nother story but these tags are long and stupid enough already)
It isn’t really true that having to worry about money is something Dick’s never known, though. In New Teen Titans #60 (I don’t have a scan, but I’ve just read this recently so you’ll have to believe me), there’s this scene where Mr. Haly is telling Dick about how even in the “good old days”, the circus was barely breaking even in terms of money. And if the circus was barely breaking even, the performers were getting paid next to nothing, including Dick and his parents.
I wouldn’t necessarily say Dick worried about that (Mr. Haly comments in the same scene that no one cared if the circus was struggling because “we were having fun!” which is, I think, the attitude Dick was raised to have about money - it doesn’t matter how much or how little you have, as long as you’re doing something you love), but his family did struggle financially somewhat. He certainly wasn’t poor on the level of Jason, or even Steph, but the Graysons weren’t exactly rolling in spare cash, either.
I think a lot of fans tend to assume (see: this post, for example) that because the Flying Graysons were so awesomely talented they must have been totally rich and famous, but the canon doesn’t really support that, IMO. There doesn’t seem to be much canon evidence that they were necessarily even particularly well-known, and it’s outright stated that the circus struggled financially. I mean, the thing is… show biz isn’t an easy business, and being awesomely talented isn’t necessarily a guarantee of financial security. Even Harry freakin’ Houdini had times when he was down to his last five dollars.
That doesn’t negate the privilege that Dick came into when Bruce took him in, but it’s still a necessary distinction that, unlike Bruce and Tim and Damian, he wasn’t born into that privilege. (Something Bruce outright states in this scene - “Dick wasn’t like me. He didn’t come from a world of privilege.”)
What is true is that Dick has something of a “rich-boy” attitude in that he has no problem solving problems by throwing money at them, and I could find you example after example of that. (“Haly’s Circus might be going out of business? No problem, I’ll just buy it!” “Bounty on Amy’s head? No problem, I’ll just pay more!” “Oh, and Bruce, could you just buy me this building? And this one and this one and this one. You’re the best!”)
It’s interesting because as a rule, Dick doesn’t seem to like the idea of living off of Bruce’s charity (one of the reasons he works for a living, even though he has no financial need to), but when he sees a way that he can use money to help someone or facilitate his work as Nightwing, he has absolutely no problem asking Bruce for huge sums of money - or using his connections.
I tend to think wealth and privilege are things Dick isn’t entirely comfortable with - he’s more at home in a small apartment than a mansion - but he also has no problem using them to his advantage, especially for something he considers a good cause. In that second aspect, he’s a lot like Bruce, who (IMO) sees money mainly as just another tool that can be useful in his larger mission. The difference is that Bruce, having been born into a life of wealth, feels more natural in that lifestyle than Dick does.
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