Stranger Things
One Nice Bug Per Day
oozey mess
ojovivo
Love Begins
Claire Keane
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Not today Justin
noise dept.
we're not kids anymore.
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Game of Thrones Daily
The Bowery Presents
Show & Tell
★
taylor price
cherry valley forever
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shark vs the universe
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@perkeia
hi I'm perk!
My strawpage!
Comms are closed atm, but drawing requests are always open. I'll see them first if you use tumblr but you're welcome to try my strawpage lmao
Main art tag is #perkeia and if you want my occasional updates, #wips
how much for a nightwing writer ranking/tierlist? 💰💰💰
$15 and a pound of cheddar cheese dust.
In lieu of that, I’m assuming we just mean writers for the main Nightwing title and their runs rather than any of Dick’s writers outside of Nightwing (ie: older Batman runs, Outsiders, other Titans runs, etc.). Note that these are not organized by placement within the tier. That said, enjoy:
S Tier
Dan Watters — issues 137 and 139 sold it for me. I dunno what to say. If he screws up the highway, this could get bumped down to an A, but right now I’m feeling the S. The more lighthearted tone at the beginning, with the callbacks to the “holy ____” schtick and the grounded concept of gang conflicts, slowly devolving into the absolute puddle of misery that is now, is immaculate.
Devin Grayson — I have half of issue 90 memorized by heart, beginning at “do you know what it feels like to burn to death”. Enough said. Probably my most re-read comic run period, at that. Everything from Haly’s burning to the nuking of Blüdhaven is one glorious, painfully emotional car crash that I feel privileged to bear witness to. I still sometimes cry during the rain conversation with Amy. And Amygdala. And during the silent scene in 94. And during his inner turmoil during the War Games tie in. And with the Tevis’. And-
A Tier
Chuck Dixon — I know, I know. Not ranking the guy. But he made Blüdhaven. He made Blüdhaven. I could not conceive of a Nightwing without a Blüdhaven, or without his initial cast for that matter, from Amy to Blockbuster. The fact he isn’t an S exemplifies some of the more innate flaws in his writing, namely how repetitive it was and how few stakes there seemed to be. But this is necessary for the modern Grayson mythos idk. And fun, honestly. I used to refer to this era as the Dixon Demon because he was such a gremlin.
Sam Humphries — I am a Sam Humphries glazer through and through. His run was short but fun, self-contained, and introduced a lot of the more dreary Blüdhaven history that a surprising number of writers draw back to today, not the least of whom being Watters for this very arc we’re now in.
Peter Tomasi — I struggled to decide whether to put him in A or B. I know, I’m probably majorly underrating him for most people, but his Dick felt a little dry to me. Not bad; highly intelligent, loved the back and forth with Talia, even a few good jokes at points, but there’s a dorky/loser-ish quality to a good Dick Grayson that this was missing. BUT, issue 139 takes it over the edge easy. Holding Tim at the Lazarus pit… I cannot.
B Tier
Dan Jurgens — Took the dumpster fire of Ric Grayson and made it somewhat compelling with the Court of Owls connection. I think, had he been at the wheel from the beginning, it would have been better. As it stood, he took a bland arc with almost no redeeming qualities and turned it into something that was still rough but worth reading, in my humble opinion.
Tim Seeley — Nothing wrong with Seeley. I especially loved specific aspects of the run, like the formation of the reformed villain group to help him, and the emphasis on attempts to reform (successfully or otherwise) more broadly. I think this hope and trust in humanity is a sorely neglected Dick Grayson quality. But it’s this low because, besides this, the run felt unexceptional to me. No major hills or valleys, just a solid “yeah pretty good” throughout.
C Tier
Marv Wolfman — For as much as parts of his run were interesting… it doesn’t overcome that his entire arc was both Dick and the narrative blaming him for being raped. If it was just Dick, and it was clear that this was internalized by him, that’d be one thing. But the track record of Marv’s victim blaming in previous SA depictions plus the narrative backing makes it hard to enjoy any of the potential intrigue that comes from Liu. It’s one of those cases where it isn’t SA that makes a story bad, and I don’t want to discourage this from being done, but the fact of how it’s poorly portrayed. And since his entire arc constantly reminds you of it, because it’s what the entire plot is founded upon, you’re always uncomfortable from this awful representation.
Benjamin Percy — Nothing burger, I’m sorry. The technology plot was stupid. Lame. He might’ve been able to do more had Dick not gotten shot, but literally the only thing I remember was that Percy depicted Dick as still using a landline because he was skeptical/incompetent with technology, an erroneous depiction mind you, and it undermined decades of prior characterization. Besides that it’s meh.
Tom Taylor — Shallow. It’s the comic equivalent of one long beach episode. Heartless is forgotten for most of it, you get ridiculous mini plots like ruining Bea’s character via retcon and Dick becoming afraid of heights (rather than, y’know, dealing with the guy ripping out peoples’ hearts), and for all the glaze people seem insistent on lacquering onto Dick, he’s kind of lame here. Not in an endearing way. In a lame way. Devoid of sauce.
Kyle Higgins — I forgot to add him at first. This should speak to it. The Court of Owls stuff was interesting, and the fights with William Cobb were neat, but honestly even the most interesting scene of this whole arc (the electrum tooth) was replicated in the same Batman issue that month, word for word. This felt more like a tie in than an independent comic. And I have memory holed everything from Chicago onwards. I dunno. There was a guy with a camera and a little girl who also lost her parents, I think, maybe.
F Tier
Scott Lobdell — The guy that started the infamous Ric Grayson plot and, judging by how the reputation precedes it, did not do a swell job. Congrats, you get some random guy tangentially related to Dick not doing superheroics for almost a year. Gee.
Bruce Jones — Tentatodd. That is all.
Unranked
The first volume from 1995. I don’t remember shit except for the first issue with the girl that was nothing burger central, the advent of the modern costume, that one silly panel with the rat tail, and Alfred being in England. Not enough sauce to judge the taste.
you’re my favourite dc artist on here heehee :3
also are you planning on doing any more beast world stuff? i love it soaosososososososososossoso much
okie bye have a good day <3
i have a little comic i wanna draw about them i just have so many other things to do guh..for now...doodles!
By popular demand, I resumed the New Titans relaunch after I rage quit during #35. I'm doing this for you. Damn it.
First off, in #36, it's nice that we at least get confirmation that the other disappeared Titans from earlier issues are (probably) fine???
From what I recall, we learn that everyone but Dick, Kory, and Victor were illusions, and then we simply never figure out where they were. I would be a lot more worried if I was their friend. But, we see that Donna is trying to call Trinity here, so maybe it's fine.
This also rubs me all the way wrong, though. It's just another minor jab on the mountain of jabs towards the older TItans. I dunno. Maybe I'm being petulant and reading too much into it. But leaving Donna unanswered and having this presented as a cool girl moment, like you're ignoring your burdensome mom or something, is... not very enjoyable to me.
I won't talk too much about the conversation between Dick and Kory, because that feels like the one main aspect of this comic that has been floated around. Legitimately, I've seen two dozen screen grabs about this and zip about anything else that happened in the comic. (Possibly, maybe, potentially, because the people who read Titans like the Titans? *gasp*)
On one hand, does is suck that Kory is leaving our boys to suffer? A little. But also she deserves it. Fly away. Escape. Run. Go have a series; I'll read that shit. It'll be great. This has also broadly been recognized as one of the only cases where Dick's issues in Bludhaven have been acknowledged rather than keeping up the flanderized Good Boi persona modern Titans uses. @kitkat5628 and I talked about this, but I'm of the opinion that it must be an editorial mandate. For better or worse, the Nightwing personality perpetuated to the public is the happy-go-lucky goober charming guy, and I think in appearances outside of his main series, he's made to largely adhere to this. Unfortunate, again, given how much Bludhaven is killing him, but you can at least offer an in-universe justification that he's purposely hiding his turmoil because he doesn't like to share or doesn't believe he deserves pity. That would be in-character. Oh well.
Besides that, I guess Eva reminds me of Indigo from The Outsiders. Not much else to say. I feel like, by #36, I've learned nothing about any of the less familiar characters other than that they resent being here. I guess Cyborg is also up to some unknown shenanigans involving the construction of something under the new base. Good for him.
Moving onto #37, I just... ugh. I don't want to be lame. I don't want to be a hater. I love all comic fans and everyone who indulges in these characters, and I might just not be the target demographic. But I'm just not compelled by this.
I've never been a super huge fan of this character archetype. The kind of overly-vocal-about-their-disillusionment, too-cool-for-you kind of character. It just doesn't speak to me. I find trying to maintain hope and optimism in spite of tragedy far more admirable, far more enjoyable, than becoming performatively jaded. And it feels like half the team is gearing towards the latter, performative jaded persona. A race for who can be the most disaffected. Something I consider contradictory to the modus operandi of the Titans, from their inception.
(Oh and also the basement thing Cyborg had contained a goddamn dragon, which he failed to fight back with Terra. I find myself not invested. Oh well.) But, okay, back to our main boy.
I liked this conversation conceptually and am iffy on the execution. "Not that type of Spyral"... really? I mean, if I read it from the lens of him trying to inject artificial humor in a "heh... heh" kind of way, born of discomfort and unhappiness, I can get behind it. Same goes for the tattoos comment. But Dick's dialogue is so saturated with this sort of thing that I'm semi-convinced this is just Brambal's voice for him. Quip after quip after quip, completely disregarding the emotional arc he's on. I love quips. You know this about me. I. Love. Dick's. Quippiness. But now, in the midst of his Nightwing arc, during the point where even the Titans series is bringing it up... now?
I can live with it I suppose. And again, addressing things, thank you. But maybe it would be good for him to leave. Let Stephanie takes the reins as the leader, let her have her spot, and focus on the stories that are more compelling for you. Clearly no one is interested in exploring Dick as a character here. He is, at best, a means to prop others up.
I can't get over this characterization. Really.
I'm glad he's supporting Kory. That's good. But he was -- is -- in so much pain. Lord help me for saying this, but the dimples are misplaced. Now is not a dimples time. It's really taking the "faking it while dying inside" to the extreme.
#37 was definitely better than #36, and the characters might be finally getting somewhere, but I think my problem is that they're inherently not the kind of characters I'd cling to (just personal preference, you know?), and the characters I do like are being sidelined or bastardized. I think the best outcome would legitimately be for Dick to leave, so that this new cast could prosper without old coots like me ruining their fun, and I wouldn't be subjected to the baby boi-ification of Dick during one of his most emotionally charged periods in the last two decades. Hell if I know, though.
That's it, though!
Shop reopening!! With new products, including absolute robins💥
the first 10 pages of Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne
the next 10 pages
the next 18
the rest/end
I lied I colored it. I think i made janine too short sorry HSSJSVSKD I was working off memory
I’m still thinking of how tiny Dick was when Two-Face beat the shit out of him. He still had his baby fat and was like 2 feet tall :(
I wish people talked about that as much as they talk about Jason and Joker & as much as ppl talk about Tim and “Joker Jr.” (even tho I’m pretty sure that’s only in Batman Beyond?)
Idk I feel like people only focus on what happened with Jason and Joker (which I kinda get cuz Jason died and Dick didn’t) but I feel like what happened with Two-Face is still within a similar realm and would still cause a shit ton of trauma for him. Same goes for Steph being tortured by Black Mask.
Yeah, the Two-Face beating is and remains a very hard read for me. The vibe the comic sets up is immaculate and terrible.
Bluntly depicting Dick beaten like a real child…
The equally blunt descriptions of his injuries…
Just how afraid and small he looks, even. The blood splatter. Eugh.
Like the final panel of the first two pages above hurts. Imo the whole vibe of this scene is the comic equivalent of when the music cuts.
I get why it isn’t remembered the same way, because Dick doesn’t bring it up. In fact, I think that’s why so many of his other character defining “traumas”, if you’d like to call them that, are neglected. Dick doesn’t talk about them. The narrative doesn’t bring them up, nor other characters. On his end, I assume it’s either out of feeling like he doesn’t deserve/want the pity, or because he feels like other things are more important. This is only one instance of many, and not even the most famous one. The most famous instance, bar none, is probably either the sweeping under the rug of Tarantula or Forever Evil and the various shenanigans surrounding Spyral. Those aren’t referenced either.
Jason is a squeaky wheel as far as his issues with the Joker and his death goes, so of course he gets the narrative and fandom grease. This is something he, and on a meta level the publisher, wants us to remember as a foundational trauma. But it does suck that someone like Dick (or Stephanie, as you mentioned) can’t process or acknowledge experiences with potentially similar developmental implications, either out of their own character’s reluctance to talk about it or an editorial desire to keep their characters lighter to the general audience.
Omg also I still hold to the notion that Dick is the true Joker Jr in comic canon and no one gives a shit because it happened during Ric LMAO.
Look idk idk idk it just SEEMS, possibly perhaps MAYBE, but like idk idk idk
Ah, yes, the old "pretend to be a cat" trick.
Batman Adventures: Nightwing Rising #1
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Batman - All Media Types Rating: General Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Dick Grayson & Bruce Wayne Characters: Dick Grayson, Bruce Wayne Additional Tags: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Grief, Graveside visits, not a happy ending exactly, but i hope there’s the feeling that they’re in each other’s company, which is something very important Summary:
Bruce and Dick, and the one-year anniversary of the Graysons’ deaths.
Sorry if you've gone over this before, but I'd love your thoughts on Dick in knightfall. In almost every panel appearance, he's being salty over Bruce picking Jean Paul before him
The emphasis on this sentence should always be: Bruce picking Jean Paul before him.
I don’t think it was about Jean-Paul. Or, it was only a little. I don’t think he would’ve been so loudly disgruntled if Jean-Paul didn’t have the problems he had. I also think Dick’s protectiveness of Tim is severely underplayed as a factor. Jean endangered and threatened Tim at various moments to Dick’s explicit anger. But Dick would’ve been hurt regardless, as he says (though I think he downplays it), and more importantly as he shows, in other interactions.
Dick never once stopped thinking everything of Bruce. It’s obvious in how he describes Bruce during the playground fight with Tim. Not just the description of him as “the best”, but reciting of the principles Bruce engrained beforehand.
Even though Dick puts on a face about his desire to get away, at every point where he’s able to make a choice, he shows nothing but loyalty.
And, while he definitely doesn’t treat the other changes in the cave the same way he does Jean-Paul, I suspect this is only because Jean-Paul was a permissible figure to hate at the time. He was the target. Dick could dog on him as a stand-in for everything he resented about being left out and left behind.
But we see with his interaction with Harold:
Dick wasn’t super happy about other changes, either. The jokey comment here reads as bitter to me, and that’s notwithstanding all the other similar interactions with changes he was uninformed about. Dick sees that Bruce moved on without him. Dick knew this was true. Dick deliberately fostered this. Still, knowing and seeing are two different things.
It really comes down to “but I’d do anything for Bruce. I thought he knew that.”
Dick would do anything for Bruce. Dick became Batman for Bruce — twice. Dick had constructed his life, his mission, his morals, his perception of self, his perception of value, on Bruce. (There’s a neat bit in the DG run where Dick weighs on whether he would’ve been as loyal to Bruce if Bruce were evil, but I digress.) Even in this era, when Dick was trying to distance himself from Batman, this distance reads to me as a vain attempt to escape how strong this connection was. He probably desperately wanted Bruce not to be this important to him, but his relationship with Bruce wasn’t something he could just let decay at a distance, and the notion that Bruce could do such a thing was sickening.
It’s not just that Jean-Paul was chosen without him, nor just that he was left out while dramatic life-altering events happened without his knowledge. That’s only a symptom. The broader concept of Bruce not understanding him well enough anymore, such that he could truly believe Dick would have wanted to be left out of it, was what did it. That Bruce didn’t understand the depths of Dick’s willingness to sacrifice for him.
And, so, to oversimplify a bit, I think Jean-Paul was just a convenient metonymy for Dick to covertly (ie: not as pathetically) express how hurt he was by Bruce changing, internally and externally, and the distance erected between them.
Anyone else should feel free to add or provide alternate interpretations. This is just how I felt about it while reading lol.
favorite head canon?
This is an incredibly minor one, but until the day I die, you will never, ever convince me that Lex Luthor killed Dick with a cardioplegia pill in Forever Evil. Lex suffocated him.
As a quick catchup for those unaware of Forever Evil: the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the Justice League from Earth 3, captures and tortures Dick for a while, as well as reveals his identity to the public.
This leads to a collaboration between the remaining heroes not in hiding (namely, Batman, with some allies like Catwoman accompanying him) and the villains of main Earth (namely, Lex Luthor, and his merry band of accomplices).
At the end, when Lex, Catwoman, and Batman are breaching the Crime Syndicate’s compound, they encounter Dick strapped to what is aptly named the Murder Machine, a bomb set to destruct unless Dick’s heart is stopped.
The story goes that Lex shoves a pill in Dick’s mouth that stops his heart, stopping the bomb, and then he revives Dick with an adrenaline shot after.
HOWEVER. This is where I beg to differ. See, the sequence of Dick being killed spans 6 pages, a full quarter of the comic issue.
And for the entire time, again spanning multiple minutes, Lex’s hand never leaves Dick’s mouth. He is, to the contrary, depicted as roughly shoving Dick’s mouth and nose shut, only letting off when Bruce goes to beat his ass.
This sticks out for a few reasons:
One, Dick said to Bruce to get out and save himself, and later on to just let him die. He wouldn’t have needed that much cajoling to swallow the murder pill, even if he didn’t know Lex planned to revive him. He would’ve swallowed it, and thus Lex wouldn’t have needed to keep his hand pressed on Dick’s face for that long, let alone that harshly. In fact, regardless of how easy it was to get Dick to consume it, Lex could have let go as soon as Dick swallowed, which would be before he died, because he would have needed to ingest the pill for it to kill him. Hence, Lex should have let go before Dick died.
Two, when Lex prepares to explain what he did, this is preceded by him thinking that he’ll need Bruce on his side for whatever comes next.
Thus brings the explanation of the pill. The pill sounds great from a tactical standpoint. Lex wasn’t trying to hurt Dick, it was just a plan. Bruce gets those, right? He’d sympathize. Except, for this kind of pill, it would have taken at least 15-30 minutes for whatever medication in it to digest and dissolve. Smothering, however, takes around 4-5 minutes to work in a healthy adult. If a person’s health were compromised, if breathing was already partially obstructed by, say, a restrictive machine, or damage to the airways and lungs…
2 minutes and 51 seconds seems pretty damn plausible to me.
But if he needs Bruce on his side, why wouldn’t Lex use an explanation that is more humane, less painful, less brutish? Something that sounds far more rational and logical and well-planned. “Making him flatline” is such a better sounding story than “killing him”. Why wouldn’t he contrive that?
Anyways, TL;DR: Lex suffocated Dick, and in order to maintain his control of the situation, told people it was a pill by pulling some random pills from his pocket as an excuse. Dick was smothered. I dunno what to tell you.
favorite head canon?
This is an incredibly minor one, but until the day I die, you will never, ever convince me that Lex Luthor killed Dick with a cardioplegia pill in Forever Evil. Lex suffocated him.
As a quick catchup for those unaware of Forever Evil: the Crime Syndicate, an evil version of the Justice League from Earth 3, captures and tortures Dick for a while, as well as reveals his identity to the public.
This leads to a collaboration between the remaining heroes not in hiding (namely, Batman, with some allies like Catwoman accompanying him) and the villains of main Earth (namely, Lex Luthor, and his merry band of accomplices).
At the end, when Lex, Catwoman, and Batman are breaching the Crime Syndicate’s compound, they encounter Dick strapped to what is aptly named the Murder Machine, a bomb set to destruct unless Dick’s heart is stopped.
The story goes that Lex shoves a pill in Dick’s mouth that stops his heart, stopping the bomb, and then he revives Dick with an adrenaline shot after.
HOWEVER. This is where I beg to differ. See, the sequence of Dick being killed spans 6 pages, a full quarter of the comic issue.
And for the entire time, again spanning multiple minutes, Lex’s hand never leaves Dick’s mouth. He is, to the contrary, depicted as roughly shoving Dick’s mouth and nose shut, only letting off when Bruce goes to beat his ass.
This sticks out for a few reasons:
One, Dick said to Bruce to get out and save himself, and later on to just let him die. He wouldn’t have needed that much cajoling to swallow the murder pill, even if he didn’t know Lex planned to revive him. He would’ve swallowed it, and thus Lex wouldn’t have needed to keep his hand pressed on Dick’s face for that long, let alone that harshly. In fact, regardless of how easy it was to get Dick to consume it, Lex could have let go as soon as Dick swallowed, which would be before he died, because he would have needed to ingest the pill for it to kill him. Hence, Lex should have let go before Dick died.
Two, when Lex prepares to explain what he did, this is preceded by him thinking that he’ll need Bruce on his side for whatever comes next.
Thus brings the explanation of the pill. The pill sounds great from a tactical standpoint. Lex wasn’t trying to hurt Dick, it was just a plan. Bruce gets those, right? He’d sympathize. Except, for this kind of pill, it would have taken at least 15-30 minutes for whatever medication in it to digest and dissolve. Smothering, however, takes around 4-5 minutes to work in a healthy adult. If a person’s health were compromised, if breathing was already partially obstructed by, say, a restrictive machine, or damage to the airways and lungs…
2 minutes and 51 seconds seems pretty damn plausible to me.
But if he needs Bruce on his side, why wouldn’t Lex use an explanation that is more humane, less painful, less brutish? Something that sounds far more rational and logical and well-planned. “Making him flatline” is such a better sounding story than “killing him”. Why wouldn’t he contrive that?
Anyways, TL;DR: Lex suffocated Dick, and in order to maintain his control of the situation, told people it was a pill by pulling some random pills from his pocket as an excuse. Dick was smothered. I dunno what to tell you.
UTRH outfit.... single tear slides down my face
