Nightwing #30 preview - The lead into Grayson

[icon_uk]

From Hero Complex, the preview for Nightwing #30






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Comments

[chortles81]

So Bruce alone is allowed to know and no one else in the Batfamily? This can't possibly end well.

[icon_uk]

Well, in terms of sort-of-Bat-family Selina knows, and Lex knows too... though I don't imagine that helps much.

[kenn_el]

This is why I always hated Professor X and Jean Grey! Waaaay back when the X-Men all wore the same costume and sales were slumping Marvel decided to change things 'radically' and kill off the Prof, as the teens mourned, got dissimilar costumes, and went their separate ways...for about two issues. Then Charles appeared and explained that it was all a ruse, and, of course, having written Jean as psychically connecting with Charles, they had to reveal that she'd been in on it, and had been LYING all the time! Bad stuff pulling something like this.

[icon_uk]

IIRC The hint had already been there that something was up, when she was telepathic in those intervening stories, when that had never been in her powerset before.

[matrix_dragon]

...You didn't tell Alfred?

YOU DIDN'T TELL ALFRED?!

DAMMIT BRUCE!

[kenn_el]

Alfred should quit. OTOH, I hope Bruce is using this to test the other Bat Fam members! "You call yourselves detectives? He's not even wearing a MASK!"

[janegray]

Seriously. That's wrong on so many levels I can't even begin listing them.

[chortles81]

Here's my attempt to get 'em all in a nutshell: Bruce, if you can let a pair of non-metas run around with the knowledge of Dick's survival besides yourself, then you can tell Alfred -- because if a passing telepath gets close enough to Alfred pick up the deception, you've got other problems besides a meta knowing of Dick's survival.

[mastermahan]

Hooray, it's the return of DC's favorite plotline: Batdickey!

1) Batman acts like a paranoid dick to his friends and allies.
2) Horrible things happen.
3) Batman learns to not be a dick.
4) Batman acts like a paranoid dick to his friends and allies.

Repeat until everyone is sick of this.

[chortles81]

And to think the Web site is called Superdickery...

[zapbiffpow]

"Lying is wrong! I'd know that if I ever paid attention to anything that's ever happened to me!"

[bj_l]

"There's something you should know about me by now: I don't learn lessons."

[dragonbat2006]

I LOL'd

[zapbiffpow]

YES

YESSSSSSSSSS

[junipepper]

This can't end well...

[tianyulong]

So WHY isn't Batman telling the Batfamily Dick is alive?

[icon_uk]

No idea, so their reactions are always believable, and any passing telepath doesn't pick up on the deception? (Bruce presumably being able to out-angst any telepathic scan)

[chortles81]

"so their reactions are always believable"

This only works if his reaction to "Dick is back from the dead!" is believable when the Batfamily finds out...

"any any passing telepath doesn't pick up on the deception?"

For me the problem is why he considers Catwoman and Lex Luthor also immune -- them being in the know is a given, but then you'd think that he'd either lend them tech to steel their minds against such a reveal, or trying to wipe their minds. Bruce vs. Lex would be interesting in this respect, while Selina on the other hand.... ahahahahahahaha, Bruce has about as much of a chance at pulling that off as he would at surviving her wrath when she inevitably finds out.

I admittedly believe that the Batfamily would take it better if Bruce had also wiped his own mind of Dick's survival, leaving only Dick himself in the know, as the main source of intra-Batfamily Batdickery seems to be an appearance of "for me but not for thee!" in Bruce. (Oddly enough, I'm reminded of Dick's displeasure at Jean-Paul Valley, "AzBats", only magnifying his more 'core' annoyance at the seeming presumption of Bruce to not even courtesy-call Dick about taking up the cowl even if Dick was occupied as Nightwing.)

[qalchemist]

Am I the only one...?

"HE WASN'T A BOY!--"

*cut to pictures of Dick in women's clothing*

[icon_uk]

Actually I was finding the other implication "HE WAS ALL MAN!!" to be even more disturbing from his adoptive father figure.

[shadowpsykie]

to me it seemed like he was saying he was never "just A boy" he was Dick. he was family.

[shirtless_superheroes]

I get what Bruce was trying to say, but it rubs me the wrong way.

Also, it really is a dick move for him to not tell Alfred. What possible reason could he have? Does he think Alfred is not trustworthy?

[burkeonthesly]

Hang on. In faking Dick's death, did Batman set things up so that Alfred would find the body?

[icon_uk]

I doubt it, since Dick would have been known to have died in the Crime Syndicate's base.

[obsidianwolf]

You know I wish in response to this when the truth comes out Alfred would just lay into Bruce with everything he's ever held back because it isn't proper and not his place to say and then quits.

And then the writers would actually address how much Bruce actually needs Alfred.

Of course that will most likely never happen the only way Alfred is going to get out of that manor is as a casualty in some grim dark story line at some future point and then they'll have him show up as the Outsider in an homage to the classic story and then eventually he'll be restored and no one will wonder at his return to life.

[chortles81]

Pre-New 52 Alfred actually did quit once, back in the old Venom arc of Legends of the Dark Knight (which actually preceded Bane), when Bruce's thought processes were altered by Venom (taken in pill form) -- culminating in Bruce letting the drugmaker and his cohort (an evil general) go when the drug designer threw a baggie of pills in the other direction. After a moment (and a laughed "got 'em") though, that Bruce was ashamed enough that he called up Alfred and begged him to lock Bruce up in solitary with only food and water (read: that Bruce forcing himself to undergo Venom withdrawal) and under no circumstances -- not even when Bruce was making feral noises -- let Bruce out until a month had passed... EDIT: I guess that that Alfred figured that it wasn't 'the same Bruce' if that Bruce was being so contrite-though-desperate, and he took pity on Bruce over the course of the month.

One particular moment I liked though about that storyline: when the drugmaker later put Bruce in a death trap and offered him pills to survive, Bruce told him that the pills wouldn't be enough, luring the drugmaker into granting him his requests (weights, high-protein food, and blankets)... then that Bruce "MacGyver'd" his way out.

[icon_uk]

He also quit in the Knightfall (Or one of the Knight... arcs) and toured the world on his savings, before Dick came and basically begged him to return.

He ALSO quit in the "Officer Down" thing because he got sick of Bruce's bullshit and his treatment of the rest of his family. I can't remember why he came back that time.

[chortles81]

They were Knightfall, Knightquest, and KnightsEnd

Was it Jean-Paul who dismissed Alfred that time? I can see Alfred coming back at Dick's behest just fine, but I have no idea if Alfred's quitting in "Officer Down" was along the lines of "lay into Bruce with everything he's ever held back because it isn't proper and not his place to say", much less why he'd come back if that was the case.

[icon_uk]

In both instances Alfred quit on his own (Jean-Paul never worked with Alfred, who was with Bruce whilst J-P was Az-Bats). There he quit because he wasn't going to watch Bruce destroy himself as he seemed hell bent on doing.

IIRC In Officer Down it was a culmination of things, but mostly Bruce acting like a petulant child, which Alfred wasn't prepared to have to deal with AGAIN.

[espanolbot]

I think that Alfred's return after Officer Down was covered in a Nightwing, issue, but my recollection is spotty unfortunately due to the lack of trades of that period. Trying to fill in the gaps via Comixology, but I only have so much cash.

[dragonbat2006]

He found out that Bruce had been arrested for the murder of Vesper Fairchild and left a note for Tim (he'd been at Brentwood in the interim), saying "He needs me" and went back in time to help Bruce escape from a police transport.

[zapbiffpow]

Jesus, Bruce. One of these days Alfie's gonna have a heart attack, and then you won't have any chance to say, "I did this to protect you/him/me."

[icon_uk]

Sure he will, he knows the Spectre and will call in a favour.

[bj_l]

And no one will mourn him because Bruce will tell nobody.

[zapbiffpow]

"I did this to protect his corpse!"

You know what, I'm gonna do some "I did this to protect _" fanart. Heh, heh.

[writeofway]

*Alfred finds out Dick is alive and Bruce knew the whole time*

Alfred: How. Dare. You.

Bruce: Alfred?

Alfred: You have lied and betrayed your fellow heroes; your comrades-in-arms in your crusade for justice; and I stood by because I believed in your heart you were doing what you thought was necessary even if I didn't agree with it. You demanded complete obedience and faithfulness from young men and women whose faces you lied to with impunity, if not outright remained silent! And I stood by, saying nothing, because I believed, deep down, you loved them and wanted to protect them as much as you could from this life.

Bruce: What's your point, Alfred?

Alfred: My point, Master Bruce, is this. You can lie to your fellow heroes. You may even lie to others. But you never...EVER...lie to ME. I'd think that with everything I have been for you; Confidant, servant, driver, cook, physician, butler, fath- I thought that at the very least I had a right to know.

Bruce: I couldn't risk anyone knowi-

Alfred: I'M NOT 'ANYONE!'
*long pause*

Bruce: *looks down* No. No, you're not.

[icon_uk]

Round of applause....

[dragonbat2006]

I... would read this in canon or fanfic.

[bradygirl_12]

Poor Alfred! Oh, I hope he does lay into Bruce once he finds out. He'll probably let his displeasure be known to Dick, too, but he'll blame Bruce more, I think.

Bruce would be lost without Alfred! We saw just a little of that in The Dark Knight Rises when after the fight with Alfred, Bruce wakes up to the sound of the doorbell the next morning and automatically calls for Alfred to answer it. When he finally has to himself, Lucius is surprised that he's answering his own door. Bruce can survive out in the wilderness just fine but when faced when cooking eggs and bacon and answering his front door, he's clueless! :)

[zapbiffpow]

"cooking eggs and bacon"

He is going TO DIE.

[bradygirl_12]

*laughs*

Just not Bruce's thing. ;)

[lbd_nytetrayn]

On a separate note: Hero Complex's viewer is the absolute worst thing to try to use to preview a comic on mobile.

[junipepper]

Word.