Legion World Forums LEGION COMPANION Dr. Gym'll's Cultural Rarities Nightwing raped, Flannel Lass contemplating murder

I am having a very hard time thinking of a reason not to find Devin Grayson and set her fire for dealing so flippantly with such a serious issue as rape, not to mention making the main character of a book take backseat to character that is so obviously a Mary Sue. If the current story in the Nightwing books were a fanfic, people would be ripping it to shreds. It pains me that this is the published book, and that a writer can intend to spend 10 months portraying any hero, much less the character of Dick Grayson, as a weak-willed, submissive, meek, dominated worm. At least I can avoid fanfics where a beloved character gets tortured and raped by thinly-veiled self-representations; that this can happen in the canon book feels like a betrayal. It makes me physically ill. Never has anything in a comic book made me so angry, or so frustrated.

I haven't been reading the series, FL, but it certainly does sound like a strange and unpalatable twist for such a character. If you feel strongly about this, perhaps a letter to the DC editor in question is appropriate. With message boards replacing letters, I wonder how much direct feedback the company gets - and to what extent they read any message boards.

Rape is a sad fact of life and the comic book world shouldn't necessarily be immune to it - but it's all in the portrayal. Comic sales may be down, but shock value tactics could do more to destroy than help a series.

It's a bit odd that both Identity Crisis #2 and this book are dealing with rape. Are these mature reader books?

Devin was such a huge Nightwing fan and seemed to have a handle of him during her TITANS run.

Anyone care to provide specific details for what Devin's been doing to the character recently?

Okay, lessee'...

She took what were second tier villians and make them fourth or fifth instead of making them really nasty.

She has dumped a major portion of his supporting cast and not replaced them.

She killed Soames, one of his best, most truly bizarre enemies.

She burned down Haly' Circus.

She blew up his apartment building.

She made him an ineffectual person, a waffler.

She had him stand by and watch as Tarantula killed Blockbuster (supposedly) with a bullet to the head.

She had him not take her into custody.

She had him instead fall apart on the roof of the building and have Tarantula rape him while he layed there with only feeble protests.

She had them run off somewhere, with copperhead showing up, and had him almost marry Tarantula, on to get a call from batman for the Wars crossover. He ran off smiling.

Oh, they had some cock and bull breakup with Babs as well.

I know it is a staple of comics that the hero is giving a truly tremendous amount of crap to angst over, but she was so heavy handed, and the portrayl's were so bad, many poster's over on NW have left the book.

Me included.

Rick summed it up pretty well.

I'm holding on for #100. But I've left the book before, at the end of Dixon's run... but that was mainly because of the art. Not that I'm liking the art on the book NOW, since Pat Zircher left, but it's mainly the writing that's got me scratching my head saying "WTF?! This ain't Nightwing!"

I'm on the verge of dropping the title as well. Admittedly, I've always preferred Nightwing in a team book, but I was sorta enjoying his title before Devin took over. Once Dick and Babs broke up, the book lost all interest for me. I don't think I've even opened the last two or three issues that I bought.

Is Devin taking a hatred of men (or a certain man) out on Dick? I mean, come on! This is one of the few heroes that can go toe to toe with Bats. Nightwing isn't second-rate punk like a lot of JLA back-ups. He'd have to be highly drugged or lobotomized for me to believe he put up with all of that.

And how does this affect him in the Outsiders? I have never read his own series but do sometimes pick up the Outsiders.

Nightwing got berated by Jade in the most recent issue for not showing any leadership skills. Basically accused him of trying to get them killed.

So it looks as if Nightwing has been designated the current punching bag at DC.

I would have to agree with all the comments above. Dick has gone from being a super star to a slug. Don't think I'll be continuing to keep up with this one either unless something changes dramatically & quickly!

I agree with everything said here. Nightwing is by far DC's worst comic book currently on the stands--mainly b/c it is destroying it's main character for no reason.

The only thing I'd add is that even before all this, Devin had Dick acting like some clown who couldn't take even the smallest clue from Babs that something was wrong. Since when is Dick a total uncaring, moron? Since the Tarrantula thing, he's been acting like a lost child, as if all those years under Batman and leading the Titans have made him no better a hero than Vibe or Changeling.

And Devin has killed off almost his *entire* supporting cast. Including the golden age Tarrantula!

Hey, I'll tolerate no Gar bashing on my watch!

Maybe this isn't Dick? Maybe the real Dick was kidnapped and this is really Jason Todd. Yeah, that's the ticket!

Jason Todd is beefier. Also, he has a white streak in his bangs. They've been dropping hints that the adult Jason Todd we see Clayface emulate in the Hush story might be around for real - like finding his mask, and like his body being missing.

As for the break up with Babs, that was orchestrated by Tarantula, too - although I don't think Babs would really abandon him at such a rough time. I also don't believe that Bruce would not have contacted him after Haly's Circus burned down with him there, etc.

Even more than what is happening in the books, though, it's Devin's attitude towards it all that boils my blood. She has said that Dick Grayson is a person who will "fight you or fuck you" - does that sound like the brilliant-in-his-own-right detective-trained-by-Batman to you? Devin is ignoring 20 years of character development. She says she's writing this so he'll come into his own. He already has, and I frankly don't see how breaking him will do it again!

And since the book doesn't have a mature rating, while it was obvious that Tarantula fucked Dick, and it was obvious that he said no (dialogue bubble: "No"), not 100% of the readers got it - certainly the guys at Wizard Magazine didn't, because they asked if Babs (Oracle, formerly Batgirl, jfyi) would forgive him for what happened with Tarantula, and she said "Well, condsidering it was rape, I think she'll forgive him." This - she's just disrespectful - not just of Dick, but of anyone who has ever had to deal with the effects of rape in their lives, by being so flippant. It's ignorant.

Hasn't Dick Grayson "come into his own" or "emerged from Batman's shadow" enough times already? Going all the way back to the 70's when he went off to college? I can't say I've really followed the character lately, but I always liked it when he was portrayed as sort of having the skills of Batman but with social skills added in.

Oh and one question: a "Mary Sue" is when a writer uses a dummy character to inject themselves into a fanfic right?

Or at least have Dick wake up, walk in to the bathroom with Barbara and say, "I just had the weirdest dream!"

Bludhaven's near Dallas, right?

Precisely.

Often said character will end up being dominant throughout, saving everybody's lives, having relationships with the main characters, you get the idea. Sometimes the Mary Sue even gets killed off, which leads to everyone standing and crying about how great he or she really was.

I don't think so.

She seems to honestly believe that the best way to character growth is by putting that character through hell.

Here\'s a little article I wrote on Mary Sues a few years back, Matlock.

As for Nightwing, as a new Birds of Prey fan, I was considering whether or not I should pick up Nightwing too. After reading all this, I'll definitely be passing it by.

I don't understand how a character being treated so totally 'out of character' with his established traits being ignored can be called character growth. I do understand how heaping misery on top of misery can build character but she isn't writing him as Dick to begin with.

Is there even a glimmer of light for this Nightwing? Or does it just keep getting piled higher?

It's hard to say. Normally #100 would seem like a perfect issue to resolve all this but who knows? The War Games crossover may have extended the misery.

And I agree with you: The only way she could get Dick into this position to begin with is to ignore the character as he's been established. If anything, I suspect the "character growth" will put him right back where he already had been.

I'm sorry to get a bit off topic, but are there any other "Mary Sue's" that you guys can think of off the top of your heads? I'm curious, I've never heard the term before until this thread.

I think that's because the usually ARE a fanfic device, Des, and usually don't end up in an "official" story... :rolleyes:

The editor on Nightwing really gave Devin too much freedom with all this. They BOTH need to go.

I've never heard the term either, but I've always thought that Denny O'Neil turned Green Arrow into his "Mary Sue" during his much heralded "Hard Traveling Heroes" story arc with Green Lantern.

I think GA was certainly O'Neil's mouthpiece, but I'm not sure he ever took the character all the way into Mary Sue territory. GA still had his share of flaws.

That was quite a nice article on the subject, Arachne.

well, the name for a male "Mary Sue" is "Wesley Crusher", sooo......

Here's the million dollar question: how would you salvage this series? Personally, I would be quite baffled as to how to restore Nightwing.

I did read a Nightwing TPB, one of the early ones, and was quite surprised to see he'd been turned into a cop - but thought it provided a great platform for storytelling. If you wanted to put a character through hell, it seems that having someone as exceptional as Dick Grayson have to fit in with "ordinary" people - and likely some corrupt and incompetent members of the force - would provide plenty of opportunity.

Not to mention that, distance himself as he will, he will always be in the shadow of that brilliant, driven weirdo who trained him. Any of his interactions with other superheroes would always have this theme in the background, and I would think that's something of a hell to live with.