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How it started vs how it’s going :’)

Batman And Robin Year One (2025) #8

Nightwing (2016) #113

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Nightwing #127 - "Other" (2025)

written by Dan Watters art by Dexter Soy & Veronica Gandini

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One of the wildest things that is apparently a thing now in briefly returning to comics fandom is...I've seen two posts saying people being put off by shipping Bruce Dick on the correct basis that Bruce and Dick are a father and son is erasure of queer history or something because it was meant to be an ambiguous relationship couldn't be categorized and...look my brain couldn't process either of those posts. It short circuited.

but the point is,. only somewhat related, and because I happened to be reading this stuff when I saw this, I want to clarify:

Bruce and Dick WERE referred to, and referred to each other, as father and son, very consistently in the Golden age. It was considered a familial relationship. Modern fandom and modern comics didn't make that up.

I've been reading a few random Golden Age Batman stories and its like. everywhere:

Bruce truly has an incredible thought process in the above one. I am agog. You CAN just say "I want grandkids" and leave it at that. man.

(I got a lot of these from this post series I ran across by @northoftheroad though I went out and cropped all the panels myself for some reason. But check that post for issue numbers and some more examples!)

The prevalence of "like" a son is because technically, Dick isn't legally Bruce's son in this era...not because Bruce didn't want to him be but because Bruce wasn't able to legally adopt Dick in that era. Single men adopting kids was just something that was not done back then (I didn't know this until recently myself!), and in some older comics they straight up explain that's why Dick is a ward, see @fantastic-nonsense really interesting post on it all here.

(interestingly sometimes Bruce does refer to Dick as "adopted" despite that, see here:)

But it's clear legality doesn't matter in regards to the actual relationship they have. They think of each other as father and son. And that's reflected with stuff like Bruce 'grounding' Dick from being Robin when he (supposedly) falls behind on his homework, etc.

So honestly, during that period where DC seemed not to want to say Bruce is Dick's dad (except in dramatic moments), that was actually a departure from the original, not the other way around.

(okay and. i think we need to be clear that. Frederick Wertham thought this was pedophilia because 1. he can't fathom a man wanting to adopt a child without it being predatory 2. He literally thought Bruce having a vase of flowers in his mansion was proof he was gay and 3. He CLAIMED some of his patients currently in the process of being "cured" for being gay said they fantasized about being Robin and taken care of by Batman or something like that. And that's fine if they did, but I think that's a far cry from anything being "intended", and wouldn't want to use him as source in general.)

(* clarifying to say I know about the 60's show's history w/ the queer community and do think Burt Ward clearly being an adult made a difference there, I think it's an interesting topic worth exploring by someone who's not me, my main intention with this post is to correct a factual misrepresentation of the comics. Also like, considering all the other fraught things going on here, this is a minor thing, but some of these arguments come off very 'adopted kids don't count' and this shows that even in 40s, they very much do.)

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kind of old news but the beloveds……they're finally home from the war!

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JT opinions that'll make me insta-block you:

Jason Todd is ugly

Jason is Bruce's favorite

Jason is Alfred's favorite

Jason hates Willis Todd

Jason was "reckless" during ADITF (- and I don't even mean this in the way Bruce does. I mean this in the "Trying to take a civilian out of a potential area of conflict before a known murderer shows up is literally the CORRECT PROTOCOL" way)

Jason isn't queer-coded (esp during UTRH but just in general)

Jason is hot-headed/brash/stupid

Jason hides/represses his emotions (he does NOT. the only reason why he's not yelling about his feelings with a megaphone is because holding Bruce at gunpoint so he'll have to hear about them is more effective)

Jason is dirty/unorganized/lives in a shithole apartment

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Is Dick Grayson best written as

• as a solo character (Nightwing, Grayson, etc.)

• as a leader/ member of a team (Titans, Batfamily, etc.)

• Both/ nuance

• See results

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“Dick Grayson was Batmans first Robin but Jason Todd was Bruce’s first son”

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Okay, We are all used to it and many love the current Bruce, secretive and emotionally constipated... And I know poor communication is a trope in their life at this point...

But, man, sometimes I miss the old Bruce, when it was just Dick and him, and Bruce didn't mind telling people he loved that kid like his own son, who tells Dick that he would rather lose his arms than him, that he couldn't even think of replacing him, who played with him and that was more important than anything.

I miss them.

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Three weeks ago, Dick had a loving mother and father. A glamorous life as circus aerialist. Adoring crowds chanting his name. Now he’s orphaned. Masked and anonymous.

dc comics + tv tropes (1/?)

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Thank you so much for this! I’m so tired of seeing his impact and importance downplayed 😭 like you don’t have to like the character or what he represents, but that doesn’t change the fact that he is the heart of the DCU, or at the very least a valid candidate. I also think a lot of people misunderstand what that means? So maybe it might help to explain what you consider to be the requirements.

As a side note, as someone else mentioned, Watters has described Dick as the bridge, and Lemire has described him as the heart of DCU.

Here’s a screenshot of Lemire’s statement:

And here’s Watters’ interview (the “Dick Grayson is the bridge” part starts around 8:00 minutes in):

because I am nothing if not a professional hater, I'm working on gathering up a bunch of interviews and in-universe acknowledgements that Dick is the heart/linchpin of the DCU as a response to people on twitter who continually devalue Dick's importance as a character

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I truly don't understand the vitriol some people have at the idea that Nightwing is the center of the DCU. Like the legacy he left as Robin both in and out of canon alone cannot be touched! He is the reason we have so many sidekicks and a legacy of them at that all throughout DCs history. Waid's World's Finest has basically beaten us over the head with the fact considering he treats Dick like a main protagonist along Bruce and Clark.

Like idk what it is, genuinely. Do yall not like him? That's fine I guess but that doesn't really change his impact. Do you want your other favs to be the center of the DCU? I can sympathize but also if you stick around and grow long enough as a reader in DC you're gonna find a character who doesn't get enough love or page time because that's a lot of them so welcome to the club. It is still not Dick Graysons fault though!

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Batman/Superman: World’s Finest Annual 2025

Guys I can’t believe we’re getting the “Dick as Robin travels in time and meets his older self” Fic plot in World’s Finest canon !!!