#a vigilante!Amy
Explore tagged Tumblr posts
Text
Okay, but why did my brain register that as Amy Dallon from Worm by wildbow
AGAIN???? 😭
#parahumans#batfam#jason todd#panacea#amy dallon#I kinda want#a red hood!taylor#shipping with#a vigilante!Amy
6K notes
·
View notes
Text
still comparing and contrasting dixon's dick & tim in my head wrt to civilian social groups (tim being further isolated away from girls as he gets together with steph and only allowed male friends vs dick's civilian cast of peers being more female oriented and he doesn't really get male non-superhero friends) and i do think there is something interesting wrt the perceived male social dynamics by a male writer of a teenage boy socially being surrounded by a group of friends vs a young adult male who's social life is more dictated in regards to the women around him
#like idk the young adult male bonding social activities you see like watching sports dick just does with tim...little brother#like he works at the bar and at the police station and he really doesn't get a significant male peer from either of those activities#like he gets amy or clancy. and it does seem like an interesting oversight of...both those settings are rife to get dick a man friend#and he just never really connects with one y'know?#dick is also presented as so much more embedded in the vigilante life than tim is and this could be a part of that
34 notes
·
View notes
Text
she has such “oversized hammer to crush anyone in her way” energy, yanno?
#pizza tower#noisette#the vigilante#vigilante#my art#i love her sm#yes it’s based on amy rose’s hammer#anyone who draws her w a big hammer kissing you
283 notes
·
View notes
Text
if i don't find a fic where peter parker & amy bendix are besties in the next five minutes i'm going to write my own
#vigilante kids are the loml#if i write one you best believe kate will be there too#lina lore#marvel#mcu#peter parker#spider-man#amy bendix#the punisher
7 notes
·
View notes
Text
Daily Fanfic Rec (Day 21)
Avengers
5/15/2024
Masterlist
Title: String
Author: medicineofsope
Words: 27,548
Chapters: 14
Completed?: Yes
"Peter and Frank live in the same building. They start running into each other. Peter reminds Frank too much of his own kids and Frank reminds Peter too much of a parent.
[post spider-man: no way home]"
-- -- -- -- --
I love when fics explore Peter's relationship with other vigilantes, and this one does an amazing job! Hurt/Comfort!
#ao3#fic rec#fanfic#read this#avengers#the avengers#mcu#marvel#peter parker#frank castle#amy bendix#karen page#matt murdock#foggy nelson#gwen stacy#vigilante#hurt/comfort#fluff#angst
7 notes
·
View notes
Photo
You did some bad things, but I'm the worst of them. Sometimes I wonder which one will be your last lie.
#gonegirledit#filmedit#filmgifs#ladiesblr#userladiesofcinema#gone girl#rosamund pike#amy elliot dunne#my gif#gg*#vigilante shit is partially about amy elliott dunne.#its true taylor swift told me herself
135 notes
·
View notes
Text
Anyways a few drawings I made over time of characters with the Disability Pride Flag
#Disability Pride Month#Disability#Pride Month#Moon Knight#Jake Lockley#Steven Grant#Marc Spector#Peacemaker#Adrian Chase#Vigilante#Doctor Who#Eleventh Doctor#11th Doctor#Amy Pond#Rory Williams#The Autistic Trio#Lucifer#Lucifer Morningstar#Lucileven#Actually Autistic#Autism#ADHD#AuDHD
22 notes
·
View notes
Note
i mean in a show where someone gets killed nearly every episode, most of those people dying by the main characters’ hands, who “deserves” death and who doesn’t and who gets to decide that is always blurry. and is never addressed directly in the show, as that would question the authority of the main characters, which makes these discussions always a bit of a slope. i do agree that those people amy killed probably weren’t. the best picked to die. like she would probably be powerful enough to take on more “deserving” targets. but then again who gets to decide that etc. just to clarify, i’m not trying to disagree with you, i just always like to bring thoughts to the table and see what everyone else thinks. the girl next door certainly is an episode !
About Amy picking more "deserving" targets:
I don't think Amy actually cared all that much how "bad" the targets were tbh. I don't think she spent time evaluating and researching each victim through a Dexter-esque kill code before murdering them. She had no time for that—her son was actively dying, and if she wanted to save him, she had to kill quickly. She was still stalking and killing while Sam was actively hunting her because the situation was that urgent and dire. No—what Amy did is pick conveniently and opportunistically. She picked people who happened to be out at night, alone, whose deaths the police would have little interest in prioritizing. Her goal was never to act out vigilante justice—taking an extremely short amount of time to notice that someone was a petty criminal just helped assuage some of her guilt about it.
For the rest of it, let me give you three situations:
My child is being stalked by a serial killer. The killer comes to my house with the intention of killing my child. I kill that serial killer.
There is no enforcement of law where I live. Murderers run amok, able to stalk, murder, and even eat their victims and no one does anything about it. I decide to act as a vigilante to defend the victims of these killers from stalking, killing, and eating them by killing the people who I know are stalking, killing, and eating them.
I have a child who is dying and requires a heart transplant in order to survive, and I know that my child will not survive long enough to receive an organ donation on a very long waitlist. However, there are plenty of people around me who have working hearts, so I hunt down one of them and kill them and arrange to have their heart transplanted into my child.
These three scenarios become increasingly morally grey from one to the next (in fact, I have absolutely zero issue at all whatsoever with the first, and in its specific context, not much issue with the second), but the third is very very different from the first and second, is it not? And to me, a very obvious example of something that is evil.
Whether the target I pick in the third scenario is a person who’s never even jaywalked before or whether it's Tim who lives down the street who I knows deals drugs, or hell—even if it's a dude on death row—doesn't change the fact that the only one trying to and succeeding at trying to kill anyone at the end of the day is just me; that nobody threatened or wronged my child; that nobody was trying to steal their life. In this third scenario, there is no evil figure I am fighting directly against. I steal people's lives and essence in order to keep my child alive out of nothing more than selfishness.
While I agree it's easy to get into the weeds of vigilante justice, we shouldn't, because that isn't even what Amy was doing. She is not #2—she's #3. What she did versus what Sam and Dean do as a job (#2) are ultimately very different things in terms of the motives and circumstances involved, the victims, and the aggressors.
In the end, the whole discussion started with me bringing up a specific line, where Sam says that he and Dean would both murder strangers in order to feed their insides to a loved one just to keep that loved one alive, which is very very different from what they do on a regular basis in terms of circumstances and motives, regardless of if we're talking people who "deserve" to die or people who don't.
#mail#like death row guy certainly feels different from the others because... he's dying anyway.#still even that sort of concept ended up being something dean tapped out on.#but again just trying to point out the entire scenario is very different from what sam and dean do on a daily basis which is number 2.#Sam? Hm... he was going to kill Crowley for Rowena? But like. Also Crowley did a lot of fucked up shit. Killed one of his GF's etc it fits#pretty well into the vigilante justice framework plus he's gonna argue utilitarianism all over it since he's trying to get rid of the MOC#amy#7.03
28 notes
·
View notes
Text
Is anyone still interested in looking at the text (my previous post) ?
Then I present my Au Chili tower. Which is a mix of the universe Sonic and Pizza tower.
Peppino - Knuckles he is the owner of his restaurant "Master emerald" which sells chili dog
Gustavo-Tails is Knuckles' assistant.
Brick-Omega was first an enemy and then became Gustavo's friend.
Pepperman-Bark the bear is a boxer, but he is also a glorious artist
The Vigilante-Fang
The Noise-Sonic is the anti-mascot of Chili tower
Noisette-Amy is Sonic's mistress.
Fake Peppino - Metal Knuckles he is a clone of Knuckles which was created while there was a war with other echidnas
Pizza face-Eggman
Pizza head-Scratch
#sonic au#sonic the hedgehog#pizza tower au#pizza tower#sonic#miles tails prower#knuckles#amy rose#eggman#Chili tower#bark the polar bear#fang the sniper#my au#scratch sonic the hedgehog#metal knuckles#peppino#pepperman#pizza tower the vigilante#the noise#fake peppino#pizza face#pizza head
19 notes
·
View notes
Text
thinking abt how nightwing 1996, within the greater narrative, actually tries (key word: tries) to tell a story abt radicalization and right-wing authoritarian violence thru the character nite-wing (NOT nightwing) that is ultimately undercut by the narratives larger assertion that policing is essentially, good (despite police being like the number one source of right-wing authoritarian violence)
#i feel like the only plot beat from this run is that nightwing was raped. yes that happened but so did a billion other interesting things#that you all are ignoring. i was working on a post abt how this run is so conservative up until devin grayson wrote the scene where amy#offers nightwing his cop job back so he can legally kill blockbuster. but it got too long and i ran out of steam#and then i was thinking abt catalina and THEN i was thinking abt nite-wing an incredibly dumb character#that ultimately DOES try to say SOMETHING abt the link between police and fascist vigilante justice but fails bc the story is being#primarily written by a conservative when it really needed a leftist.
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
taylor swift wrote vigilante shit for amy dunne
3 notes
·
View notes
Text
Deadly Decisions
After six long years… The military-based, psychological crime-thriller Deadly Decisions is finished at last! Step into the boots of four innocent men wrongly accused of assaulting a female officer. No evidence, no charges, and no convictions. Their backgrounds, body build, and facial hair were the only reasons they were detained for questioning. Even the victim is certain that none of these…
View On WordPress
#Amy Lynn Raines#Amy Raines#book blurb#crime thriller#Deadly Decisions#fiction#horror#military#new book#not yet released#suspense#thriller#vigilante justice
0 notes
Text
Danny’s Wayne adoption bait. The guy that owns the bodega knows it. Everyone and their mothers knows it. Danny, on the other hand, had no clue. To be fair, he had just crash landed in this dimension a week ago and his back was still sore from the weird design the car had.
(It’s only three weeks of homelessness later does Danny realize that he crash landed on the Batmobile. Whoops. Oh well. He’ll blame it on Clockwork if the vigilante asks after repair costs.)
(Bruce, on the other hand, is scouring the streets for this kid the car cams caught- oddly static filled footage- because his mind jumped to the worst case scenarios: a suicidal meta or a meta being threatened or a meta in a trafficking scheme or even worse all three at once and Bruce just can’t because there is a child in danger, he doesn’t have time to sleep.)
Danny rubbed at his back, eyes going watery at the memory. Sure, his wounds have healed over by now but the- heh- phantom pain is no joke. He shuddered, huddling closer to his threadbare hoodie. His only saving grace from getting jumped while walking the streets of Gotham at night is his invisibility and intangibility. Also, he’s floating, so “walking” doesn’t apply to him.
He’s gotta check on the kid he saved yesterday from a mugging, so Danny hurried along to the depilated apartment complex the kid was squatting in. Turning visible and tangible as he turns the corner, Danny glanced around for Amy.
“Danny!”
“Hey, kiddo. Doing alright?”
“Yeah! Come meet my gang!”
Danny felt his eyebrows rise to form Jazz’s exasperated look. Ouch. Waving the pain of losing Jazz away, Danny smiled at the excited girl.
“A gang? I wasn’t aware I was being brought to your almighty group.”
“Yeah! Uh, you actually helped a bunch of us so…”
Danny thought back to all those times he punted crooks away from robbing kids and shrugged. Yeah, what Amy said was likely.
“Kay, kiddo.”
She scowled, and Danny didn’t have the heart to tell her it looked more like a pout.
“You’re just a teenager.”
“Well, you’re a just a kid.”
Danny cackled as she chased him down the street, trying to kick his shins.
Life is good, even if he’s homeless and hungry.
——
“Jason.”
“Old man.” Jason mocks back, pausing his tasks. He waits as Bruce struggles to put his thoughts and feelings into words.
“There’s… a meta.”
“In Gotham?” Jason tilts back, hands halfway to his guns as a silent offer. Bruce shakes his head.
“A child. In Crime Alley.”
“In my turf?” Jason’s disquieting demeanor quickly swapped to a protective one.
“Trafficking, I think. Male, black hair…”
“Shit. Get Dickwing back here, he’s good with traumatized kids. I’ll go look for him.” Jason’s already moving, mind filtering through the kids he knows might have information to offer.
Bruce nods, shoulders relaxing. Jason smacks down the lump in his throat at the subtle sing of trust. “I’ll get Oracle and Red Robin on it.”
Jason morphs from Jay to Red Hood in one smooth step, helmet firmly placed on his head. He grunts in agreement, slinging his legs over his motorcycle. He roars off, mind half filled with tearing apart whatever traffickers dared to shit near his territory and the other half filled with worry for this possible kid.
——
Danny, as the Bats become aware of his existence, hands Amy and her kiddie gang a bag of fancy beef jerky.
“Try these with peanut butter, it’s kind of good.”
Amy stares at him, the judgement of an eight year old more piercing than anything he’s ever experienced.
“You’re fucking weird-”
“Language!” He squawks.
“-but sure, whatever you say, boss.”
“Boss?!”
The kids ignores his alarmed face.
#danny phantom#batman#dc x dp#bruce wayne#Danny had minions#Danny saved a bunch of kids from two face and now they’ve imprinted on him#like ducklings#Danny: I’ll have a nice vacation#also Danny: fights a villain and saves like a dozen kids#Danny: unionizes the kiddie gangs via peanut butter and beef jerky#Batman: there is a child#red hood: that needs our help!#dc x dp crossover#dp x dc#Danny dents the Batmobile and leaves an IOU#but doesn’t leave the owner a way to contact him
7K notes
·
View notes
Text
The Driver - The Long Con #3
The Driver – The Long Con #3
Time: Now MCs: MM Sub-Genre: Contemporary Romance Themes: Romance; Status Difference; Vigilante Justice; Found Family; Trauma; Hurt/Comfort; Corporate Battle Summary: Hell-raiser, getaway driver, and occasional knight in tarnished armour Chuck Calder has never had any illusions about being a serious boyfriend. He may not be a good guy, but at least as part of Josh Salinger’s crew of upscale…
View On WordPress
0 notes
Text
A (Negative) Review of Tom Taylor's Nightwing Run - What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization
Introduction Who is Dick Grayson? What Went Wrong? Dick's Characterization What Went Wrong? Barbara Gordon What Went Wrong? Bludhaven (Part 1, Part 2) What Went Wrong? Melinda Lin Grayson What Went Wrong? Bea Bennett What Went Wrong? Villains Conclusion Bibliography
In the previous section, we explored not only who Dick Grayson is and why he is so beloved by his friends, but why many people — including Taylor and others at DC — have a hard time understanding his character. By reducing Dick to a hero who is “good” and transforming into an “everyman” that anyone can project themselves onto, Taylor fundamentally removes that which makes Dick special, transforming him into a different character.
But there are other ways in which Taylor and DC mischaracterize Dick by erasing his history and transforming into a more “palatable” mainstream hero. That is what I wish to explore in more detail now.
Let’s begin by examining how Taylor’s framing Dick’s story in Nightwing (and that of the Titans in Titans) as a coming-of-age tale contributes to a grand erasure of Dick Grayson’s greatness.
In Taylor’s run, Dick is treated as if he were a new superhero. However, even if this run (not the entire title that started in 2016 with Rebirth, but just Taylor’s run) were to become a new stand-in for the 1996 Nightwing solo in which Dick arrives in Bludhaven for the very first time, Dick Grayson should not be portrayed as someone new to vigilantism. Even if one were to generously interpret Taylor’s Dick as being only twenty-two years old after starting as Robin at twelve years of age and only recently having become Nightwing, Dick would still have a decade of experience doing detective and hero work. It is notable that most of that decade was spent with him leading the Titans, serving as Batman’s partner and second-in-command, and mentoring numerous young heroes.
(Wolfram, Amy, writer. Kerschl, Karl, illustrator. In the Beginning… Part Three. Teen Titans: Year One no. 03, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2008. pp. 09)
One of Dick’s core traits is that he is a natural, if at times reluctant, leader. Many key moments in his character history are defined by Dick feeling the weight of the responsibilities placed upon him and having to push through his personal reservations for the sake of others.
Dick was the first child hero. He was the first sidekick. Out of universe and in universe. (In the introduction to Dick Grayson, Boy Wonder: Scholars and Creators on 75 years of Robin, Nightwing, and Batman, Kristen L. Geaman mentions that some argue Mister America from Action Comics #2 is, in fact, the first side-kick. However, this claim is debated since Mister America played more of a comedic and “Watsonian” role [as Dick Grayson Fan C suggested], and Dick was the one who popularized the formula of the role.) He was the proof that the concept of a sidekick — a partner — could work. Proof that kids could be trained into this life. Proof that they did not need powers in order to be a hero. That is one of the reasons why, in-universe, he is admired by so many characters – because he is the trailblazer who opened the doors for every young hero and side-kick that came after him. Dick’s history is also why he has so many connections — it is because he was the one who opened the doors for everyone else, mentored so many people, and partnered with those who were his age and those who were much older that he gained so much respect in the superhero community.
And yet, that history is called into question in Taylor’s narrative when he frames Dick as a young, new hero who is just beginning to assess what he wants to do with his life. Not only is it bad storytelling to portray Dick’s connections without factoring in the experience tied into them, it also demonstrates a fundamental lack of understanding of who Dick is, what he represents, and why he’s been so beloved for over 80 years.
This lack of appreciation and of respect towards Dick is extended to the other Titans in Taylor’s Titans (2023) run. As he himself pointed out, the first arc is called Out of the Shadows because, in his words, the Titans are “stepping out of the shadows of the Justice League.”
(Taylor, Tom [TomTaylorMade]. Twitter, 22 June 2023, https://twitter.com/jesswchen/status/1636971185782259716?s=20.)
And yet, to its fans, the Titans were never in the Justice League’s shadows. They were not inferior or subordinate to the Justice League, even if they may be less known. In-universe, the Titans may have modeled themselves after the Justice League and they may be allies, but the Titans are still an independent entity. From their very inception they defined themselves in contrast with how the Justice League operates.
In fact, in JLA/Titans #02, Dick himself draws this distinction when arguing with Bruce and calling him out on his condescending behavior towards the Titans.
(Grayson, Devin; Jimenez, Phil, writers. Jimenez, Phil; Brown, Eliot R., illustrator. The Generation Gap. JLA/Titans no. 02, e-book ed. DC Comics, 1998. pp. 23)
Trying to repackage Dick and the Titans as newbie heroes who are only now experiencing independence demonstrates a lack of understanding of their history and who the Titans are meant to be. The Dark Crisis and The Dawn of the DCU attempt to frame Dick’s Nightwing series and Titans as coming-of-age tales, where only now the characters are stepping into adulthood. Taylor’s writing goes a step further and portrays them as making rookie mistakes, coming across as newbies, and as a result, erasing all of the rich history that have built these characters into who they are today.
As I mentioned above, even if we generously interpreted that Dick never lived in Bludhaven before, Dick should still have plenty of experience being a hero and living on his own. The moment in which he transitions from Robin to Nightwing (willingly or unwillingly depending on your preferred Nightwing origin story) is Dick’s coming-of-age moment. By the time he comes to Bludhaven, Dick already knows who he is, what he wants, and he knows how to care for himself. By the time Dick comes to Bludhaven, his internal struggles are not that of a young adult who just left the nest and does not yet feel like an adult, but rather that of an adult who knows his own abilities and is confident in who he is.
And yet, in Nightwing #84, the first issue in Nightwing: Fear State, Taylor has Dick pondering on the responsibilities of taking care of Bludhaven. Right on the first page, he says “Fighting an entire corrupt system? Saving a whole city? There’s no training for that.”
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Rodriguez, Robbi, illustrator. Fear State Part 1 of 3. Nightwing: Rebirth. 84, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 03)
Except even the most basic knowledge of Dick’s character shows that he was, in fact, trained to save an entire system and to fight a corrupt system — he was trained to care for Gotham and to take out the corrupt systems that prevail in that city. Not only that, Dick has also been Batman, at which point he was also Gotham’s main protector.
This mistake becomes even more outrageous when one considers that, though Taylor’s run is at times treated as a soft-reboot, Dick is still shown to have lived in Bludhaven while operating as Nightwing. This means that that generous interpretation I’ve been alluding to is not, in fact, compatible with the story as it is written. It is a falsehood, and therefore cannot be used to excuse the “new-in-town” approach Taylor uses when writing Dick.
Dick’s apparent inexperience and, frankly, incompetence, is further highlighted by the amount of times Dick is saved by others, or the amount of times when he is dependent on others to do the work for him. These instances include, but are not limited to:
The people of Bludhaven answering Nightwing’s call when Heartless sets the tent city on fire in #81
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part 4. Nightwing: Rebirth. 81, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 13)
Dick being knocked out with a single blow and then unmasked during his first attempt to investigate Melinda also in issues #81
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part 4. Nightwing: Rebirth. 81, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 20 - 21)
Babs calling people to Dick’s rescue rather than trusting he could get out of it on his own in #82.
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part 5. Nightwing: Rebirth. 82, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 03)
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. The Battle for Bludhaven’s Heart Part Four. Nightwing: Rebirth. 95, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 24 - 25)
In #90, when his building blew up and Wally came to save him, then proceeded to force him to rest away from Bludhaven instead of letting him take action.
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Get Grayson Act Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 90, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2022. pp 15)
And needing Babs’ help during a car chase in #106,
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Byrne, Stephen. The Crew of the Crossed Part One. Nightwing: Rebirth. 106, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp 16)
Which greatly contrasts how, in #113 of the Nightwing (1996), Dick handles a similar situation while simultaneously mentoring Rose Wilson.
(Grayson, Devin, writer. Chian, Cliff, illustrator The Scorpion and the Frog. Nightwing no 113, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2005. pp. 19)
The thesis of Taylor’s run is that people need to rely on one another — we have to be each other’s safety net. And while that is an interesting theme to explore and one that certainly speaks to Dick’s history of doing things on his own out of fear of putting others in danger, Dick should still, more times than not, be able to do things by himself. After all, this is not an ensemble piece — this is Nightwing���s story and as his fans, we want to read about him. Cameos are fine. They can be fun, in fact. But cameos are different from Dick constantly struggling and needing help whenever he faces a challenge – the former portrays Dick as someone with powerful connections that deeply love him; the latter portrays Dick as being incapable of doing things without someone holding his hand.
This is another thing that Waid understands about Dick and portrays it clearly in World’s Finest. When Kara explains to Clark what first attracted her to Dick, she emphasizes how, despite the fact he had no powers, he could still save himself.
(Waid, Mark, writer. Lupacchino, Emanuela, illustrator. Scream of the Chaos Monkey. Batman/Superman: World’s Finest no. 12, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp. 06 - 07)
Being not just competent, but exceeding even the highest expectations is at the core of Dick’s character. And, as was pointed out in the previous section, it also serves to feed into his toxic perfectionism — he is one of the top tier heroes, therefore people expect excellence from him. Dick does not want to fail those who put their trust in him, and so he demands perfection of himself to the point of self-destruction.
Beyond that, we cannot give Taylor credit for trying to tell a story about Dick growing out of his perfectionist bad habits by learning to rely on others. After all, if Dick is constantly asking for help, then he is not resisting help. And that removes his chance for growth. A character arc requires development and change, which means one cannot start at the endpoint. Therefore, it cannot be claimed that Taylor’s intentions are for Dick to learn to rely on others, for he has been doing so without hesitation since the beginning.
As a result, the story is not about Dick being Bludhaven’s safety net while learning that he also has a safety net of his own, but rather about Dick always relying on his safety net, always knowing it was there, and having them also shoulder the responsibilities he took when he named himself Bludhaven’s protector. There is no room for Dick to grow because he is already at the end of his journey. And there is no room for Dick to be the hero of his story because others are constantly coming to his rescue when things get too difficult.
Once more, I must clarify that I’m not saying that Dick is not loved, or that Dick is not important to many people. I’m simply stating that the way his relationships are built gives him very little room to rely on them. He is their safety net but he doesn’t trust them to be his safety net. Exploring this requires going into the nuances of each relationship, where conflicts are created, and where people hurt the other in the heat of an argument. It would mean dealing with the messiness of complex human emotions, forcing characters and the audience to sit with uncomfortable feelings as we get to the root of Dick’s perfectionism and his fears.
In June of 2022 a reader on Twitter asked Taylor about his decision to have Dick constantly falling, for, as they pointed out, this makes Dick look incompetent.
(Jonathan [@Nightwingdagoat]. Twitter, 21 June 2022, https://twitter.com/Nightwingdagoat/status/1539267708310765568)
Taylor responded by saying that these instances were Redondo’s call, and that it was their attempt to humanize Dick.
(Tom Taylor [@TomTaylorMade]. Twitter, 21 June 2022, https://twitter.com/Nightwingdagoat/status/1539267708310765568)
In fairness to Taylor, the following criticism will then be directed primarily at Redondo who believed these instances were the best way to “remind people that Nightwing is human.” That being said, as Taylor appears to support such a position, and as he has written numerous incidents where Dick is conveniently knocked over by others, I do believe this can be directed at him as well.
Simply put, to have a character constantly fall is a superficial and lazy way to humanize said character. Casual falls like this, after all, are not failures. They contribute little to the story and have very little consequence.
Nothing happens once Dick falls. The bad guy doesn’t get away, the innocent civilian is not hurt, the crucial piece of evidence needed to crack the case is not destroyed. There are no lasting consequences for Dick to deal with, no conflict that can arise from these falls, no tension to make Dick’s future success more emotionally effective. Furthermore, these falls are completely out of Dick’s control, taking away any responsibility he might have for his mistakes.
If the flaws that are meant to “humanize” Dick are falls which he bears no agency over, then he, the good guy, has no responsibility over his own “failures.” Said “failures” also end up having no consequences to the plot, which gives Dick no crisis to respond to (furthering his passivity), and this robs Dick of character development opportunities.
It creates a stasis in the story where the only conflicts Dick faces are the ones against really bad guys that always – always – lose to Dick and his connections, and ones which do not ask for moments of introspection.
Despite almost never falling in The Untouchable, Dick is far more human there than in Taylor’s and Redondo’s run. This is because Dick is forced to face the consequences of his “failure” to capture the Judge twice in the past. Dick is constantly thinking about the Judge’s victims, forcing himself to carry their lives on his shoulder. He pushes himself to toxic lengths. Whenever the Judge escapes his grasp, the conflict evolves, the stakes are raised, and the tension builds. Dick’s desperation becomes visceral to the reader, and that is what humanizes him to the reader. Similarly, the emotional pay-off of the climactic battle in the end grows with each obstacle Dick faces.
(Humphries, Sam, writer. Chang, Bernard, illustrator The Untouchable: Chapter Four: Infiltration. Nightwing: Rebirth no. 38, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2018. pp. 09)
But Dick’s newbie incompetence is not the only way Taylor mischaracterizes Dick. It is by combining the lighthearted tone of his story, his depiction of Dick as a blank canvas “good guy,” his avoidance of conflict, and his attempts at answering difficult real-world problems that Taylor ends up creating a version of Dick Grayson that is utterly self-absorbed and lacking in foresight.
Telling and not showing is an immense problem in Taylor’s writing. There’s a difference between how a writer attempts to portray a character and how, given their actions in the context of the narrative created, the story shows them to be the complete opposite. In such cases, the story triumphs over the writer. This is why I claim that, though Taylor tells the reader that Dick is caring, intelligent, and a hard worker, he actually shows Dick as as selfish, incompetent, and naive.
Take, as an example, how Taylor sidelines the Heartless storyline in favor of slice-of-life scenes. If Heartless was not there, perhaps those sweet moments could be just that. However, as in the world of the story there is currently a serial killed running around free, making orphans out of the youth Dick vowed to protect, the fact that Dick is not constantly working to catch Heartless is not only out of character, it makes it so it seems he doesn't care what happens to the people of Bludhaven (And now also Gotham, given #111, which was released as this essay was being edited). Rather than stopping crime and bringing justice to Heartless’ victims, Dick would rather spend his nights in his apartment, enjoying a relaxing evening with his girlfriend and his dog.
Please do not take this to mean that I consider a slice-of-life story to be inferior to other genres. My reason for highlighting this is not to undermine the value of slice-of-life, but rather to argue that such scenes do not live in isolation. They exist within the context of a larger narrative, and what would be sweet in a sitcom-style story comes across as something entirely different when other characters are facing life-and-death stakes. It does not matter how much the writer tells us that these characters are caring and compassionate — their lack of action and urgency portrays them as self-centered.
Just as Taylor attempts to write the big climatic moments without properly building the momentum necessary to make them impactful, he similarly forgoes the work required to win the reader’s trust, and instead expects his audience to simply accept that important plot and character developments are happening off-screen. Rather than letting the audience experience the intrigue and devastation of the Heartless mystery by showing us how the horrors of these murders motivate Dick to continuously search for this cruel killer, Taylor instead advances these elements off-screen, opting instead to tell the reader they’ve occurred.
That is not to say that writers cannot streamline plots. They absolutely can and, in some cases, they absolutely should. However, streamlining a subplot is a far more complicated matter than just telling the reader said events happened off-screen and expecting them to simply accept it.
While it is impossible to provide a precise checklist with the step-by-step guidelines on how to properly streamline a subplot, I believe one of the factors one must consider is whether that plot should be streamlined or not. Personally, I believe that Dick investigating the character who was meant to be this run’s main villain is too big and too important of a story to be played off offscreen.
Dick has hardly spent any time attempting to apprehend Heartless. Instead, as time of writing, his investigation of Heartless has practically nonexistent. Instead, after not focusing on him for the majority of the run, we are simply told by Dick and Babs that they’ve been keeping an eye on Heartless, even if their investigation is never shown to us.
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Basri, Sami Nightwing. Nightwing: Rebirth. 111, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp 09)
If we, as readers, are to believe that Dick is the selfless detective and hero — the Heart of the DCU — that Taylor tell us he is, then finding and apprehending Heartless should be one of his top priorities. If Heartless was meant to be Nightwing’s big nemesis, then their confrontation should always be a source of great tension and conflict. Such importance would be demonstrated by showing Dick working towards stopping him at every moment he has free. But either those moments are not happening at all, or they are happening off-screen.
Having such an important conflict and such a crucial antagonistic dynamic develop does nothing to enrich the plot — in fact, it only detracts from them, for because we do not get to witness this relationship grow and we are only told that it is happening, the pay off that must come when Nightwing and Heartless finally have a big confrontation will be cheapened as a result.
Heartless' actions are so brutal and create such urgency that not prioritizing Heartless' arrest makes it seem like Dick doesn't care about his victims. Batman doesn't wait around when the Joker breaks out of Arkham – he hunts the Joker down. Similarly, Dick didn't wait around on the Judge – he hunted him down.
For Heartless to be the Big Bad, Dick should have put him in jail already and Heartless should have escaped. DIck should have faced him multiple times. He should have been Dick's priority because of how cruel and urgent his actions are.
Finally, there are three particular moments that I wish to discuss to illustrate how ambivalent Taylor is when it comes to Dick’s characterization, choosing to prioritize online discourse over who Dick Grayson’s established history and personality.
The first one comes from a throwaway line. And yet, because this was a throwaway line that demonstrated how little thought Taylor gives to his main character.
When Tim makes his first appearance in Taylor’s run in #80, Dick’s narration says that many would consider Tim to be the best Robin, and that he “totally gets it.”
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator. Leaping into the Light Part Three. Nightwing: Rebirth. 80, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 09)
“Who is the best Robin” is a discourse that I, admittedly, care very little for. It serves no purpose other than to get fans to fight one another, bashing each other’s favorite characters in order to prop up their own. When posed on social media, this question becomes a thinly veiled attempt to generate high engagement. In reality, when people discuss “who is the best Robin,” they are, most often than not, truly arguing about who is their favorite Robin. But the question is framed in a way to be purposefully divisive, creating conflict within the fan community. The fact that DC plays into that divisiveness that requires their characters to be brought down so others can be lifted up for marketing material is concerning, but the fact that writers such as Taylor are letting that fan perception bleed into in-universe narration is nothing less than lazy writing that prioritizes online leaning into buzz over good storytelling.
Naturally, as a Dick Grayson fan my opinion is that Tim is not the best Robin. Dick is. But my problem is not that Taylor said that Tim was the better Robin, but that I think Dick would never concede to the existence of a “best Robin.” In fact, not only do I believe that it is out of character for Dick to believe that one Robin can be defined as the best Robin, I would argue that Dick would be offended that such a question could be asked.
Dick, more than any of the other Robins, understands the purpose of a Robin, as he was the one who created the mantle. By seeing so many others inherit his family’s colors and his mother’s name for him, he also understands better than anyone that each person who becomes Robin has their purpose in their own unique way. Dick would understand how each of them made the Robin mantle unique, how they added to its mythos in their own way, and how all of their contributions are equally valid and equally important. He would never single out one of them as the best because he knows that Robin is about an ideal of justice by bringing light into the darkness. Most importantly, understanding how many Robins tied their self-worth to the mantle, Dick would never want others to feel as if they fell short of some arbitrary measure by proclaiming they are not “the best.” Dick would be against that measure, against the very idea of ranking Robins, as if they were interchangeable, as if they each didn’t make relevant contributions. He would hate the idea of the mantle he created in honor of his parents being used to judge and measure the worth of those he loves. Dick would argue that there can never be a "best Robin" because Robin is always about being your best self in the service of those who need your help, and you can't quantify that.
The concept of a “Best Robin” is a marketing strategy and a fan-oriented discourse that Taylor casually imposed into the narrative without considering whether his protagonist would adhere to such ideas. He prioritized internet discourse over characterization, and while the former may be immediately fulfilling as the page is cropped and shared a few thousand times in the first few days after publication, only the latter will leave an impression that will last decades. Taylor is embodying a current DC Comics trend to favor the former over the latter. As scholar Steve Baxi said in his review of Leaping into the Light, that page “doesn’t feel like Dick Grayson appreciating his brother, it feels like Dick Grayson saying what the audience wants to hear.” (Baxi, Steve, “TRADE COLLECTION REVIEW: Nightwing Vol. 1 - Leaping Into The Light” Comics Bookcase, August 2021)
Although they share similar problems, unlike the “Tim is the best Robin” throwaway narration, the second example I wish to discuss in detail became a big plot point in the beginning of Taylor’s run. I’m referring to the choice of having Dick become a billionaire due to the inheritance Alfred left to him.
To be more clear, my problem is not with the fact that Taylor made Dick into a billionaire (after all, Dick inheriting wealth from his parents is not a novel concept), but rather with Dick’s musings on the subject. (Dick’s financial situation is inconsistent across the years. While some like Dixon and Wolfman allude to him having a trust fund his parents set aside and that remained untouched until Dick’s adulthood, other writers like Humphrey who portray him as more middle class and sometimes struggling financially. Then there are the numerous times in which Dick was left homeless, implying that he did not have a safety fund to go to when tragedy struck.) On #79, Dick says, without a hint of irony, that he always thought that Bruce could do more to help Gotham with Bruce Wayne’s money than he does as Batman.
(Taylor, Tom. writer, Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Leaping into the Light Part Two. Nightwing: Rebirth. 79, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 07)
This is a popular online discourse that reveals lack of knowledge about Batman and a naive understanding of how corrupt systems function. I understand we are currently very critical (and rightly so) of billionaires and the hoarding of wealth. I understand that this leads many — media critics and everyday fans — to analyzing how wealth is portrayed in the stories that resonate within our culture. But anyone who claims that Bruce has not used his wealth for the benefit of Gotham outside of funding his Batman endeavors has not engaged properly with Batman media. I’m not going to go into the merits of how Bruce’s wealth should or should not be portrayed and how DC has currently been handling this issue (that is the subject for an entirely different essay that is not relevant to this discussion), but I will say that Bruce has, canonically, used a lot of his money to fund safety net programs in Gotham, to invest in small businesses and on individuals, and in trying to make the city more affordable and kinder to those with less.
Twitter user Ashley|TheBatFamily 🦇 (@TheBat_Family) created a comprehensive Twitter thread of examples. These are but some of the ones that stood out to me and that feel most relevant to this essay:
In Cataclysm, Bruce attempted to lobby the US government to offer aid to Gotham after the earthquake;
Bruce used his money to rebuild the city during No Man’s Land;
Bruce invested in the people who were ready to start new businesses so Gotham could offer jobs to its people and rebuild itself without being fully dependent on others;
Bruce created scholarships so more people could attend university;
Bruce funds Leslie’s free clinic as well as other hospitals around Gotham;
Bruce invested on low-income housing developments in Gotham by working with local firms, providing accommodations to local residents so no one would be displaced;
Bruce expanded and modernized Gotham’s public transportation system;
Bruce ensured all Wayne properties were secured against earthquakes (which led to those residences being the only ones standing during NML);
Bruce funds libraries and museums;
Bruce funds green efforts not just in Gotham, but in other places by buying land and making them nature preserves;
Bruce funds orphanages and provided them resources (from educational supplies to toys for the children);
Bruce provided support for immigrants;
Bruce funds appeals for wrongful convictions;
Bruce provides employment for former convicts;
(Ashley [TheBat_Family]. Twitter, 13 October 2020, https://twitter.com/TheBat_Family/status/1316006509923520512.)
In short, Bruce Wayne has done everything and more that Dick claimed he wished to do for Bludhaven. There’s nothing novel about the idea. Batman narratives don’t put as much focus on these endeavors and do not place as much emphasis on Bruce’s philanthropy simply because they Batman stories are, at their core, detective stories first and foremost. Their focus is on investigation and crime solving (Though I would argue that Cataclysm and No Man’s Land put a lot of focus on issues of wealth, class, and examine Bruce’s financial responsibility towards the city).
But just because these examples are not the focus of the stories in which they are present, it does not mean that they do not exist. Neither does it mean that Batman stories do not engage with themes of wealth and class inequality, as well as systemic corruption. In fact, I would argue that many of the best ones know how to use Bruce’s privileged status to explore these issues. The Court of Owls by Scott Snyder, for example, brilliantly uses the Court and the Talons to engage with these themes. (An essay analyzing the Court of Owls through such a lens would be a fascinating study, especially when exploring the parallels and foils between the Court and the Talons, and Bruce and Dick. Alas, this is not the place for it.)
Dick, who not only has always been characterized as knowing Bruce better than most people, but who was also raised by Bruce, would know about every single one of the examples listed above. Dick, of all people, had a front row seat to all the ways in which Bruce helped Gotham with his wealth, both in examples that were covered by the press, and the ones Bruce did secretly without taking credit. Dick attended countless fundraising events, press briefs, boardroom meetings. But most importantly, Dick would have witnessed with his very own eyes that lack of funding is not at the root of Gotham’s problems. The problem in Gotham is not lack of money or safety nets, but rather, it is that its systems are so corrupt that pumping more funds into it will do nothing to help those in need. Instead, it will only further enrich those who are already in power. That’s why in this comic book world with comic book conventions and comic book logic, Batman is needed. Batman is a disruption to the system, forcing it to change, dismantling it from both the outside and the inside. In Dixon and Grayson’s Nightwing runs, Dick’s understanding of systematic problems can be observed in his motivation to become a police officer, as he joins the force with the goal to weed out the corruption and dismantle the system from within. Money alone cannot save a city if the foundation was purposefully designed to favor those on the top by taking from those at the bottom.
(Dixon, Chuck, writer. McCarthy, Trevor, illustrator The Threshold. Nightwing. 60, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2001. pp 22)
But of course, Taylor never takes a moment to wonder how being raised by Bruce Wayne would influence Dick’s perspective on this matter. Instead, he once more takes a popular online discourse and makes Dick say it out without considering characterization. A more in-character and canonically accurate approach to such a story moment would have Dick comment on all the ways Bruce used his money behind the scenes to help Gotham, and how he wishes to do the same for Bludhaven. A single line change would have demonstrated Taylor's willingness to engage with Dick’s character history rather than just copying the hot takes he sees on social media.
Not only that, this change in dialogue would also establish Bruce and Dick’s closeness as it would show that not only is Bruce a source of inspiration for Dick, but that Dick is one of the few people who have seen this side of Bruce. That would have also made the hug between Bruce and Dick in the #100 more emotionally effective and thematically cohesive, especially as they are in front of Alfred’s grave.
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Power Vacuum: Part Four: The Leap. Nightwing: Rebirth. 100, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2023. pp 44)
The truth is that Dick's Haven project engaged with issues homelessness only in the most shallow of manners. Rather than discussing the realities of this matter, it simply used it as a backdrop. It is an appropriation of hardships by someone who is unwilling to engage with the difficulties brought upon by said hardships. It is substance-less writing masquerading as social consciousness.
The third example I wish to cite which demonstrates Taylor’s lack of consideration for Dick’s character or his backstory comes when Haley is taken in #87. Dick’s internal monologue reads that “The last thing I’d want is for anyone to be threatened because they’re close to Dick Grayson,” referring to the fact that he is now a public figure thanks to the press conference he gave about his plans for Bludhaven.
(Taylor, Tom, writer. Redondo, Bruno, illustrator Get Grayson. Nightwing: Rebirth. 87, e-book ed. DC Comics, 2021. pp 09)
The idea that Dick Grayson, billionaire Bruce Wayne’s first child, was unaware of the dangers faced by those associated with a public figure is laughable. The idea that the first Robin, who was often taken hostage by villains who wished to get to Batman (so much so that Frank Miller famously nicknamed him “Boy Hostage”), did not understand the threat posed to those who are close to powerful figures is insulting. After well over a decade as a superhero, and after well over a decade of being associated with a wealthy public figure, Dick should know better than most how such ties can put loved ones at risk.
In-universe, this line makes Dick appear so self-centered that he does not take into consideration how his actions affect his loved ones. It makes him appear dense, unable to think through his actions and strategize contingency plans and safety precautions before taking such a giant risk.
Out of universe, this betrays a lazy way of storytelling, with Taylor going for low-hanging fruits without thinking of how that might affect the characterization of his protagonist. Out of universe, a collection of throwaway, thoughtless lines like this demonstrates just how uninterested Taylor is in giving even the slightest consideration to who Dick Grayson is meant to be, instead putting his focus on the gimmick that will get him noticed on social media.
166 notes
·
View notes
Note
If the members of the batfam wrote memoirs or essays about themselves, what would their opening hooks be?
Dick: *record scratch and freeze frame* So you're probably wondering how I ended up here.
Jason: This is the story of how I died. Don't worry, I got better.
Tim: It all began on the day of my actual birth. Both of my parents failed to show up.
Damian: A caution to those who have an inferiority complex: stop reading right this second. The Homeric epic of my life will only make you feel more useless.
Duke: According to all known laws of city planning, there is no way a city like Gotham should be able to exist. It's infrastructure is too weak to build its fat little buildings off the ground. Gotham, of course, runs anyway, because the city doesn't care what humans think is impossible.
Cullen: The first rule of Tumblr is you don't talk about Tumblr.
Stephanie: ...I can explain.
Cassandra: Hi my name is Cassandra Wu-San Black Bat Orphan Cain and I have short bat-colored black hair (that’s how I got my name) with purple streaks and red tips that reaches my mid-shoulder and cold black eyes like limpid tears and a lot of people tell me I look like an Asian Amy Lee (AN: if u don’t know who she is get da hell out of here!). I’m not related to the Biblical Cain but I wish I was because he’s a major fucking hottie. I’m a bat but my teeth are straight and white. I have pale white skin. I’m also a vigilante, and I live in a comic book city called Gotham in New Jersey where I’m the second Batgirl (I’m twenty-four). I’m a goth (in case you couldn’t tell) and I wear mostly black. I love Hot Topic and I buy all my clothes from there. For example today I was wearing a black bodysuit with matching holsters around it and a black leather jacket, yellow fingerless gloves and black combat boots. I was wearing black lipstick, white foundation, black eyeliner and red eye shadow. I was walking outside in Gotham. It was snowing and raining so there was no sun, which I was very happy about. A lot of Rogues stared at me. I put up my middle finger at them.
Barbara: Do you ever look at someone and wonder what is going on inside their head?
Harper: A long long time ago in a city far away...
Carrie: Bruce told me I can't insert audio so let's just say you got Rickrolled.
Kate: The definition of gay? Me. The definition of disaster? Also me. My picture's in the dictionary twice, suck it.
Alfred: In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and more bat-children. And at this point I'm not so sure about death.
Selina: "Mom I want Bruce Wayne" "We have Bruce Wayne at home" The Bruce Wayne at home:
Bruce: Look behind you.
#dick grayson#jason todd#tim drake#damian wayne#duke thomas#cullen row#stephanie brown#cassandra cain#barbara gordon#harper row#carrie kelley#kate kane#alfred pennyworth#selina kyle#bruce wayne#batman#batfamily#batfam#batboys#batbros#batgirls#batkids#batsiblings#batman family#dc comics#headcanon#crack#tw swearing#tw death mention#long post
1K notes
·
View notes