NIGHTWING #93: A sample of Devin Grayson's work

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

Given how much Devin Grayson's run on NIGHTWING has been discussed on my previous post, I thought some pages from said run might be appreciated.

This can be considered the climax of the "Born Again 2: Electric Boogaloo" storyline in NIGHTWING. In more ways than one. (D'oh!)



Blockbuster has torched Haley's Circus, blown up Dick's apartment building (killing most of the tenants), almost blown up Bludhaven's police station, and killed a reporter who was standing right next to Nightwing. Then Blockbuster dramatically jumping into the hotel room.



Okay, "Roland," what's the real secret?



"But the people around you are a different matter. Blockbuster tries to shoot a random hotel guest in the hallway, but Nightwing stops him.

Hey, I know Dick was trained/raised by Bruce Wayne, but he wouldn't enjoy physical punishment. I hope.

Oh, part of the problem here is Blockbuster blames Nightwing for his mother's death. I don't quite know why he does, but he does.





No, I don't know what, if anything, Blockbuster did to break up Babs and Dick.

Hey, who is that talking?



Hey, it's Tarantula. She may be Devin Grayson's "Mary Sue," but I really hope not.





So, Tarantula shoots and kills Blockbuster. Nightwing (splattered with Blockbuster's blood) freaks out some more, runs up to the roof, and he and Tarantula have non-consensual rooftop sex while Blockbuster's body is still warm. Remind me how this means Tarantula is Grayson's "self-insertion" character?

Comments

[unknownscribler.insanejournal.com]

She kills for him -- he arguably lets her kill for him -- then has dub-con sex with him?

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

I wish I could take the term "dub-con" out back of the shed and beat it to death with a shovel.

He said NO. It's RAPE. THERE IS NO ROOM FOR DEBATE ON THIS. If it was a MALE character doing this shit to a FEMALE character, we wouldn't even be DEBATING this.

I just ... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUGH

[freezer818.insanejournal.com]

Remind me how this means Tarantula is Grayson's "self-insertion" character?

Sue =/= Self-Insert (at least not automatically). A character who is unequivocably badass, who takes no shit and gets none in return, who routinely makes the regular cast look like chumps and gets no payback, who acts the way her creator wishes he could get away with making the regulers act? Mary Sue/Marty Stu.

Not saying that's the case here (Don't know enough about Grayson's Nightwing run to know one way or the other). But the argument can be made, easily. A character doesn't have to be good to be a Sue.

[darklorelei.insanejournal.com]

THANK YOU. Gah. (Sorry, the Mary Sue=Self Insert thing drives me NUTS. SIs are usually Mary Sues, but the reverse is not necessarily true!)

Also Sues don't have to be bad, considering they're basically endemic to genre fiction.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

How about people just stop saying "Sue" since there's a billion different definitions for the term, and half the time you can apply those definitions to time-tested much-beloved characters? It's gotten fucking idiotic. It's gotten BEYOND idiotic. Just say what your problems are with the character instead of using such an utterly worthless label.

You can even say "she's a bad character". We'll all understand what you mean, and in this case I'd agree with you.

[kagome654.insanejournal.com]

So...Batman is a Sue?

[okkult3000.insanejournal.com]

I remember when this story was called Daredevil: Born Again. Only there was less rape.

[savvy_sleek.insanejournal.com]

Except for some reason Matt doesn't have an abusive girlfriend around to kill Wilson Fisk.

[jelly_ace.insanejournal.com]

And it goes pretty downhill from here, for me. This is the point where you go read Gotham Adventures for a less angsty and better written Nightwing.

[fungo_squiggly.insanejournal.com]

If you are a villain, and unless your name is something like "the Joker," you never, never, NEVER taunt the hero about his supposed unwillingness to actually kill you.

Because if he doesn't kill you, odds are one of his friends or acquaintances shortly will.

[lightbrigade.insanejournal.com]

Who's the artist?

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

Patrick Zircher

[box_in_the_box.insanejournal.com]

Remind me how this means Tarantula is Grayson's "self-insertion" character?

She tells the hero that one of the major cornerstones of his entire moral code (in this case, his "no kill" code) is wrong, and he accepts it, and yet, at the end, he's still "not strong enough" to do "what needs to be done," so she does it for him, and he's so devastated by it that he curls up into a cocoon, at which point she infantilizes him and becomes the effective protagonist of the book in his place, since it's her decisions and will that drive the plots forward from then on. Also, she treats her rivals for his love like shit - in the case of Barbara, THROWING A KNIFE AT HER HEAD - and in spite of the fact that Dick has a LIFETIME longer relationship with Barbara than with Tarantula, he LETS TARANTULA GET AWAY WITH THAT SHIT. ALSO, there's the matter of Devin Grayson's utterly creepy and triggery portrayal of Dick's rape itself, which further infantilizes Dick and glamorizes Tarantula, and which Grayson talks about in interviews in equally creepy terms, by insisting that there's a difference between "rape" and "non-consensual sex," and NO THERE FUCKING ISN'T YOU STUPID BIT';AGDSJKGFA'DLGHD

... Also, this marks at least the third time in which Grayson has written a story about Dick having sex with the female character that he's partnered up with - the first being the online Dick/Donna Troy fanfic that she submitted to Denny O'Neil to get hired by DC, and the second being the Nightwing/Huntress mini, both of which cast their preexisting female characters in horribly OOC lights to satisfy her stories - and when you couple this with things she's said in several interviews about how she'd "fallen in love with" Dick ... yeah, it's not exactly that hard to connect the dots.

[neuhallidae.insanejournal.com]

Oh, and don't forget how she somehow made the most well-connected hero in the entire DCverse (For God's sake, people who don't trust the Big Three trust this guy. He probably has entire civilizations who adore him.) be so broken down and lonely and utterly friendless that the only person who could possibly understand his pain and be there for him (in the creepiest way possible) was... Tarantula. Yes, eventually, he got over it and took her down, but it never should have been set up in the first place.

[skitty_kat.insanejournal.com]

Of course he enjoys physical punishment. As the illustrious Ms. Grayson has told us, he's a touch junkie. Fight or fuck.
Which is all very well in fanfiction ... but I find it gets a little embarassing here.

[icon_uk.insanejournal.com]

As I've said before, this whole scenario was ridiculous. It required Nightwing, scion of the Bat-clan, leader of the Teen Titans, the Outsiders, one time leader of the JLA and generally all round best connected hero in the DCU to become Billy No-mates and no one notices.

Of ALL the heroes in the DCU for Blockbuster to target, Dick is probably the OMLY one who could deal with a villain saying "I shall target your family, I shall target your friends, and I shall never stop" with a simple "My family starts with Batman, my friends start with Superman... get back to me on how that works out for you, would you?"

Then he opens the nearest door, and arrayed outside are half the Outsiders, all the Titans, and some JSA'ers along for laughs (Some have popcorn) "And I have the freaking JLA on speed dial, you idiot. These are just the ones who could make it here at short notice. Shift change at eight."

[hearthemvoices.insanejournal.com]

This.

[404glitch.insanejournal.com]

And let's not forget that Tarantula is the one that actually creates the wedge that breaks Dick and Babs up during Grayson's run. Blockbuster hired her in the first place to screw with (ha!) Nightwing.

Where the self-insertion/Mary-sue stuff comes in is that 'Grayson' isn't her birth name (she changed it later) and she was sexually abused as a child (which prompted the name change to distance herself).

[requiem2adream.insanejournal.com]

Wasn't Tarantula in fact hired to kill Babs, but rather than kill her Tarantula took it upon herself to create a wedge between them because it would make Dick crazy or some such BS? (I'll admit, it's been a while since I read these issues - in fact I try to forget they exist - so I could be wrong.) Sadly though, I can't help but think that if Babs wasn't fronting BoP at the time, Grayson would have in fact had Tarantula kill her off.

Also it saddens me that she is not more aware of how what she wrote, re: the sex, comes across, especially as she was a victim of abuse herself.

[kusonaga.insanejournal.com]

I liked Nightwing up until the issue after this - although, naturally, I had some problems with the rape. Otherwise, it was a decent story, with great art (Zircher is one of the better Nightwing artists; he can do acrobatics really well).

Of course, it goes downhill from here, but up until this point? Yeah, I dug it. It being my first DCU title might also help in that regard, but still.

As to Dick's friends and family helping out - yeah, that's true, and I loved Wally dropping by Babs' place to talk about what was happening with Dick, but in the context of it, it doesn't seem that weird. The stuff with Haley's Circus happens, then the fire and after that, well, Dick's pretty broken up, after which the events in these scans almost immediately happen. Blockbuster didn't let up on Dick and really got under his skin. In that sense, it really is Born Again Redux.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

I liked Nightwing up until the issue after this
Well keep in mind that editorial really messed up her pacing. A lot. She'd intended to wrap up things with Tarantula much sooner, but with Chuck Dixon's brief return for Nightwing Year One, and having to juggle War Games, the resolution came a lot later than was intended and her momentum was shot to hell. Plus, going by little things we've heard from Grayson, Brubaker, and Simone, editorial was handing her some really stupid mandates (and I'd love to know what they were).

[ladymirth.insanejournal.com]

Like the commenter above, I have to say that I liked NW right upto the point where his building blows up (after which point he sleeps on fire escapes with newspapers for blankets, despite the fact that his childhood home is just over the river and there isn't a superhero in the universe who wouldn't pull out their couches for him. I can never look at that panel without howling with laughter.)

But you know, it's hard to hate Devin Grayson when poor Dickie has pretty much always mistreated by his writers. My one especial peeve with her writing is how she managed to make Dick and Babs' relationship seem so damaging and toxic. Other than that, let's face it - the only time NW has ever got fair treatment after The New Teen Titans was at the hands of Wolfman, Dixon and Tomasi. Devin was actually one of his better writers despite descending into utter crackfic territory during the latter part of her run. I realize that this is actually more of a sad commentary on the ham-handedness of his other writers and less a commendation of her writing, but honestly, I'll just take what I can get. Even when the overall plot makes NO FUCKING SENSE (as is usual in comics, I find) she writes good character interaction when she's on form. And I throroughly enjoy her unrestrained fangirling and objectifiction of Nightwing that comes out in her writing, in an indulgent sort of way. And yeah, I found that rape scene to be icky as all hell but I have selective canon retention. Retcons are wonderful things sometimes and it's only a matter of time before one comes along.

Honestly, after the toe-curling monstrosity that was NW Annual 2 and the majority of OYL (DIES BRUCE JONES DIE!) Devin's fond fangirly crack feels like literary genuis. I may revise this opinion drastically if I ever find out that she had more to do with the fridging and character assasination of certain people in War Games and War Crimes than formerly suspected, but for now I'm not going to fuss about it.

[batcookies.insanejournal.com]

A while back, Gail Simone said "I miss Gail Simone ... I think she was a huge influence on the bat-verse, and she doesn't get credit for it."

I agree, and I miss her too.

Was her Nightwing run good? Not really, no. It had its moments of genuine greatness IMHO, but it clearly had its moments of genuine suck too (although, as Gail and others have pointed out, there were really stupid editorial decisions being handed down to her, apparently making a bad situation even worse).

But you know what? She wrote some books I adore. She wrote what I still say are some of the best Batman Family books ever written. And I think it's absolutely tragic that people focus almost exclusively on her worst work, when she did so much great stuff.

[ladymirth.insanejournal.com]

I think you meant to say "I miss Devin Grayson." :-)

It's just that Grayson is like Longfellow's little girl: when she's good, she's very very good but when she's bad she's HORRID.

Well, at least she has that in common with great comic writers - any writer who has made any notable impact on their characters have always been incredibly polarizing figures.

Except Gail Simone. I have yet to meet anyone who flat-out hates her.

[sistermagpie.insanejournal.com]

I see so many problems in this story, and yet I admit it did keep me interested where what came after didn't (and I've always heard there was a sudden editorial detour there anyway).

It's the weird thing about Devin Grayson. There's things of hers that I really love and things that I don't, but I have to agree with Gail Simone that she really did do some interesting things--even if you don't agree with them, they make for a lot of interesting fodder when you think about the characters.

And also, there are times where I think what she's doing gets a little simplified. Like there have been things where I've originally though they were horrible--there was a moment in "Inheritance" where I almost threw the book across the room--but then I realize that it's not really as simple or as infuriating as I first thought.

Even with the rape here, while on the one hand it's just like--wtf? Otoh I do feel like it gets into some stuff about the character that is there beforehand and is still there now. That's, as I've said, another reason why it bothers me this rape has never been revisited. Not via Nightwing having a breakdown or something, but remembered for what it was in his history. Because as icky as his later retcon of what happened is, it's certainly a potential realistic reaction, especially for this character. And it's different from the way the subject's often dealt with for female characters, like as an origin story or as a trauma. Like...all the horrible things it seems to say about rape are things that get said about rape, unfortunately.

[mysteryfan.insanejournal.com]

Completely apart from this story, I'm surprised by the title of this post, I think. To see scans from a single comic being referred to as "Creator xyz's Work".

I mean, whomever we're talking about. This story is by Creator xyz, but it seems a bit overarching to transfer talking about what's above to talking about the creator's total output, if that's the intention.

Not saying that's what you're going for, or that we can't or won't talk about creator xyz's total output at the drop of a hat around here:) Just saying that's how it reads to me and if that's the intention, it doesn't seem quite reasonable (to me) whomever the creator we're talking about happens to be.

[starwolf_oakley.insanejournal.com]

Well, I saw how much people were talking about Devin Grayson on a previous post. I thought an actual post showing Grayson's work and the characters they were talking about would fit. I know the responses to posts can go anywhere and everywhere, but showing what they were talking about might be needed.

[mooppoom.insanejournal.com]

Yeah. I don't understand the deep hatred of Devin Grayson I've seen. I can't deny that the Tarantula run on Nightwing was a spectacular belly-flop, but - Gotham Knights? The Joker: Switch? The *rest* of her run on Nightwing? All good.

And the people who say Tarantula was a self-insert or a Sue are either letting the fact that Grayson is a woman cloud their judgment or have never read the definition of either.

A Mary-Sue is liked/loved by everyone, has an fantasy-style life, has a dark past, has hidden talents or powers, has suddenly revealed connections to the heroes, upstages the heroes in every way. Absolutely none of these things describe Tarantula.

You know who they do describe? The girl in a subsequent arc of Nightwing. She was hit on by both Jason Todd and Dick Grayson. She was a fashion designer! She had pretty red hair! Like Babs! She ended up being Dick Grayson's boss at his modeling job (!?!?!). She ended up having superpowers that helped save the day! While wearing the Nightwing suit!

You know why not one damn person called 'sue' on character? Or self-insert? Because she was created by Bruce Jones and he has a wang.

Check yourselves before calling sue/self-insert on female creators, people.

[freddylloyd.insanejournal.com]

Good point! Although I think a lot of people didn't call Cheyenne a Mary Sue because they were so busy averting their eyes from the entire series.

[(Anonymous)]

This is one of those controversies that makes my fanboy soul scream.

You're right: IMHO, Tarantula isn't the self-insert here.

Nightwing is.

This is Devin Grayson using Dick Grayson to work through some personal issues of her own -- and one of (though certainly not the only) reason this is such an abjectly awful story is that the reader is basically being forced to take part in Devin's self induced therapy.

The Nightwing/Tarantula encounter is a clear cut case of rape, and I'm frankly amazed by the sizable contingent of folks arguing otherwise.

Dick had what amounts to a nervous breakdown in the wake of Blockbuster's death, and was therefore incapable of giving consent. Period.

Though I agree with the posters who are upset that this incident was basically ignored, I personally hope that that means it is well on it's way to fading from DCU canon entirely. I'd prefer an out and out retcon that explicitly stated it didn't happen -- but ignoring it to death is still acceptable.

My, ahem, 'personal canon' goes something like this:

1)Nightwing has a nervous breakdown and/or possibly goes into a kind of shock. This renders him unable to resist, but also unable to...preform.

2)Tarantula, sociopath that she is, is undeterred, but has to content herself with dry humping Dick on the rooftop, fully clothed (this is to rationalize the only part of the debacle that was actually 'on screen'). This does make Tarantula innocent of rape, but she's still guilty of some form of sexual assault/battery, not to mention of being really, really evil to one of the few people that was ever good to her.

3)Dick represses the trauma for several weeks, but finally confides in Babs.

4)Babs tracks Tarantula down (possibly with the aid of the rest of the BoP) and, her paraplegic status notwithstanding, beats Tarantula into a coma.

5)Tarantula is consigned to a remote prison infirmary, never to be heard from again.

[runespoor7.insanejournal.com]

So... essentially, your version has the scene be nonconsensual sex, if I'm reading you right.

[freddylloyd.insanejournal.com]

I want to thank mysteryfan (http://mysteryfan.insanejournal.com/) for posting this link to an interview with Devin Grayson (http://www.devingrayson.com/interviews/200407pulse/Diamond%20International%20Galleries%20presents___%20COMICON_com%20PULSE%20%20Comic%20Books%20News,%20Reviews%20and%20Criticism.htm) published in the middle of this Nightwing run.

I saw several complaints in this discussion and earlier about how Devin Grayson had described Tarantula's sexual attack on Nightwing, emphasizing the word "non-consensual" as if she had tried to excuse or downplay rape. But that word never appeared in the context of even a full sentence. That made me suspicious. I wanted to know what Devin Grayson had actually said because I know how memes can develop and spread, but my searches came up with nothing.

The interview contains this exchange:
++++++++
THE PULSE: ...Without giving too much away, the ending of #93 had rather a shocking
event in Dick's love/sex life. Was this a one-time thing, a moment of weakness and disorientation, or is Tarantula something more to Dick?

GRAYSON: That particular moment was actually not consensual. Dick’s body sometimes has a mind and life of its own, and in this case, his heart was very clear (as were his words) about not wanting to be engaged that way at that time. But Catalina overwhelms him to some extent, both physically and emotionally. He feels responsible now for, essentially, the destruction of her soul, and as of issue 93 (and this continues into 94), he’s not yet sure how to redeem her or himself, so she’s really got an odd kind of control over him while he tries to catch his breath and figure that out. She’s crystal clear about what she wants to be doing and how she wants him to factor into it – utterly undaunted by recent events – and Dick is, at this point, basically being dragged around behind her (this actually becomes literal in 94). Through a combination of shock and moral anguish, Dick has, to some extent, surrendered to her will. And in that particular situation, the sex itself was practically allegorical. I don’t mean it didn’t really happen, but rather that it was a final physical manifestation of an emotional violation that went much deeper.

But Tarantula is probably in for a rude awakening when Dick recovers his sense of self and purpose. His will is not something with which to be trifled.
++++++

That makes it clear to me that Devin Grayson used the words "not consensual" to correct the interviewer's description of what happened on the rooftop as an "event in Dick's love/sex life" followed by a question focused on, basically, whether Dick loves Catalina. (To be scrupulously fair, the interviewer was trying not to reveal much.)

Devin Grayson was explicit about the rooftop event being a "violation," about how Tarantula "overwhelms" Nightwing "physically and emotionally." She didn't use the word "rape" in this interview, but she didn't have to: clarifying that the sex was "not consensual" seems clear. Unless Devin Grayson made other comments elsewhere at the time, I can't read this as supporting complaints that she downplayed the seriousness of this moment.

Furthermore, it's also clear that she meant this as the low point of the story she was telling (with, of course, the approval of DC Comics). Dick's emotional recovery was crucial to how Devin Grayson imagined the arc, and to how we should read it. Perhaps the resolution was unsuccessful, but we seem to be treating this moment in isolation.