An Overview of Tarantula: From Her First Nightwing Interaction Until #93
In my re-reading of Nightwing 1996, I figured I'd lay out a full documentation of Nightwing and Tarantula's interactions leading up to Nightwing #93, since sometimes I see people present what occurs there as out-of-the-blue and unexpected. Like, Tarantula shows up, she and Dick are tentative allies for a bit, she kills Blockbuster, scene.
Beginning as early as issue #77, there are hints of Tarantula's incapacity to recognize boundaries, or maybe her unwillingness to respect them when it comes to Dick.
They are in CONSTANT. FUCKING. CONFLICT. From here onwards. There is never a stint where Tarantula is truly taken in as Dick's sidekick or whatever. They engage in one or two more rooftop chases where Dick pleads with her to join the force or something instead of trying to kill people (because this entire time she's flinging around a gun at fucking anybody), and Tarantula is like "lol no".
This comes to a head in issues #83-84, where Dick uncovers that Catalina was behind the murder of Captain Redhorn, the corrupt police chief who died a few issues ago. At this point he's unaware that Tarantula was hired by Blockbuster but still knows her connections to those individual crimes.
Dick runs off to find her again, and again Dick tries to de-escalate while Tarantula goes at him. This ends with her poisoning him.
The whole sequence gives off horrible vibes in the context of future events -- particularly when you consider how readily Tarantula had access to what looks like a sedative medication and how out-of-it Dick is in the mid-90s issues when he's in the hotel.
(Seriously, this is all conjecture, but compare those events to how Dick acts post-poisoning here. I do not think it is an extrapolation to wonder if Tarantula had been drugging him during the hotel stay using the same poison she had as a mainstay in her arsenal here. It isn't ever stated in canon, and it also very well could not have happened, but... it's hard not to draw those connections when reading these issues back-to-back.)
Then we jump to Tarantula's next major appearance in issue #87, and the FIRST FUCKING THING she does is put an attempt on Dick and Barbara's life during the middle of a date.
You cannot understate how clear Dick's disinterest is here. From the "get away from her" to him keeping his lips pressed during the forced kiss to the being kicked in the balls.
And then comes the infamous scene between Barbara and Dick where Barbara blames him for the kiss.
What I don't often see discussed online is that this conflict was building up before the kiss. Barbara and Dick's relationship was on the fritz for a while. Barbara was struggling with being reminded of the past in her current state, and felt both worried and insecure about Dick's activity in the past 10ish issues, which led to her lashing out on more than one occasion. Even though I don't think her aggression to Duck prior to this scene is logical, I do think it’s empathizable. HOWEVER, this moment in particular is not great for her and that context is not an excuse to immediately jump to that kind of conclusion. IMO the more egregious part was the lack of reconciliation/apology afterwards rather than her saying this in the heat of the moment.
Then, of course, after Dick's circus and apartment are blown up (which she directly helped facilitate through heir aid to Blockbuster, even if she didn't realize around 60 people would die in the process):
Her next major interaction with Dick in #91 involves her blaming Dick for everything. Not her, who worked with Blockbuster, but Dick.
Not to mention that Dick had been on a weeklong crashout at this point. His final panic attack on the rooftop was not just a reaction to the murder of Blockbuster. It was the circus. It was the apartment. It was weeks of losing every relationship and every important aspect of his life (Barbara, his job as a police officer, etc.).
Dick was actively begging for death for days up until Tarantula further torments him about the deaths of his loved ones and pulls the final trigger.
And then, when #93 does roll around, we get this:
Dick doesn't really even "step aside". There is no deliberate action taken by him. He freezes. His internal monologue is still begging Tarantula to stop. Granted, she wouldn't be able to hear that, but she also clearly hasn't been listening to Dick telling her not to kill anyone -- even Blockbuster -- for the last 13 issues or so.
But I think what's really telling is actually the final page, when we're panning out.
The trailing off "never gonna stop" hits me in a few different places. Firstly, that same motif is used as Blockbuster described systematically destroying everything Dick held near, meaning that this moment was on a similar caliber to that for him. It is also, undeniably, a display of powerlessness.
Anyways, this whole overview doesn't really overlap at all with the other shit going on at the time. I had kind of a live post session of remembering all the other terrible shit (circus/apartment/reporter/etc.) here, but I wanted to condense all the Catalina stuff into a single post because I feel like its a particularly "hot" subject when it comes to Dick. Interactions between them were always hostile. Dick never even suggested a friendly relationship with Tarantula, let alone a romantic one. Dick hated her. Always. She fucking sucked. Always.
I'll reblog this post in the future with the later stuff when I feel like it. Right now though I think I'm gonna take a shower or something. Reading issues #80-#95 of Nightwing vol 2 is PTSD-inducing.
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