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grayson10yearslater · 22 days

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YOU DON'T KNOW GRAYSON: The Construction of Dick Grayson's Identity in Grayson Act I

INTRODUCTION: WHO AM I?

Like many of us, I first heard of Spyral in Dick-centric hurt/comfort fics. In these fics, the focus is often on how lonely and miserable Dick was during his time as Agent 37. How even after he became Nightwing again, his brothers never forgive him for letting them think he was dead. How the relationship between him and Bruce has been poisoned forever because Bruce savagely beat him and forced him to play dead. Usually Jason, Tim, and/or Damian discover Batcave footage of Bruce’s beat down of Dick, find out Dick was forced against his will into going undercover, and shower Dick with the love and forgiveness he deserves (and also probably kick Bruce’s ass a little). I want to be very clear. I eat these fics up for breakfast. Part of the reason I was so eager to read Grayson myself was for the hurt/comfort fodder.

But Grayson, in tone and execution, is nothing like the fanfics I read. There’s whump fodder, yes, but there is also humor and charm and new gratifying heartfelt relationships built within. Imagine my surprise when I read Grayson for the first time and found that Bruce and Dick’s relationship is not strained and bitter, but actually very tender and nostalgic. Both during and after the infamous Nightwing #30, there is so much affection between them. What got lost in fandom telephone? If Grayson isn’t about Dick at his absolute lowest, being the most miserable and alone sadsack to ever sack, what is it about?

The promo material gives us the easy pitch: identity. “YOU THINK YOU KNOW NIGHTWING…” the ad tells us, “YOU DON’T KNOW DICK.” For my money, this might be one of the best DC house ads of all time. It so perfectly captures the theme and the tone of Grayson. It’s in your face, it’s tongue-in-check, and it is so excited to explore Dick Grayson as a character.

But then the question remains: Who is Dick Grayson? The last six pages of Nightwing #30, written by Grayson co-writers Tom King and Tim Seeley, ends with Dick himself telling us.

“Who am I? I’ve been a lot of things. I was a son. I was a performer. An acrobat. A member of Haly’s Circus. Part of a family, a legacy. Then came Tony Zucco. He murdered my parents, and I was alone. I was angry. A sad, angry boy looking for revenge. Any revenge. Then came Bruce Wayne. He found me, and I wasn’t alone anymore. I was his ward. I was a son again. He trained me. Focused me. And I was Robin. A colleague. A hero. Partner to the Batman, the Dark Knight of Gotham. I was part of a family again. Batgirl. Commissioner James Gordon. Alfred Pennyworth. I grew older. I became a hero in my own right. I was Nightwing. I was a teacher. A mentor. To Jason…Tim…Damian…and eventually, when I was needed, I was Batman. I was part of a legacy again. Then came the Crime Syndicate. They put a noose around my neck, and I was alone again. I was tortured. I was put in front of cameras. I was unmasked. I was a plaything. They strapped me to a machine, I was their weapon. A bomb. Lex Luthor stopped my heart. Killed me to save the world. I was dead. Or so it seemed. In secret, I was saved. Who am I? After all that, I wanted to go back. I wanted to be who I’d been. A son. Part of a family…a legacy. Robin. Nightwing. Batman. I wanted to go back. But I can’t. Something terrible is coming. And I have to stop it. My enemy is in front of me and I’m alone. Who am I? My name is Dick Grayson. I’m who you need me to be.”

This monologue lays out the foundation: Dick defines himself by his network of relationships, his family. From Dick’s very beginning, family is an all-encompassing word that holds both his biological family (the Flying Graysons) and his chosen family (Haly’s Circus at large) together. Dick sees the world relationally; he defines who he is by how he is connected to others. Even his time as the solo hero Nightwing is framed through the relationship oriented occupations of teacher and mentor. It’s telling that in his monologue he uses the word “legacy” almost as often as family. It’s not just about the individuals he’s connected to, it’s about having a web of connections at all. A safety net. Dick is a trapeze artist. The trapeze is not a solo act. Grayson dares to ask who Dick Grayson really is when he’s not a legacy, not a member of a team, not the ‘and’ after Batman?

STILL TWO BEST FRIENDS

Tim Seeley: One of the things Tom and I wanted to do, beyond the drama and conflict between Dick and Bruce, was not another story about the drama and conflict between Dick and Bruce. We didn't want to do another story about how the Robins are exploited and used and eventually turn against Batman. This is still about the two best friends in the DC Universe, but they fight and they have to ask each other to do things that they don't want to. But when it comes down to it, these are the two best buddies that there could be. When they have conflict, it's because it's important. It's because it means something. It's not something to falsify the drama.

To understand what Grayson is doing with the themes of identity and partnership, we have to unpack Nightwing #30. I could write a whole series of posts on Nightwing #30. It’s so densely packed and, by my money, one of the most misunderstood issues in fandom. Every time I reread it, I discover something new to munch on. For the purposes of this post, I will focus on how Dick and Bruce construct Dick’s identity.

Bruce frames their fight as a test. “I need to see if they broke you,” he says, “I need to see if you still have the heart you once had.” This is what Bruce and Dick are fighting over: after being tortured, having his identity revealed by the Crime Syndicate, and killed by Lex Luthor…is Dick Grayson still Dick Grayson?

Their fight is brutal. And why wouldn’t it be? Dick’s lost everything, even his life, and Bruce was helpless to save him. Both Dick and Bruce are at their lowest points right now. “I trained you to live,” Bruce yells as he strikes Dick in the face, “and I watched you die!” This fight is one of the most bloody, violent brawls we’ve ever seen between Bruce and Dick. It’s easy to see why this confrontation spread like wildfire in the whump-centric parts of fandom. It’s blood, guts, and tears.

The quote from Seeley at the beginning of this section is so illuminating. Despite the reputation this scene has gained in fandom, it was never intended to be “another story about how the Robins are exploited and used and eventually turn against Batman”. This scene is intended to break Bruce and Dick down in order to build them back up again. So why doesn’t that intention always come through?

I think it’s a question of genre. Both King and Seeley have gone on record as really enjoying superhero comics for their genre conventions. They are not interested in anything hyperrealistic or gritty. When Dick and Bruce beat the hell out of each other across the Batcave, it’s more equivalent to two characters in a musical breaking out into a dance number, as opposed to actual physical abuse. Compare this issue to New Teen Titans #55, where Bruce’s single punch there has more traumatic weight in the narrative than all the punches here combined. The violence in Nightwing #30 is much more a visual metaphor for Bruce and Dick’s emotional states. The emotional fight is the real concern for the plot, not the literal physical blows, a convention we see often in the superhero genre. And the emotional fight is over what Dick’s identity is now, after the events of Forever Evil. Who does Dick need to be next? Bruce needs Dick to be someone stronger, someone who can’t die, someone who can infiltrate Spyral and not be corrupted by them. Dick wants to return to comfort, to family. He wants to, as he says later on in this issue, “be who [he’s] been”.

For Dick especially, the violence here showcases his struggle with his identity in the aftermath of Forever Evil. As Bruce begins to tell Dick about the Spyral mission, he kicks Dick into the glass case holding the Robin costume. Dick is broken and battered, on his knees on the Robin cape, surrounded by shattered glass and the looming shadow of Batman. This is a visualization of what Dick feels internally: that by agreeing to stay dead and go on this mission, he is shattering everything he once was. Batman is killing him. Bruce is killing the person he used to be.

Dick can’t accept that. He outright says no and uses the Robin cape to choke Bruce out. Again, that sounds horrifically violent. But on the page, it just feels like symbolism. Dick chokes Bruce out with the Robin cape, tying them together back-to-back. He doesn’t want to leave Bruce again. He wants to stay together. If Dick understands his identity to be Batman’s partner, what does it mean that Bruce is trying to take that away?

Bruce and Dick are at cross-purposes with regards to who Dick needs to be next. As they throw punches, Bruce rattles off intel as Dick says the names of his family like a prayer. Bruce is acting from a place of terror. He just witnessed Dick die and his coping strategy is what it always is: become the mission. Bruce needs Dick’s identity to be mission focused, and that mission is staying alive and keeping their secrets safe (pointedly, the very same things Dick just failed to do). Dick needs to feel reconnected to his old identity, he needs to return to his family and be with them. Both of them are desperately trying to make meaning out of Dick’s death. When Dick tackles Bruce into the Batmobile, saying that he’s alive, it almost looks like a hug. They are not communicating here, but that does not mean they don’t care deeply for each other. It is the same tenderness they feel towards each other that provokes them into such a no-holds-barred fight. They are desperate; both of them will stop at nothing to not lose each other. It’s just that they have different definitions of salvation.

Nightwing #30 is an argument of ideology. After knocking Dick to the ground, Bruce plays the mentor. “Why do we fall, Dick? We fall so we can learn to get back up.” The Spyral mission is a very real, very urgent threat. But there’s also a part of Bruce that desperately needs to see Dick prove his invincibility again, for the sake of his worldview. Dick, at this moment, refuses Bruce’s lesson. He peels off the mask Bruce gave him. “No,” he says, “No, that’s not true. We fall because someone pushes us. We get up to push back.” Dick’s resolve is iron-clad. He will never just stay on the ground, not when someone pushed him. His desire for justice will always compel him back on to his feet. That desire belongs to Dick Grayson, not Nightwing, not Robin. Even as Dick argues against Bruce, he proves to them both why he is the only option for a long term undercover mission in Spyral.

Bruce continues to preach the necessity of Dick’s Spyral mission, no matter the costs. “After this, Bruce,” Dick tells him as he blocks Bruce’s punch, “after asking this, between us – it can’t be the same again.” Bruce knows. He delivers his explanation of his self-identity:

“I’m hurting you. My family. I’m making that sacrifice. Because I don’t give up. I don’t give in. But what about you? Are you them? Or are you me? After the Crime Syndicate captured you, tortured you, killed you – tell me Dick, my body, after all of this – will you give up? Will you give in?”

While Nightwing #30 has been laying the foundation of the plot of Grayson this whole time, this is the foundation of Grayson’s Act I’s thematic question: Who is Dick Grayson? Bruce here pitches it as a binary question. Is Dick him? A Bat who never gives up. Or is he “them”? The “them” is ambiguous. Grammatically, it refers to the other heroes who would give up and let Spyral use them. But I think it could be argued that “them” means anyone who isn’t Bruce. The Crime Syndicate. Spyral. The dead. Anyone who isn’t relentless and alive. Dick is a pillar in Bruce’s psyche. It’s an essay on its own tracking all the moments throughout canon and elsewhere stories where Bruce loses his grip on his own identity when Dick dies. He frames this as a binary question not out of sadism, but because this is how Bruce’s worldview works. It is just fundamentally more binary and egocentric than Dick’s worldview. Bruce does not construct his identity (or his understanding of Dick’s identity) in the same way Dick does.

Dick constructs his identity through the relationships he has with people, not if they are him or not. It’s a bringing together of people and identities within himself, not a subjugation. Having those identity defining relationships is an action, not an act of possession for Dick. And Bruce is asking Dick to leave those relationships behind. Dick’s identity is in freefall. He’s losing his family. He’s losing his mantle. After all that loss, one thing remains true: he “is not [Bruce’s] boy”. With that mission statement, Dick delivers the knockout punch that has Bruce forfeiting the fight.

This spark of independence is what makes Dick a survivor. This is what allows Dick to define himself through his web of connections without being a hollow person who has no true personality, no true self. Dick is not a child, a boy, who just belongs to someone. Not Bruce. Not Spyral. He is his own man. And while Dick will struggle with not being able to behave as a Bat does anymore once he’s in Spyral, if a Bat was truly all he was, Spyral would break him. Dick’s refutation here further proves to Bruce that he can survive this mission. “I win,” says Dick, just a small figure in a sea of broken, burning childhood mementos. Goodbye, Robin. Bruce embraces him in a sidehug, literally pulling Dick under his wing. “Good,” Bruce says. Their pose mirrors the photograph of young Dick and Bruce in the panel. The visuals here communicate what Seeley spoke of in his interview: despite the destruction, despite the goodbyes, this is still two best friends.

This is the catharsis of Nightwing #30, the resolution to this fight of ideology and grief. This moment is overlooked because it is so brief compared to the length of their fight. And it’s a messy resolution. I imagine that there are many readers who remain unconvinced of the necessity of the Spyral mission as Bruce’s posits, or the depiction of the physical violence, or many other messy things in the issue. But Dick isn’t unconvinced by the necessity of infiltrating Spyral. The next time we see him, he’s all in on the mission, ready to be “who you need me to be”. Bruce tells a horrified Alfred that he’s “fixed it”. Bruce and Dick both understand that they have to be apart for right now, just for this one problem, and then home will return to them. They both understand it as a sacrifice, not an estrangement. I think a lot of Spyral hurt/comfort fics assume that the Nightwing #30 fight was never resolved. It was. Perhaps in a way that feels unsatisfying to some readers, but Grayson does not make sense if one doesn’t accept that Dick has already made peace with Bruce before he left.

Dick’s relationship with Bruce is solid when Helena Bertinelli offers him a job at Spyral. It is Dick’s own personal sense of self that remains in jeopardy. The last three lines of the issue are Dick’s monologue: “Who am I? My name is Dick Grayson. I’m who you need me to be.” In bold red letters, the issue tells us “TO BE CONTINUED IN GRAYSON #1!” It could not be more clear what thematic questions Grayson will seek to explore. Can Dick really be whoever he needs to be? Can Dick really become the agent Spyral needs him to be and the double agent Batman needs him to be, all while still being himself? Will being Agent 37 break Dick Grayson permanently?

DOWNSIDE OF A SOLO ACT

“The downside of a solo act. No one around to see you do the cool stuff.”

The first four issues of Grayson are defined by identity crisis. The agents of Spyral struggle to get Dick to let go of his current identity that is rooted in Batman and become Agent 37 more fully. Dick struggles internally to adapt enough to Spyral’s culture to continue to be a double agent, while not engaging in any acts that break the morals he’s so firmly tied to his sense of self. Dick can no longer define himself by a family who isn’t there, so he has to define himself as the person his family once loved.

Grayson #1 sets the stage. We are dropped right into the action as Dick takes down an enemy on a moving train. He uses a gun, but not by shooting it. Instead, he uses it as a boomerang that hits his enemy in the head. On the last panel of the page, Dick sighs to him and says, “The downside of a solo act. No one around to see you do the cool stuff.” Readers turn the page, heightening the gag. Set-up and payoff: Midnighter watches Dick with a pair of binoculars. “Damn,” he says, “That was pretty cool.” This exchange is peak Grayson. Its snappy humor disguises the work it's doing to contribute to Grayson’s central dramatic question: Who is Dick Grayson when he isn’t Batman’s partner, a solo act? Midnighter, looking every inch like a Batman type, tells us that Dick is not as alone as he thinks. But the leather daddies in black aren’t here to rescue him from his loneliness, they are here as his enemies first. Dick defines himself through his relationships. How will his sense of self be challenged by people who don’t want to form strong bonds with him?

Even as a spy, it’s still Dick’s default to make friends. His first use of Hypnos, the mind control implant given to him by Spyral, is to make Ninel Dubov think they are close friends. He says: “I’m your friend, Ninel. You’ve been lonely and afraid for so long. I just want to help you. And you want to help me. That’s what friends do.” Yes, Dick is literally brainwashing the guy here, but his words are a solid definition of friendship. This is how Dick incorporates his friends into his identity: he’s there to help them. Even as Dick is doing the most Spyral thing in the world, using Hypnos on a target, he is still operating under his old construction of his identity.

But this classic Dick Grayson approach soon backfires. Ninel activates a very dangerous power in order to assist Dick in his fight against Midnighter. When Dick sees that Ninel is at risk of dying, Dick has to drop the friendship act. He goads Ninel into venting his power and completes the mission. In the past, Nightwing would have been able to talk Ninel down with sincerity. Agent 37 does not have that luxury. Dick’s always been talented at manipulation, by his own admission later on in the issue (“I-I’ve always been good at reading people. [...] Never used it – like it.”), but his people reading skills have always been used for the pursuit of justice. Now Dick is using the skills for morally ambiguous Spyral’s benefit. Under Dick’s own sense of self, he should be bad at being a spy. But he’s not. So what does that say about Dick’s identity? Is he really who he thinks he is?

Dick’s struggle to remain connected to the morals that define his place with his family is exemplified in Grayson #2 by Dick’s struggle to remain connected to Batman. Undoubtedly, Dick’s relationship to Batman is crucial to how Dick self-identifies. Over and over again in this run, Dick’s defines himself as Batman’s partner, Batman’s heir. Batman is emblematic of a moral system that is important to Dick’s understanding of himself, the same system that is at odds with Spyral’s definition of Agent 37. But more than that, Batman is emblematic of a person, a history of a relationship, that is critical to Dick’s self-identity. When Dick craves comfort and support, he reaches out to Bruce about their interpersonal connections. He wants to know if Alfred and Barbara are okay after attending his funeral. In order for Dick to feel centered and stable with himself, he needs to know that the people he includes in his self-identity are okay, too.

The downside to this way of being is that if Dick doesn’t have access to those people who are his foundation of self, he grows unsteady. But his Spyral mission, by design, keeps him cut-off from his family, for his and their safety. Bruce must rebuff Dick’s desire for comfort. “Birdwatcher,” Bruce stops and corrects himself, sensing Dick’s vulnerability, “the longer we stay on the line the more likely it’ll be intercepted.” It comes off as a chastisement, and it is, but it’s also Bruce giving to Dick the same comfort he would give to himself: focus on the mission. And Dick tries to. “Right. Yeah. Hey y’know what? I don’t need to know. Because I’m going to wrap this up before the flowers on my grave wilt. Over.” But even as he’s trying to model Bruce’s coping mechanism, his real desire bleeds through. Dick wants to return to his family. By returning to them, he’ll return to a congruent self-identity. When Helena sees Dick after this call, she notes that he looks “rattled”. Until he can return to his connections in Gotham, Dick is trapped in the identity limbo of being Agent 37.

Dick Grayson, however, is a character inclined to change, whether he intends it or not. Batman may be the most important connection in the web of relationships Dick uses to define himself, but he is not the only one, and the web is always growing.

Helena Bertinelli, code name Matron, is that first new connection. She is assigned to be Dick’s partner. As someone high up in Spyral’s food chain, Helena is an antagonistic force to Dick’s mission. Her personality is efficient and no nonsense. Their dynamic in Grayson #2 is reminiscent of the dynamic Dick had with Batman when he was Robin. The stoic, more knowledgeable mentor and the playful, confident student. But that dynamic is purely surface level right now. There is no foundation of trust between Dick and Helena, not at the start. Neither of them are under any delusions about their ability to truly trust each other. But for the mission, they must act as partners.

Spyral sends them to find a bioweapon enhanced stomach of Paragon in Farmington, Leicestershire. Their investigation leads them to Dr. Poppy Ashemoore, who has the stomach implanted into herself, and is now an enhanced cannibal attacking them. Dick’s got a plan to take her down. It’s a very superhero genre plan, he’s going to get her monologuing and then strike. He expects Helena, his partner, to have his back. She doesn’t. Helena orders Agent 37 not to strike. Dick’s confused; this is not how the story goes. “She’s a cannibal, Matron! She killed people and ate them! It goes like this: we knock her down, and we take her to the proper authorities!” Helena reminds him that his old ways of identification hold no value here: “She is not a supervillain. She is an asset who happens to be an incredibly self-sufficient genius.” Dick cannot accept the idea that a murderer may escape justice and be rewarded for it, so Helena uses the code word “tsuchigumo” and knocks Dick out.

After an issue of bonding, it’s a big betrayal. Back at homebase, Helena completes her lecture from the start of the issue about what a Hadrian woman is: “She is unconcerned with righteousness or virtue. She exists only for the prompt and unerring delivery of her charge.” Dick watches from the shadows, sick and defeated. Helena is training the girls, but her words apply to all those who work for Spyral, including Dick. This is the type of person he must become. A strong connection to Helena did not provide him with any relief, just more disconnection. Again, Dick must question his own self-identity.

The issue ends with Dick making a mission report to Bruce again. He’s internalized the need to not linger, but can’t resist one last attempt at re-establishing connection. Helena was a failed partnership, but Batman and Robin never die. This time, he appeals to a value Bruce also shares: nostalgia. They share a sweet memory about Babs and Alfred. Dick may not have his relationships present in his life currently, and he’s suffering for it, but the memories of the love he has for them cannot be taken away. Those memories can stabilize his self-identity for one more day.

But that is just duct tape on the hole in the dam. Eventually, the dam is going to burst. Dick could only juggle being half Agent 37, half his former self for so long. Grayson #3 serves as the ultimate nadir for Grayson Act I. In #3, the struggle between Dick’s relationship-centric self identity and the mission-centric identity of Spyral agents causes the death of two people.

Issue #3 opens with Dick establishing a new connection with a new character: Alia, codename Agent 8. After Helena and Dick are assigned a joint mission with Agent 1 (AKA Tiger) and Agent 8, Agent 8 meets Dick at the shooting range. She isn’t impressed with his shot: “Really? This is how the great Wing-Knight shoots? I see why Mr. Minos has Agent 1 and me bailing you out on this mission.” Dick corrects her. It is both a fact correction and an assertion of his identity. “Nightwing. And you should see me with a slingshot, Agent 8.” Even as Dick asserts his identity as Nightwing, he calls upon the distinctly Robin imagery of the slingshot. Dick’s framing his identity not just as Nightwing, but his time as a caped hero overall. Nightwing isn’t just the Nightwing suit - it’s the entire life Dick’s led up to this point. And that person, he begins with the oath Dick swore to Batman in order to become Robin. Nightwing is the legacy of Robin. And Dick is proud of that legacy. He would rather be good with a slingshot than a gun - that is what keeps him connected to Bruce. This is how he understands himself.

Still, the back and forth between Dick and Agent 8 begins to cross the line into flirtatious. Her body language is clearly sensual as she corrects his form. “But remember, don’t anticipate the explosion,” Agent 8 tells Dick, “Cause the explosion. Can you do that, Wing-Knight? Can you do that for me?” Dick again reasserts his identity. “That’s not my name. My name is…” The next page reveals Agent 8 in bed gasping Dick’s name in pleasure. It’s a cheesy homage to the brazen sexuality of spy thrillers. But even still, it’s revealing. Nightwing doesn’t make up Dick Grayson; Nightwing makes up a part of Dick Grayson. Losing Nightwing does not mean Dick has lost his identity, it just means he’s lost the easiest way to sum himself up. There is hope for Dick’s self-identity, even as we nosedive to his lowest point. He may not be “Wing-Knight” anymore, but he is still Dick Grayson.

After their tryst, Dick continues to struggle with his identity as an agent of Spyral who should be using a gun, vis-à-vis struggling to understand Christophe Tanner, their target for this issue. “I don’t understand these things,” Dick says of a gun. “Going after a guy like this, with a tool like this. He’s in pain. He should stop the pain. How does this stop anything?” Dick’s worldview is so much about soothing hurt. He’s a fixer. Guns don’t solve emotional wounds. But this worldview has no place in Spyral. Agent 8 says so: “What do you know about guns?” But she might as well be asking what does Dick know about this spy world.

Dick, Helena, Agent 8 and Tiger track Tanner down. It goes tits up pretty quickly. Dick faces Tanner down alone. He tries to talk sense into Tanner the same way he’s been talking sense into himself: by reminding Tanner of his relationships. “I know about your boys,” Dick says. “I know you tried to save them, and I know what he did. Haven’t you had enough? Haven’t the guns done enough? We don’t need these to settle this. Tell us where the eyes are, and we all walk away. Think about your boys. Some things you don’t shoot your way out of.” Tanner rejects him and chooses his guns. Tiger comes to Dick’s rescue, but not without chastising him. Dick’s method has failed on Tanner. The worldview on which he constructs his identity has failed. Is it doomed to fail for himself, too?

The consequences of this are severe. Agent 8 blows up at Dick for endangering Tiger, her partner’s, life. She calls him out on a perceived hypocrisy: “Oh, yeah, you noble superheroes. Fire laser beams at people. Arrows. Batathingies. But a gun, no, no, never. God forbid! Not a gun!” Nursing the cheek Agent 8 just slapped, Dick can only repeat what he’s desperately holding on to: guns aren’t “the way [he] fight[s]”. His identity is being challenged at all fronts. He can’t risk revealing how much he holds on to the people of his previous life, so he can only cling on to their teachings. Guns aren’t the way he fights. His explanation only makes Agent 8 angrier. “You’re all like Batman,” she says, “little boys under little masks, crying about their dead mommies.” Dick, acting as both the double agent seeking information and the Bruce Wayne defense squad he usually is, asks, “What do you know about Batman?”

Agent 8 gives an ending argument that hits harder than her slap. “I know he still wears his little mask. What I don’t know is if you’ve taken yours off! You’re not a superhero. You're a spy. With a gun. You’re not Wing-Kinght or Nightwing or whatever. You’re Agent 37.” Here she reveals a flaw at the center of Dick’s identity - if Dick defines himself through his relationships, how can he endanger a partner by not taking the shot? Are Batman’s teachings getting in the way of helping people? But if Dick isn’t Batman’s teachings, who is he? Agent 8 would answer that by saying Dick is Agent 37, a spy who uses a gun. But can Dick really be that?

No. No, of course not. When presented with the shoot or be shot dilemma, Dick does the most Dick Grayson thing he can do: he finds a third option. Dick’s puts together the missing pieces of Tanner’s backstory, tracking him down to the school that his youngest and only alive son attends. He uses the weapon at his disposal that predates even Robin; he tries to talk it out. Dick encourages Tanner to drop the guns and meet his son. “Is that how you want him to see you? With your guns in the air?” Dick reiterates Agent 8’s own defense of guns to him, Dick understands that they “make things go faster”. But, as he tells Tanner, “what’s the damn rush?”

This time, Dick’s words reach Tanner. He confesses he stole the macguffin of the issue because he didn’t want to see his son through the gun. The Paragon eyes aren’t compatible with him, so he gives them to Dick. The two share a touching moment where Tanner is insecure about his looks scaring his son and Dick jokes about Tanner’s chest hair. This is the type of relationship building that is at the core of Dick’s self-identity. But just as Dick wins a laugh from his once enemy, Agent 8 shoots Tanner. Everything goes to shit from that moment on, right in front of Dick’s eyes. Tanner survives the shot and returns fire to Agent 8, killing her. He then falls off the roof and dies in front of his son. The parallels to both Bruce’s and Dick’s parents’ own deaths cannot be ignored; it is salt in the wound. Dick has defined his life by his mission to save people. Now, Dick is left alone on the rooftop, with nothing but blood, a gun, and Tiger’s desperate voice ringing through his coms.

As Tanner’s son finds his father’s body, still clutching his gun, Tiger speaks, “37. 1. Do you have eyes on Agent 8? Repeat. 37, do you have eyes on Agent 8? 37? 37? Agent 37!” Dick raises his head. Grayson artist Mikel Janín’s composition is spectacular here. Dick looks the reader straight in our eyes. “That’s not my name.”

This is the ultimate rejection of Dick’s Agent 37 identity. He will never be convinced of Agent 8’s and Spyral at large’s ideology. All it’s done is make two people dead and a little boy an orphan. This knowledge doesn’t change the fact that Dick’s mission isn’t over. Lives are on the line, in all directions. He has to be a spy. Agent 37 isn’t his name but still Dick must wear this disguise. How will he adapt?

As always, Dick’s ability to adapt is helped by the relationships he forms with other people. If Grayson #3 was about the ultimate failure of Dick and Agent 8’s partnership (and I don’t just mean romantically, I mean Agent 8 as an opposing ideology Dick cannot integrate into his sense of self), then Grayson #4 is the beginning of Helena’s growth into that web. Even though Helena has been tasked by the Director of Spyral, Mr. Minos, to root out the double agent in their midst, she and Dick continue to grow closer.

Grayson #4 starts out with their status quo sunshine-grumpy relationship. Dick is purposefully sucking a lollipop as annoyingly as possible and Helena karate chops it out of his mouth. Dick wraps up the lollipop to send it back to Bruce for DNA sampling, but plays dumb with Helena, who reacts with scorn and disgust. But even after this engineered tiff, Helena immediately tries to comfort Dick over Agent 8’s death. Dick rebuffs her, he knows that death “is part of the job”. He is playing the Agent 37 role that Agent 8 so wanted him to do. Helena isn’t convinced. She tries again to have this conversation with Dick and again is rebuffed. “Don’t worry,” Dick assures her, mistaking what I would argue is Helena’s genuine concern over him with her fixation on accomplishing the mission, “I’m focused. I’m ready. The mission is as good as accomplished.” The status quo is starting to shift between these two, but Dick hasn’t forgiven her betrayal yet.

The rest of the issue acts almost as a breather episode. The Hadrian students decide to raid Dick’s room for his panties. Dick catches them on the hunt, of course. But rather than turn them in for breaking curfew, he starts a cat and mouse game, leading them in a chase across campus. They want a game? Sure, Dick’s happy to play. This moment is silly and fun but it’s so revealing of how Dick recenters himself in his grief. He wants to be with people without having to be vulnerable with people. He wants to be in the air. He wants the chase. This is how Dick self-soothes a wound to his worldview, to his very identity.

Helena, out at night investigating Agent 8 as the potential Spyral mole, catches the group. She sends the girls back to their dorms and Dick to Mr. Minos, where he receives his punishment. He is to become the girls’ gay French acrobatics teacher. It’s pitched as a torture for Dick, and while the Hadrian girls are thirsty af, Dick loves being a teacher. Teacher is one of the ways Dick defined himself as back in Nightwing #30 and of course acrobat is Dick’s very essence. The cover story is framed as a punishment for Dick, but truly this is an opportunity for Dick to maintain his old, true, self-identity.

Helena has another opportunity for Dick’s self-identity too. Later that night, she sneaks into Dick’s bedroom. “I know why you came to Spyral, Dick Grayson.” Dick reacts with confusion. Helena gives an impassioned monologue. It’s a reversal, instead of Helena dragging Dick into the messy spy thriller genre, here Dick inspires Helena to dip her toes into the superhero genre, where impassioned speeches can reach another person’s heart. She says:

“I saw you tonight. Running across those rooftops. There was a joy in your movement. In your eyes. You loved the night. You loved the chase. You loved being the fearless hero. You loved being Nightwing. When you were outed by the Crime Syndicate. Believed killed. You knew you had to remain dead. To reveal that you were alive could endangered those you loved. Set your enemies against them. You had to quit being the hero. Being Dick Grayson. Now, you fear that you might lose who you are.”

Helena reads Dick like an open book. To know Dick’s motivations so well is dangerous, but Helena does not make Dick bleed for it. She simply walks towards the window. When Dick asks where she’s going, she turns and says, “I do not want you to forget who you are Dick Grayson. I want you to remember the rooftops. I want you to remember the night. I want you to remember Nightwing.” She smiles, which on Helena looks more like a smirk, “Chase me.” And Dick does.

For Dick, this is the remedy for the poison from the last issue. Agent 8 wanted Dick to be someone else. In her worldview, Agent 37 can only exist at Nightwing’s death. Dick must forget everything he was before to be Agent 37. In contrast, Helena wants Dick to remember who he is, which includes (but is not limited to) Nightwing. She wants him to be successful in Spyral not at the cost of his previous selves. Dick has to hide so much of his true identity and belief systems right now. But Helena, at least, can offer herself up as the means in which Dick can still feel safely connected to his old, true identity.

Dick started in Issue #1 utterly alone. He ends #4 chasing after someone who is sour, dark, and perfect into the night, a smile on his face. This ending allows Dick to metaphorically be Robin, Nightwing, and Agent 37 all at the same time. He is able to hold that multiplicity of identity within him because of his connection to Helena. Once again, being a partner act keeps Dick’s identity whole.

I HAVE HER

“This can’t…this…you can’t do this…I know you. I see what’s coming. You…you…can’t. I have…my enhancements. I have…powers. Dick…Dick Grayson...what…what do you have?” “I have her.”

Grayson #5 is one of my favorite single issues of all time. It should be part of a mandatory DC onboarding when it comes to writing Dick Grayson. It captures the core of his character, his ultimate truth: the unflinching determination to help people in the face of impossible odds.

The issue starts in media res. Dick and Midnighter are helping a woman deliver her baby as Helena tries to pilot a failing plane to safety. The mother dies. The plane crashes in the desert. The baby is alive and crying. Helena, Midnighter, Dick and the baby are two hundred miles away from civilization. Midnighter does the math: they’re dead. There’s no way any of them can survive the trek.

Dick refuses to accept that. If they die, the baby dies, so they can’t die. It’s just that simple.

Thus far, in Grayson, Dick’s ability to care deeply about strangers has been used against him. A good spy makes people think they care, but they don’t actually care. They exist in order to survive the mission or themselves. Dick’s mission is caring about people; he defines himself through loving other people. Grayson #5 shows us that this isn’t mere naivete. This is Dick’s most dangerous skill. He doesn't have to have special enhancements or powers. As long as he has "her", a person to save, Dick can do anything. His determination arises from his relational approach to identity.

This has been true for Dick since he was a child. Later on in the issue, after Helena and Midnighter have both succumbed to the elements, Dick tells the baby about a dream he once had. The story he tells is a heartfelt and poignant reference to Batman #156, “Robin Dies at Dawn”. “On this world,” Dick says, “I was Robin. I had to save him.” The syntax and order of Dick’s sentences here reveal that he defines being Robin as saving people and he is Robin. In order to be himself, Dick must save people. And he does, even though Dick’s story ends with rocks and darkness, the moral he gives to the baby is bravery in the face of any odds.

For those of us who are familiar with Batman #156, we know that Dick is hit with rocks and dies. Batman, guilty, grief-stricken, and alone on an alien planet with a monster about to attack him, begs for death. It’s eventually revealed that Robin is alive and well, Batman was just undergoing an astronaut simulation. This meta reference highlights Dick’s superpower in this issue. When Batman doesn’t have Robin, he begs for death. When Robin doesn’t have Batman, he finds more people to save. Dick is able to survive the loneliness and isolation that Batman isn’t because Dick doesn’t define his identity by one person or purpose, but by his ability to care for many people. Today, it’s this baby. Tomorrow, it will be someone else. That’s who Dick is. Dick’s devotion to life itself gives him determination.

Devotion is not something many call a strength anymore. After all, devotion so easily becomes zealotry. Grayson #5 itself warns us of this. A Saudi couple find Dick and the baby and the wife is overjoyed. “We have prayed for so long for a child,” she says, “And here, god has brought one from the desert.” Her husband disagrees. “What is this? God has not brought this boy. This is no God. Look. This is only a man.”

Dick is not a god. He is not even an enhanced guy with a supercomputer for a brain. He is just a man. But when a man makes serving other people his identity, he can do the impossible.

HEART IS AN AWESOME POWER

“Who are you? What do you hold inside? Is it love? Is that what you believe?”

If Grayson #5 is about Dick proving who he is to the reader, then Grayson #6-7 are about him proving that core identity to Midnighter and Helena.

Grayson #6 opens with Dick and Helena investigating a prison island. After surviving an attack from a robot orca, they find that their targets have already been slaughtered by the Fist of Cain. While Helena uses her Hypnos implant to get information about the issue’s macguffin, the Paragon Brain, from a surviving Fist of Cain member, Midnighter kidnaps Dick and takes him to the God Garden. There Dick and Midnighter finally have the all out brawl they’ve been building towards. As they trade blows, Midnighter reveals exactly what he thinks of Dick. He states as fact of all the worst fears Dick has about himself during the Spyral mission.

“You traded in the supertights for a decoder ring but you think you’re still the good guy,” Midnighter says, “But you’ve changed. You’re just lying to yourself. You’re one of them.”

Dick refutes Midnighter’s analysis of himself. First, by refuting Midnighter’s claim that he’s figured out Dick’s fighting style (“You can do jazz. How are you at punk rock?”). Dick is made up of more than what Midnighter claims he is. It’s easy to read this as a rebuttal against the naysayers of Grayson itself: Dick is more than just his mantles. He can carry a solo title with no masks, just as Dick Grayson.

“Comfort. Trust. Family. I gave that up to become a spy. A spider man. A tsuchigumo. I have changed,” Dick acknowledges. “But I’ll always be Dick Grayson.”

If that’s true, then how is Dick constructing the identity of ‘Dick Grayson’, if not by those ties of family and legacy? Issue #7 will answer that for us in time. Here in Issue #6, there’s still more setting up to do. After Helena is exposed mentally to the Fist of Cain’s plans for mass murder, she awakens to see that Dick is gone. She doesn’t know he’s been kidnapped. The first thing she asks is if Dick left her. Like Midnighter, Helena is suspicious of who Dick claims to be. Is he really her partner? Or will he abandon her the second it suits his goals?

As Issue #6 sets up the fears Helena and Midnighter have about who Dick is as a person, Issue #7 proves those fears wrong. Cue the transformation magic, Dick is about to go full magical girl.

Issue #7 is an ode to Dick’s legacy. As Robin, Dick represented spring: the joy and new life after the cold death of winter. As Nightwing, Dick represented rebirth, the great rebuilder after destruction. The mantles don’t represent those things intrinsically. They represent those ideals because Dick infused them with the essence of his own person, who lives by those ideals. Agent 37 does not carry that Dick Grayson legacy the way Robin and Nightwing do; it carries the reputation of Spyral. As Dick tries to convince the Gardener to let him and Midnighter stop the Fists of Cain, the Gardener calls him out on this. “[...] You, Dick Grayson, represent lies and treachery. The loss of ideals. The desire for power at the cost of innocence.” Here, in this world, Dick is no longer the benchmark of the superhero community, the guy everyone respects. He’s fallen. He’s been corrupted.

But he’s still Dick Grayson. He’s not going to let a fall stop him from saving people. The Fist of Cain plan to use the Paragon brain to make innocent people kill each other. Gardener believes that this bloodbath will serve as an example for all of humanity and help create a better world. Dick can’t physically fight her, so he uses his other skills: empathy and compassion.

He tells the Gardener a story about himself.

“When my parents died, I thought that was the end for me. I was freefalling. I thought that I was going to fall and fall until I hit the ground. But someone came to my rescue. He caught me before I hit the ground. He was my net. He taught me to focus my anger. To stop myself from hating the world. From blaming everyone for the evil of a few. And then, I realized how lucky I was. I realized I had to pay it back. I owed it to other people to be their net. I had to dedicate my life to being there to catch anyone who needed it.”

Dick’s anger is not an explosive, severed heads in a duffle bag kind of anger. After Dick’s parents die, he was never in danger of becoming a thug or a murderer, he was in danger of losing his idealism. Anger takes the form of mistrust, disconnection, and apathy in Dick. It’s “blaming everyone for the evil of a few”. It’s closing himself off from the world and all the love the world offers.

When one is faced with the type of acute trauma young Dick survived, it’s easy for that experience to make you selfish and isolated. Becoming the Robin to Bruce’s Batman saves Dick from this worldview. Robin gifts Dick a world of connections - from the bond he forms with Bruce and Alfred, to the people he saves every night on the streets. This is what Gardener is not understanding. There are evil people in the world. The world itself may even be cruel. But that’s not the point. The point is the friends you make along the way, the people you catch in your net. By limiting his scope to the people he can reach, Dick is able to love the whole world.

The Gardener, moved by Dick’s and Midnighter’s pleas, allows them to teleport to Tel-Aviv and save the day. The Fist of Cain are disguised as the band Sin by Silence; they intend to unleash the power of the Paragon brain at a concert for peace. “But I want you to answer a question Tel-Avi,” lead singer Clutch asks the crowd. “Who are you? What do you hold inside? Is it love? Is that what you believe?”

So far Dick himself has not dropped the L word. He speaks around it, citing family and catching people when they fall - terms and phrases that absolutely do share the same meaning as love, but don’t sound as cheesy when said aloud. Clutch is able to speak directly to the central dramatic questions of this issue on Dick’s behalf: “Who are you? What do you hold inside? Is it love? Is that what you believe?” Notice here how the order of Clutch’s questions directly ties the construction of identity to a belief system of love. Clutch intends to subvert this by proving that the true self of all people is a murderer, but Dick Grayson answers those questions in the affirmative. It is love that he holds inside of him. That is the belief he is devoted to. That is who he is.

Helena is starting to understand that. When Dick comes to her rescue, she succumbs to the power of the Paragon brain and attacks him.“Agent 37.” She corrects for his true identity. “Dick. You—abandoned me! I hate you! Kill you!” Dick dodges her attack and Helena is able to come to her senses and realize the impact that Paragon brain is having on her.

“I’m too angry, Dick. I have too much hate,” she says, confessing to Dick her own construction of identity. “I’ve killed. And I’ll do it again. I can’t…I’m too weak even with the Hypnos to get anywhere near the Paragon brain.” It’s only after Helena tells both Dick and herself who she is that she is able to tell Dick who he is. “But you, Dick Grayson. You have no hate. You would never take a life. Everything you do…it’s...”

She kisses him. It’s an appropriate action for her speech as this is all but a declaration of love. It’s a declaration of Dick’s nobility, the very thing both Midnighter and Helena were scrutinizing in the last issue. Helena says Dick has “no hate” but I think another way of saying that is that Dick is full of love. Kissing Dick “clear[s] [her] mind a little”, freeing Helena of the Paragon brain’s influence. Where once Helena flirted with Dick to assert her identity as the better spy, now she kisses him to center herself as someone who won’t give into hatred and mass murder. She kisses Dick as a way back to her identity, just as she lead Dick back to his identity in Grayson #4. They depart, refocused on the mission.

Dick eventually makes it on stage to destroy the Paragon brain. The brain, in Dick’s own words, offers him up the greatest temptation. “I—I can feel you. Whispering to me. Telling me it’s okay to abandon my code...to let go of my humanity. To fear. To h-hurt. To…k-kill”. And Dick is tempted to give into his hatred. As he recounts later to Bruce:

“I was about to smash the brain on the stage. I hated it. Hated what it had done, what it represented. I just wanted to see it in little tiny bits. But then I realized I’d be feeding the emotions the fist wanted to unleash here. I knew that the people who’d been influenced by its empathic attack wouldn’t stop if I fed it more violence. So I didn’t dash it to chunks on the stage like a guitar. I stopped. And I thought about everything I have. My family. My net. And I changed its mind.”

Dick’s ability to pause and reflect before he acts is crucial here. Even though smashing the Paragon brain to bits is ostensibly a good thing, Dick knows that actions of hatred will only beget more hatred. He has to feed the brain something different, show it a different path. He has to forgive it for making him hate it. He has to teach it about being grateful, about family, about helping people up when they fall. This is Dick’s Moon Healing Escalation moment. This is what has been at the core of his identity, since he pledged to never swerve from the path of justice in the wake of his parents’ murders. His ability to forgive, his ability to love, reminds the brain and everyone in its thrall to do the same.

The issue ends with Midnighter breaking ties with Gardener. “I can’t be surrounded by liars and murderers without becoming one myself,” he says, “I’m not like Grayson.” Dick Grayson is a person who can surround himself with liars and murderers and not become one himself. Midnighter, the man who not one issue ago was Dick’s biggest naysayer is now all but calling Dick incorruptible. Dick’s had to give up a lot of the embellishments that traditionally define him in order to be Agent 37. But he’s kept the core thing that makes him Dick Grayson: his ability to love. The people around him are starting to take notice.

CONCLUSION: SAME OLD DICK

Grayson #8 marks the shift from Act I to Act II. It’s a tying up of loose ends and the opening up of new doors to explore. The macguffin of Act I, collecting the Paragon organs, has been completed. Mr. Minos, the enigmatic boss of the last eight issues, makes his play. He attempts to kill Helena, succeeding only in wounding her. She collapses in Dick’s arms, warning him of Minos’ betrayal. At the same time, Minos attempts to kill Tiger with the newly reassembled Paragon. Dick saves him and they work together to defeat the creature that has the powers of the Justice League. Even the Hadrian girls get to have their hero moment in this fight. Minos’ reassembled Paragon has a flaw the original did not: its heart. The baby Dick saved in the desert still claims the organ as her own. Dick does the one thing he’s been avoiding for the last eight issues: he picks up a gun and takes the killshot. He shoots the creature right where its heart would be. Tiger is astounded. “Agent 8 said you were a horrible shot!” Dick responds as an Agent of Spyral should, “Yeah, well, that’s what spies do. We lie.” This is the triumphant defeat of the villain. In this moment, Dick is able to incorporate Agent 37 into his self-identity without completely shattering the construction of self that came before. Being Agent 37 did not break Dick Grayson; Agent 37 is now another aspect of Dick Grayson. Dick Grayson still endures.

Meanwhile, Minos is killed off by the even more enigmatic Agent Zero. She calls Minos bait, a “cliched bat villain” meant to “attract Grayson into [our] web”. It’s clear she will be our new main antagonist. If Act I asked ‘Who is Dick Grayson?’, Act II will ask ‘Who is Spyral?’ Issue #8 ends with a tagline for Act II: “A NEW MISSION! A NEW PARTNER! SAME OLD DICK!”

Same Old Dick is the best conclusion I can think of for Grayson Act I’s thematic exploration of Dick’s identity. Grayson stripped Nightwing and Robin away from Dick, separated him from Batman and the entire Batfamily, and placed him into a situation that routinely demanded he forsake his own personal morals. And yet, somehow, Dick is still the Same Old Dick.

This is the brilliance of Grayson, its ability to synthesize such contradictions. Grayson is both a tongue-in-cheek parody of the spy genre at the same time it’s an earnest spy thriller. It’s both an interrogation and celebration of DC superheroics. It is a story about mistrust, loneliness, and isolation…but also one about friendship, the importance of the connections we form with other people. It’s a story about Dick Grayson, forced out of his element and into the shadows of espionage, still shining brightly as the heart of the DCU.

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