Hi, I think your page is really cool and I aspire to have the knowledge that you have about Dickie G. Do you think there's a specific issue or panel where you really see Dick's love for humanity? I know that he values life and has so much hope, but is there a part where you can feel those ideals in full?
When we talk about love of humanity, and more specifically “hope” in humanity, I think we have to turn start looking at how he treats his enemies. To me, his belief in the inherent good of people, that people can be better, defines his value for life.
The no-kill rule speaks for itself, but there are various interactions with villains or former villains that further demonstrates this. These are only the ones off the top of my head, so they probably aren’t going to be “the best” ones. Anyone with better examples, please give them!
The first thing I think of is Dick’s time with the run-offs, a group of former villains in Blüdhaven. Dick seeks them out once he discovers they were being framed of crimes, confident in their innocence and determined to help. This period also, via Dick’s attempts to empathize with Raptor, his volunteering, and his regard for Blüdhaven people, exemplifies this care.
His treatment of Amygdala in the 1996 run of Nightwing is also a decent example. Again, despite Amygdala being an existing member of Batman’s rogues and continuing to pose a threat at times, Dick recognizes this as a symptom rather than a reason to harm him, and supports Amygdala both in remedial and mundane ways (ie: housing).
There’s also how Dick shows compassion to Mr. Freeze as Robin in the One Bad Day series. Not only does he try to help Mr. Freeze save Nora after he’d already been a villain to them for a while, hopeful that Freeze was a victim of circumstance that could be helped rather than a “bad person”, but even after Freeze squanders this opportunity, Dick is still insistent that this was out of grief rather than malice. Dick’s first thought isn’t “we gave Freeze a chance and he was still bad”, it was “wow, Freeze must really be hurting over this”.
Not to mention, after all of this goes down, in their final encounter, Dick continues to appeal to Freeze’s humanity through Nora’s own words. Then he gifts whatever research Freeze developed to WE R&D so that it might help other people. Dick’s priority is always to prioritize life.
And, of course, there’s Damian. Damian is not a villain, but is troubled by his past and his perceived “goodness”. Dick holds no such doubt. Again, Dick believes that people — especially Damian — are good, and that the kinks in his past were a product of environmental circumstances.
These are just a few examples. Still, I think Dick’s hope in people being better is one of the defining qualities of his character.
