Stories that make you go "Awwww" - Dick and Bruce being grown ups

[icon_uk]

This is actually a tough theme for me, not because I don't love such moments, (And not because of my penchant for tied up heroes) but rather the opposite, I love the slushy stuff and have posted a LOT of it, but that's just it, I've already posted them...

Whether it's another Bruce and Dick moment, or Doug and Warlock being adorable, or a Bruce and Dick moment, or Doug and Warlock being adorable, or AvX or Alfred being awesome... well, you see what I mean... I could also cite the entirety of Calvin and Hobbes, or a lot of Asterix, and they might be coming, but a recent post on tumblr reminded me of THIS scene.


This is from New Teen Titans #50, The Wedding of Donna Troy, and is set during the era of Jason Todd 1.0, not long after Bruce adopted him and Dick became Nightwing, and is after the ceremony where the guests are mingling and chatting...



I love that so much can be done in so few panels. Dick asks a question which he clearly HATES asking, but feels he has to, and Bruce, not being the anal retentive, emotionally inept jerk he would later become, has no problem in articulating his feelings for the man he DOES love like a son, and in giving him an answer that will answer him and reassure him, and they both behave like mature, rational adults who respect each other completely.... I miss that

Oh, and the four ladies at the top are real people, as George Perez discusses here. They were all BIG Robin fans back in the pre-Internet days of comic fandom.
 

Comments

[biod]

Touching though this may be, the brunette's efficient conveiance of the necessary information is the best thing in this page.

[icon_uk]

Brevity is appreciated in such situations. :)

[bewareofgeek]

I've actually MET one of those ladies (Mercy Van Vlack, at a Boston con. In fact, I think I did a panel with her once).

[wake_the_dragon]

Aww, I love the Batfamily.

Super heroes acting in a mature adult way? I nearly forgot such a thing was possible.

[tammy_moore]

While I love the brunette's economy of words - I have to admit it was the Natalia Knight thing that startled me.

I was not aware of the story and having gone to look it up... The Bat-family should be glad that Jason is as together as he is. I mean...he put her in the balloon and that was the last we saw of her?

OK, that's from wiki so reliability is iffy, but still!

[icon_uk]

Different Jason. The whole Natalia Knight/Nocturna thing was unique to Jason Todd 1.0 (The former circus acrobat), and never featured in the story of Jason 2.0 (street punk and tyre thief)

[silverhammerman]

Fantastic. I'm a total schmuck for stuff like this, it's just delightful.

[jaybee3]

This is really nice. I don't know why they never went with the obvious answer as to why Bruce adopted Jason and not Dick. Dick had two parents who memories he cherished and who would always be "his" parents. Jason basically had no parents at all - heck, his mom betrayed him to the Joker after he tried to save her. In many way Bruce was Jason's "first" real parent. That's how I saw it at least.

[sistermagpie]

It's probably another subtle mark of Bruce's maturity here that the answer he gives Dick is very no-strings attached, if that makes sense. I mean, what you're saying could very well be true, and there no doubt is more to Bruce's feelings that he's saying here that are more complicated, but if he said something like that to Dick here, he'd be sort of handing off his own baggage to Dick. Like, if he said to Dick that John and Mary would always be his parents, it might make Dick feel he had to reassure Bruce that he was his parent too, or feel like Bruce actually was saying he was more of Jason's parent than Dick's because Dick had parents.

Instead Bruce gives an answer that puts all the blame on himself as the parent, yet doesn't make the reasons about his own emotional needs.

[icon_uk]

Actually the Jason they're talking about is Jason 1.0, who had two very loving parents.

Jason 2.0 still had his adoptive (though he only found out about that in "A Death in the Family") mother who did love him by all accounts, until she died (whether it be from illness or drug addiction, depending on which version you read)

Are they scanners?

[blue_bolt]

"What a Tush!"

"He is gorgeous. I want him"

Icon_UK one of those girls is you in disguise right? I can tell.

Honestly, I think the redhead says it best: we ALL want him xoxoxoxo DICK Grayson, forever and ever

_♥_♥___♥_♥_
♥___♥_♥___♥
_♥___♥___♥_
__♥ .____ ♥__
___♥___♥___
____♥_♥____
_____♥_____

Re: Are they scanners?

[icon_uk]

Yeah, I'm the one with the bottle of chloroform and the duct tape in my purse.

Re: Are they scanners?

[venatosapiens]

Things that only sound ok on Scans Daily...

Re: Are they scanners?

[icon_uk]

True, though they do tend to get you fast tracked through security at airports. Yes, you're pulled out of the line to be searched, but on the plus side, they usually fast track you through the gate afterwards!

Or... ummm... so I've heard.

[onceaskrull]

I love Batfam moments that show them being mature and loving, rather than hampered by drama and bitterness. So family moments will always get an "awwww" out of me.

Those comments are all hilarious to me. I've seen some good looking guys, but never have I clustered with my friends to comment on them. Then again, if Dick Grayson were to exist...who knows?

[espanolbot]

Interestingly, Bruce did attempt to adopt Dick more recently, which resulted in Ra's al Ghul giving Dick some (faked) information suggesting that Dick was his long lost grandson.

That is to say, the guy thought that his son got an Anglophonic name (they're Roma) after they became estranged, and has been travelling the world to try and make amends with him...

...Only for it to turn out that he and Dick aren't actually related, and Ra's just wanted to mess with Dick and Bruce by presenting the possiblity of more ties to Dick's biological family just as he was about to officially join Bruce's.

Dick does try to other to stay in touch with the old Roma man on the basis that he doesn't really have an actual grandfather (not count Alfred) and doesn't really have that much of a connection to his family's culture, but he vanished after the storyline was over as he continued his search for his long lost son.

Which is hella depressing. I think that Devin Grayson wrote it.

[icon_uk]

Other way around IIRC, it was after Ra's used that incredibly stupid and contrived plot to put a wedge between Dick and Bruce by introducing his faux Romany grandpa, that Bruce offered to adopt Dick.

If a plotline is based around Dick's Romany past, rest assured that it's Devin Grayson, she's the one who introduced it, and the only one to ever refer to it.

The fact that Ra's counted on neither Dick Bruce nor even Babs thinking "Gosh, an unknown old guy claiming to be Dick's grandfather shows up and says he used to work at the circus. It's such a shame we don't know how to get in touch with someone who might have been at the circus back then" when Dick OWNS the bloody Haly Circus.

And the old guy didn't disappear, he stayed in Bludhaven and was one of the casualties of the bomb that Tarantula planted in Dick's apartment block (Which had apparently grown from a small three storey building to a full grown tenement somehow) and at this point I have to stop or I start slamming my head into the desk repeatedly.

[sistermagpie]

Not to mention, even in DG's telling, part of the heritage of being Romany would be knowing your family. At least as far back as your grandfather.