I've been out of the comics loop for quite a while, but I recently read Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as the first, but it was still pretty good.
Can anyone tell me what the rift between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne is all about? How did it get started?
Also, I'd be interested in hearing others' opinions about the series.
Apologies if this has all been discussed before.
― bsj30 (bsj30), Friday, 18 November 2005 14:58 (twenty years ago)
I thought DKSA was a lot of fun, especially visually. The Dick Grayson stuff is entirely confined within this miniseries, and selons moi, the weakest part of DKSA.
If you want to talk about the rift between Dick Grayson and Bruce Wayne in regular comics, though, I'm down.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 18 November 2005 15:06 (twenty years ago)
It probably started when Batman called him a "goddamned retard" the first time they met.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 18 November 2005 15:16 (twenty years ago)
Like I said, I'm totally out of the loop. I knew that grayson went onto become nightwing and then J. Todd eneterd, but I never know why grayson left. Was that covered in the regular series? Or was that all a fabrication of Miller?
― bsj30 (bsj30), Friday, 18 November 2005 15:21 (twenty years ago)
Oh wow, you are out of the loop (not that there's anything wrong with that). Dick Grayson became Nightwing a little over 20 years ago. Robin was slowly, but surely, maturing, and was leading the then massively popular New Teen Titans. However, despite Robin being the lead in that series, writer Marv Wolfman felt that he couldn't really do anything with the character since he was still technically under the purview of the Bat-Books.
At the time, it was merely a case of Dick Grayson feeling like he had outgrown the short-shorts and pixie-boots. There were slight strains in his relationship with Batman, but nothing major.
Batman, meanwhile, had adopted Jason Todd, another circus orphan, and was training him to become his new sidekick, but not necessarily as Robin. Dick Grayson showed up one day and gave Jason his Robin costume. Dick appeared sans costume, but often in fake mustaches, in NTT for a while, before settling on his Nightwing persona.
Following Frank Miller's Batman: Year One revamp, Jason Todd's origin was reconfigured. In the story "Did Robin Die Tonight?", Bruce and Dick's final adventure together as Batman and Robin was revealed. Joker squeezed off a shot at Robin, clipping him in the arm. Batman made a big scene about how he wasn't going to put a child in harm's way anymore. Dick says, "I'm not a child!" Batman says, "Tough cookies. You're fired."
Then Batman catches a young street urchin named Jason Todd stealing the Batmobile's tires. Naturally, the Bat-paternal instincts kick in and voila! New Robin. About 20 issues later, Jason Todd gets killderized by the Joker.
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 18 November 2005 15:35 (twenty years ago)
Of course you realize there's a third Robin on the streets now, right? (and he even quit for a while and was replaced by a Girl Robin)
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 18 November 2005 16:43 (twenty years ago)
It probably started when Batman called him a "goddamned retard" the first time they met.That's not fair, Huk. He's the goddamn Batman.
― adam (adam), Friday, 18 November 2005 17:28 (twenty years ago)
But she wasn't Robin when she died, so who cares?
― Huk-L (Huk-L), Friday, 18 November 2005 17:34 (twenty years ago)