WOLFMAN – ON RETURNING TO NIGHTWING – NEWSARAMA
Filed under: Comic Book News, Comic Creator Interviews, Coming Soon
THANK THE COMIC GODS!!! Bruce Jones has killed this title.
Next to Chuck Dixon, I can’t think of anyone I would rather have writing this title. Let’s hope he gets to stay on for a while past his four issues.
WOLFMAN – ON RETURNING TO NIGHTWING – NEWSARAMA
As DC Executive Editor Dan Didio revealed at Charlotte’s Heroes Con, a change is in the air for Nightwing.Beginning with issue October’s #125, Marv Wolfman and Dan Jurgens step in for an (at least) four issue arc. The low cheering you hear are the longtime Nightwing fans, ecstatic that the Wolfman – the character’s co-creator (along with George Perez in 1984) is coming back to the one of the only heroes to have an “on-screen” promotion – that is, Dick Grayson gave up his Robin identity to become Nightwing, graduating, in a sense, and coming out from under Batman’s wing.According to Wolfman, the reason he’s coming back is a simple one – “I was asked to do it,” the writer said. “They only asked for a four part story but I obviously would hope it could continue. I love the character.”
For Wolfman, his October return will mark the first time in years and years that he’s handled Nightwing in an ongoing fashion. The last time Wolfman wrote Nightwing? Over a decade ago in New Titans. After writing him monthly in the Titans for virtually 15 years, Nightwing was taken away from the team at the request of the Batman office. “I had wanted to do Nightwing back then but I’d been told they were looking for a different spin at the time,” Wolfman said.
Given his time with the character over the years, obviously, Wolfman has loads of insight on what makes Nightwing unique in a world filled to the brim with men and women wearing tight costumes and fighting crime.
“I think that he was brought up by Batman is what makes him unique. But he is anything but Batman,” Wolfman said. “Where Batman stewed over the death of his parents and the fact that Joe Chill was never caught – not for years at least, the killers of the Flying Graysons were captured right away. He didn’t have time to brood. And even if he had, that wasn’t his personality. I think when you’re a circus acrobat you probably have seen members of your family die. God knows how many Flying Wallendas didn’t come out in one piece.
“Beside, I think Dick was already a trained athlete. He was good at what he did and didn’t have Batman’s obsession to make himself the best in order to fight crime. Dick has the elements of Batman in that he understands detective work, understands how to go about stopping the bad guys, but he doesn’t have Batman’s ticks. Also, having been brought up essentially as the son of a hero, I think you come into it with a different view point than the father. Dick is fairly well adjusted – at least for someone who does put on a costume and fight crime. His personal problems are more in common with other people his age. As I see it, he is also someone who has spent a lifetime wearing a uniform and fighting crime, but he’s now in his 20s and has to start thinking about other things, too. What is his life when he takes off the mask. He’s not with Batman. He’s not Robin, the Boy Target, and he’s no longer with the Titans. The one thing he knows is he doesn’t want to be Nightwing 24/7. Let me emphasize that I don’t see him as a whiner. At 17 that was fine. At 20-whatever, that would be just wrong. He just wants to figure out the role Dick Grayson plays in his life as opposed to the role Nightwing plays. Lots to do in four issues.”
Likewise, Wolfman’s put some thought into why people tend to like Nightwing so much. Not “people” in the DC Universe (although they like him a lot too), but readers. Consistently, Dick Grayson is one of the most popular heroes in the DC pantheon among all DC fans. Oh – and there’s also an odd caveat to the character’s popularity – he’s probably one of the only male superheroes who has more female than male fans…or if not more, than at last female fans that feel more passionately about him than his male fans.
As Wolfman sees it, the upswell of emotion for Nightwing began as Grayson moved out on his own, and then took off after fans got to see how he and Perez handled him as Nightwing. “Unlike many heroes, Nightwing’s angst wasn’t crippling,” the writer said. “He isn’t Spider-Man. He’s a good guy trying his best to grow up against pretty hard odds. He’s smart, probably one of the smartest people in the room, but not necessarily book smart; people smart. He doesn’t have a supreme ego. He understands his role in a group situation and is good at getting others to do what’s needed to be done without coming off as bossy or insensitive. He is a man who doesn’t push his manhood but it’s never in doubt. I think women like the lack of ego but also the lack of fake humility. He’s himself. He likes women but first sees them as equals before anything else. He’s good with guys because he doesn’t act like he’s their superior. And, at the same time, he’s not a goody two-shoes. He does have edge. What’s not to like?”
And though he’s been away from the character for over ten years, that doesn’t mean Wolfman’s not familiar with where Nightwing’s at today, and what he’s been going through. “In the Titans I wrote a 17-19 year old Dick Grayson primarily trying to grow up and separate himself from Batman,” Wolfman said. “Now I’m writing a 20-something Dick Grayson who has come to grips with Batman and understands how valuable it was growing up with him but now is on his own. He’s the son who loves and respects his father but doesn’t want to be his father. He’s spent his entire life doing one thing and is now at the age that he realizes there’s a whole world out there. He wanted to be free and now he is, but with freedom comes choices. He may be great at punching out bad guys, but deciding what life is about, well, not so great there.”
All of that said, Wolfman has a clear view of what he has to do in four issues, and as he already said, it’s a lot. “I’ve got to show a Dick Grayson who is completely competent, yet exciting,” Wolfman said. “And to remind folks why he’s so good. To tell a fun story where I get to put him through the wringer and see what he does. And if I do that well, maybe do more of them. Lots more.”
To cut off any projections fans may have, Wolfman’s been reading up – with a bemused smile – about what some are saying he’s going to do.
“I’ve read the sites where the fans are going, well, ‘Marv is going to bring back the Titans,’ or ‘Marv is going to turn him into God knows what,’” Wolfman said. “Most of what people are saying is based on what I did with the character 10-25 years ago when Dick was only in one comic, the Titans, and he had no impact on any other book. That isn’t the case here.
“This story will have a new villain. New supporting characters. No old plot lines, and no returning princesses,” Wolfman continued. “By the way, that was the funny one I kept reading on the web, that I was immediately going to bring Kory into the title. I never even thought of putting in any Titans. The idea was to stabilize the Dick Grayson character, not go back to his first or second love from when he was a kid. On the other hand, if I were told to do more, somewhere way down the line, it would be interesting to see how the characters react with all that baggage behind them. One thing I know is they would never be the same as they were in the early Titans. They are older and they’ve had a lot of mileage since then. Different time and different mindset.
“That said, Peter Tomasi, the editor, and I talked over what he wanted to see from Nightwing and fortunately it was exactly what I wanted to do. We both saw the character in the same way, thank goodness. But Peter definitely had a direction he wanted to see done so it wasn’t like I came in and started dictating what will be done or not done.
“First, I’ve never done that. Not even on titles I edited myself but certainly never when I’m working with an editor. And secondly, the editor is the one who often decides the direction of the book and with a character like Nightwing, who resonates throughout the entire DCU these days, you can’t have a maverick decide he’s going to do this or that whether the company wants it or not. You try, you’re out on the street, and correctly so. As I say fortunately, we were on the same page, at least as far as the direction for the four-parter goes.
“If I’d been asked to turn him into a Deathstroke-like psycho killer, which would be wrong, or make him only a hard boiled detective, which could be fun but not how I see the character, I frankly would have turned it down as much as I wanted not only the work, but for personal reasons, this specific series. Getting Nightwing, even for four issues, is to me one of those ‘I can finally close that door’ moments. I just hope people like it. I think it brings the character back to the right place again. My real strength is in developing character over a period of issues. But whether I get that chance or not, I’m really thrilled to write for him again. He’s a wonderful character, if I do say so myself.”
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