– Batman/Nightwing: Bloodborne

Let’s not forget George Pérez

Also,

Ryan Sook

With earlier draft version

And Romeo Tanghal Jr.

Hey, look at me. Look at me. I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again: you need to condition yourself to being okay with being inconvenienced by things. The first time I spoke about this I meant it in a mental health way- it is good to go out to the store and see people versus just ordering alone at home- but there is another more pressing societal issue you should be more concerned about as well.

Any service you rely on for convenience can be weaponized against you the moment you begin to rely on it. Streaming used to be a cheap and convenient way to see movies at home. It is now exorbitantly expensive, you need multiple accounts just to get what you want, and any of those movies can be taken from you at any time. And unless you have gotten used to going through the “inconvenience” of owning physical media, you can do nothing about it. Same goes for buying things on Amazon. Same goes for any service like DoorDash etc. These companies WANT you to be reliant on them for convenience so they can do whatever they want to you because, well, what else are you gonna do?

Same thing goes for the uptick in AI. If you train yourself to become reliant on AI for doing basic things, you will be taken advantage of. It is only a matter of a couple years before there are no free AI services. Not only that, but in the usage of AI’s case, it is robbing you of valuable skills that you need to curate that you will be helpless without the moment the AI companies drive in the knife the way they have done with streaming. Delivery. Cable. Internet. Etc. It will happen to AI too. And if you are not practicing skills such as. Writing. You are not only going to be at the mercy of AI companies in the digital world, but you are going to be extremely easy to take advantage of in real life too.

I am begging you to let go of learned helplessness. I am begging you to stop letting these companies TEACH you helplessness. Do something like learn to pirate. It is way more inconvenient at the beginning, but once you know how, it is one less way companies can take advantage of you. Garden. Go to the thrift store (older clothes hold up better anyway). These things take more time and effort, yes, but using time and effort are muscles you need to stretch to keep yourself from being flattened under the weight of our capitalist hellscape.

Inconvenience yourself. Please. Start with only the ways you are able. Do a little bit at a time. But do something.

Ok, so evidently Dick Grayson is going to turn up in the absolute universe. I haven't read any of the comics and I can't say I care. Dick is in quite a lot of comics already and every new version is something that might be a terrible take on the character... But who knows, maybe I’ll change my mind in the future. Anyone excited about the idea of an absolute Nightwing or Robin?

I think something that's started getting lost in retellings more and more ever since they first changed Dick leaving Robin to being fired from Robin is that a primary motivator in him wanting to "get out of Batman's shadow" is the desire to be viewed as an equal. Like, even as an actual child Dick often had a very low tolerance for being viewed and treated as a child. That's remained an important underlying aspect of his character, but it'd become increasingly easier to miss as he became more and more distanced from the era when everyone knew him as a character who used to work alongside Batman with the Justice League, who used to interact with those characters as mostly equals. I'm glad we have World's Finest now to at least help bring that era back into general awareness but like. The barest hint of anyone treating him like a kid used to really annoy him, even as a kid, and he was never normal about it. And I think you lose a vital aspect of his character by removing that.

Grayson Post-Spyral: From Sensational Ouroboros to Checkmate’s Scraps

Dick’s adventures with Spyral still had a profound effect on Rebirth Nightwing as penned by Tim Seeley and Javier Fernandez, showing quite clearly the impact Spyral had on Dick. In the hands of other former Grayson writers, Tom King and Kelley and Lanzing, two neat little stories were developed as well, which highlighted that the structure of Grayson adventures remained well suited for Nightwing. It all fell apart when the Grayson components, or rather Spyral, were taken into the hands of writers who never knew the Morrisson version of the organization nor paid respect to Grayson. This ultimately lead to Spyral not being an organization whose existence remained tied to Dick Grayson but rather it being just another secret organization that could be used for lip service if someone was in need of a spy agency.

SPYRAL, THE SENSATIONAL OUROBOROS

Nightwing’s Rebirth and Dick’s Feelings Toward Spyral

The Rebirth initiative shook the world of DC Comics, Grayson ended with a second creative team taking over as Mikel Janín and Tom King moved to Batman. Meanwhile, Seeley stayed with Dick Grayson for a little while longer as he became the writer for Nightwing during the Rebirth relaunch. While Dick’s time as a spy ended quite decisively in the last pages of Grayson, Nightwing Rebirth shows excellently how Dick feels about his spy life and the connections he made while part of the secret organization.

The end of Grayson shows Dick jumping back into action as Nightwing to ready readers for the new direction (Grayson #21), but Nightwing Rebirth #1 fantastically deals with the actual emotional ramification Dick faces freshly out of Spyral. Dick loves being back in his usual environment, but in the same way someone might miss their summer camp vacations, Dick misses the people he learned to know along the way. Dick trusts that Tiger will be handling Spyral much better than its former overlords. While everyone doubts whether Dick can move on from his time at Spyral and what it might have done to his sense of identity, Dick himself knows very well who he is. He defines himself as always wanting to help and Nightwing offers these capabilities much better than being a spy.

Nightwing: Rebirth #1 is the true epilogue of Grayson. Seeley shows clearly how King and he were able to make especially the first issues of Grayson into such character-driven stories. It is one comprehensive look as to how Dick feels about his Spyral days and that the Court of Owls turned out to be a much greater enemy to him than any effects working as a spy might have had (Nightwing: Rebirth #1).

In the following stories, Tiger and Spyral are called upon by Dick when need is be. They act as Dick’s global net as he is forced to work with and then against the Parliament of Owls as well as while fighting other foes. Post-Grayson Spyral being portrayed as Dick's net is a fitting continuation of the Spyral plotlines. Nightwing (2016) shows Tiger's Spyral transform into exactly what he said it would be: An organization to help superheroes instead of trying to destroy them.

Dick continues being on good terms with Tiger, calling upon him and Spyral to fight Kali-Yuga as well as to take care of Raptor and ensure he will keep Bruce’s and his identity secrets (#7, #8). When helped by the new Clark while Destiny brings him nightmares of his friends dying, Dick’s second dream is about Helena and Tiger. His words indicate that he tries not to reveal how important they have become to him, yet their presence in his dream is proof that they have (#9). Other writers than Seeley could have done more with it. If Dick had been around for Event Leviathan as Bendis wanted, maybe it would have been, but even like this Spyral is an excellent addition to Nightwing’s supporting cast. Spyral’s initial appearances in Nightwing also reiterate what was already clear during Nightwing: Rebirth #1: Dick is glad to be back but that doesn't mean he has to cut ties with the people he learned to appreciate and calls his friends (Nightwing 2016 #4).

It is after Dick’s breakup with Shawn that Spyral takes center stage in Dick’s life one more time and with them an old villain returns. As Dick tries to keep a new group of arms dealers, the Second Hand, in check, Giz one of the Run-Offs to which Shawn belongs, dies as he helps save Blüdhaven. Helena hears of Dick’s loss and comes to visit him. Dick reveals that he has been trying to get information on Gianni Dracul of the Second Hand, but without success, and Tiger, with him Spyral, has been unreachable for backup. Despite not being entirely opposed to Helena’s presence, Dick calls her out on her real reason for visiting. She has been hunting everyone with the slightest connection to the mafia and that is where Dracul comes in.

Now a pair of superheroes instead of spies, Nightwing and Huntress pair up, which causes Dick to stick with the realization that he has been surrounding himself with people who he can stop from going too far, so that he does not go too far himself. Seeley echoes the connection between Dick and Bruce onto Dick and Helena as well as Dick and Damian. Just as Bruce was Dick’s net, Dick has transformed his personality into a net for others. Dick acknowledges that he can be motivated by anger but surrounds himself with people who act on it, he believes he does not have to do so himself.

Huntress and Nightwing find Dracul, who is revealed to have been Spyral’s Agent 19. Dick figures out that his enemy The Second Hand is in fact Spyral (#26). Dick is confronted with his friends having gone bad just after he trusted Raptor, and this time these friends are spies who he should not have trusted anyway. If Grayson is all about Dick’s identity himself, then Seeley’s Nightwing is all about trusting other people the way Dick trusts himself.

While Dick does not look back too favorably on being a spy, the friendships he made are dear to him. Dick points out two times that Tiger might be compromised, but Helena disagrees by saying “Tiger’s motivations have never been anyone’s but his own”. The Skull Girls rescue Dick and Helena from Spyral. They reveal that Spyral did change for the better under Tiger and then suddenly for the worse. Lotti is being held captive for having stolen some of the discarded technology they were supposed to gather all over the world. Under Helena’s and Dick’s guidance, they aim to save Lotti.

Once inside the headquarters at St. Hadrian’s, Dick is separated from the others as Lotti’s image is used to attack them all by a second Tiger who speaks of the Ouroboros that Spyral and Leviathan represent (#27). The second Tiger has been Mr. Minos all along, who has held the real Tiger captive. Minos has not forgotten who he is, despite two of this three bodies having been killed during Dick’s time at Spyral.

The Spyral headquarters remain full of mystery as Helena and the girls are saved by a so-called Bughole that the real Lotti activates. Dick, meanwhile, has been caught by Minos, who is angry that Tiger has kept Dick’s true identity under wraps. While Minos used to knows from Helena who Dick is because of the deprive he got in Secret Origins, the Somnus satellite has erased his memories of Dick too. Mr. Minos is seeking a new identity to final destroy all superheroes by exposing their secrets. Through this, Minos is the opposite of Dr. Deadalus who wished others to become him. As before, the themes of Spyral remain identity.

Through the help of Helena and Lotti, Dick is able to realize that Minos is nothing but a program whose purpose is to hunt superheroes. Minos is truly called Hyperion and is a Cadmus Project used by Checkmate. Tiger uses the created diversion of villain monologue to shock Minos and Dick is glad to see that they are still “a dynamic dysfunctional duo”. As Minos dies, he wonders and hopes there is an afterlife though Dick has no answer for him about that. Spyral is saved, and Helena and Dick have to leave the organization behind once more. Helena’s anger at the world and Dick’s lingering grief bring them together as Dick wonders what death of a close friend does to one’s psyche. His answer is that it changes the lives of the people who remain and makes them question choices and decisions (#28).  

Helena and Dick develop a short-term relationship as she helps him against Raptor, but Helena breaks it off once realizing Dick has decided to work with Roland Desmond, who she regards as a low-level mobster and with that decides Dick broke her trust (#30-#31). Their break-up represents the end of the Grayson supporting cast appearing in Nightwing.  

Robin 80th Anniversary: Grayson Returns

The anthology Robin 80th Anniversary #1, published in 2020, includes a Grayson story by the original Grayson quartet Tim Seeley (script), Tom King (script), Mikel Janín (art) and Jeremy Cox (colors). Two years after Spyral’s last appearance in Nightwing, noone expected to see Grayson to make an appearance again. Dick had been shot in the head in October 2018 and become Ric. Even his out of continuity appearances lessened significantly. The only comic Dick appeared in during this time was the anniversary comic in which he was represented by four stories.

“Lesson Plan” takes place during Dick’s tenure as Agent 37 and conceptually leans on Grayson #5 with its focus on the relationship of the Dynamic Duo and how Dick came into his own. Dick teaches one of the Skull Girls, Paris, in the same categories as Bruce once did him as they finish a mission. The story reflects where Dick differs from his mentor and how they are the same even if their words are different. Dick learned how to pick and choose his lessons through years of experience. The most important lesson Dick imparts on Paris is not listening too much to her mentor. One of Dick’s greatest skills is to be unexpected and versatile in anything he does. Trusting others is a great strength to him, one he learned from his parents and his teammates not his mentor. Dick’s adult life is based on trust because the transition to Nightwing is (article reference). The short-story is used to exemplify how much experience Dick has gained over the years. 

Let Them Live! #2: A Glimpse at Agent Nightwing

Let Them Live was a short series that showcased stories from the DC Vault. Kelly and Lanzing’s story was originally pitched as an Agent 37 story to get the writing gig for Grayson. So if you would like to see what kind of feeling an Agent Nightwing story would have had? This is it.

“Without A Net” opens with Dick falling out of a plane as he steals a gravitation bomb from the religious organization St. Dumas and the robotic saint himself. It is easily recognizable how the story might have been slightly rewritten to show Dick as a free acting agent instead of Agent 37 of Spyral as Batgirl accompanies Dick in his ear. The technological McGuffin will remind readers of early Grayson issues as well. Robin and Cyborg are also part of Dick’s ground team, and the latter takes over from Batgirl when her hacking the systems gets too risky. As a civilian airplane becomes a victim of the fight, Dick ramps up the charm and gives the pilot his jetpack so she can escape safely. Despite the dangers of the mission, Agent Nightwing has less baggage than his Agent 37 counterpart.

Dick destroys the cyborg St. Dumas and gets rid of the bomb by tying his backpack to it. It leaves him as vulnerable as a human hero fighting gods and monsters usually is, but Dick planned it all out. The mission ending with a free fall is the reason why he had to go fight on the plane, not his mission mates. Bruce berates him but they both know their vigilantism comes with risks and they all have their own specialties. Dick makes the safe only he could, and the issue ends with Dick conversing with Bruce as he relaxes in the middle of the coral reef. After a high-octane fight and flight mission, Dick feels more like Bruce than anywhere else while in the middle of nowhere, the sun shining down upon him.

THE TRUTH ABOUT POST-SPYRAL

While Dick views his time at Spyral like a time that needed to happen and one he does not wish to return to, it is not a phase of his life which he hates. He formed valuable connections during his time as an agent and happily calls back onto these relationships when he can. Bruce and Damian are a large part of Dick’s post-Spyral stories because Bruce accompanied him as Mr. Malone, the voice in his ear, from the start, and Damian is sucked into the larger Spyral framework after his resurrection and during the Robin War. Dick deals with the complicated past as he always does, by looking forward with the people he connected with.

CHECKMATE’S SCRAPS

Spyral’s Destruction

During Event Leviathan, a Superman event written by Brian Bendis, all spy organizations of the DCU are destroyed by Leviathan itself. Sadly, the history of Spyral and Leviathan as rivaling sister organizations is not explored. Even though Bendis allegedly wanted Dick Grayson to be in the event but could not include him due to the Ric arc.

Bendis did not use many Grayson elements for his Spyral. Helena is sought out by Clark and Lois as is Tiger, who is even seen drinking hard liquor despite being a devoted Muslim, but the two of them are there simply because some Spyral/Leviathan connection remains. In the middle of the event, Tiger is seemingly killed by the enemy’s energy blast that takes out a whole neighborhood block. Had Bendis been allowed to use Dick, it might have come differently, instead, he created Lois Lane’s brother to fill that plot hole.

Random Agents

Since Spyral’s destruction, random Spyral agents have appeared during New Frontier. In Suicide Squad (2021), Culebra is revealed to have been a member of Spyral before its dissolution. A surprise (mostly negative if we want to be truthful) appearance of Spyral also occurred in the Nightwing 2024 Annual when Bea Bennett, born Destiny Alston, is revealed to have been working for Spyral all along instead of naturally growing interested in Ric as a civilian.

While Bea tries to solve the case of who murdered her mother and why, she meets Carmen Navarro who leads her to St. Hadrian’s Finishing School. Bea begins to train as a St. Hadrian’s Woman and is given the codename Siren after her graduation. Among other agents and the St. Hadrian Girls, who are her peers, she also meets Dick and later is assigned to keep tabs on him by Carmen.

Despite not being in favor of the assignment, Bea eventually grows closer to Ric and opens up to him, worrying what Spyral will do if he regains his memories. With this worry, Moore reintroduces a smidgen of the original Grayson identity arcs, but the danger Spyral poses to Dick should he regain his memories makes no sense. For one, Tiger would not care if Dick had the memories and Event Leviathan happens after Bea and Ric have been together for a while, destroying Spyral before they could ever harm him.  

By the end of the story, it is revealed that Bea’s mother too was an Agent of Spyral, doing undercover work at a Checkmate front. Carmen used to be the partner of Bea’s mother and killed her, Carmen was actually working for another agency called La Agente Fuebre, and Bea’s mother found out.

The Annual ends with the wrong lessons learned from Grayson. Instead of seeing Spyral as its own organization, the Checkmate connection is thrown in to give it relevancy and makes it look, through the introduction of yet another spy organization, as if Spyral is always infiltrated by someone else. Spyral disappears before Event Leviathan even happens. Instead of continuing the tone Helena and Tiger set during Grayson and Nightwing, all Spyral retains is its name.   

CONCLUSION

The first months after Grayson still saw Dick grabbling with topics of identity. No longer was it about finding himself and determining who he is but how others treat his trust in himself, his friends and even strangers. Post-Spyral saw new and old friendship be an important part of Dick’s life. Even though Helena failed to ensure Spyral would retain its new mission, Tiger picks up the pieces and Spyral can be rescued once more by Dick, Helena and the St. Hadrian Girls from certain too as all loose Grayson ends are taken care of. Spyral becomes Dick’s safety net during Rebirth before it is twisted into unrecognizability during Event Leviathan and Infinite Frontier. The spy organization with a purpose and a changing yet known leadership is gone, in its place Tiger is reverted to being just another agent and other organizations can infiltrate Spyral simply to do so instead of having a specific goal. Agent Siren, Bea Bennett, becomes the opposite of a safety net in her retcon by creator Travis Moore. Despite being an organization shrouded in mystery, Spyral’s beginnings and direction were always clear until Event Leviathan broke it into pieces.

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Shared here today by Matthew Boroson on Facebook.

Tanith Lee was the first woman to win the British Fantasy Award for best novel, for the second book of the Flat Earth series. She died in 2015. You can buy Tales From the Flat Earth here in paperback or here on Kindle.

put three f/f ships you like in the tags. doesnt matter how obscure or embarrassing the media, go for it. and no, your m/m ship doesnt count as women

Sometimes I just sit and think about the fact that for decades there was no "Batfam" there was only Batman and Robin. Just them. The duo of all time.