He started out as Robin, but over the past 80 years, Dick Grayson has evolved in a way that very few other comic book characters have. From the way that he redefined comics in the Golden Age to the heroic haircut that he finally ditched in the '90s, here's the truth behind the evolution of Nightwing. Nightwing's origins start all the way back at the dawn of the Golden Age of Comics and the explosion of new superheroes that hit the page after Superman debuted in 1938 and became a ridiculously profitable hit. Some of them attempted to follow directly in Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's footsteps with their own super-powered creations, with varying degrees of success, but the most prominent among them did things a little differently. Rather than trying to shoulder into the already crowded field of costumed superhumans (look up Stardust the Super Wizard sometime if you want to see how weird that side of things was getting) Bill Finger brought artist Bob Kane the idea of a costumed hero without superpowers who was a little bit darker than the others.
The character was called Batman. You've probably heard of him. The thing is, the Batman who debuted in 1940 wasn't quite the pop culture icon that he'd become. Instead, the first few Batman stories are really just ripping off the Shadow, a popular pulp novel and radio character, but with pointy ears and a bat-winged cape instead of a slouch hat and a trenchcoat. Over the next few months, however, Finger, Kane, and artist Jerry Robinson would refine their character. If you need proof that they were just figuring things out as they went, consider that Batman didn't even have an origin story until Detective Comics #33, a full six months after he made his first appearance.
It was in Detective Comics #38, however, that those creators added the final ingredient for making Batman the character we can still recognize today. On a cover that announced him as "The Sensational Character Find of 1940", which, in retrospect, is maybe the most accurate a comic book blurb has ever been, Robin was introduced to the world.
Sidekicks had existed before Robin, but Dick Grayson the circus acrobat turned boy vigilante, redefined the role. He was wildly popular with kids in the audience who already loved Batman and were excited about having a character their age who got to hang out with their favorite character and be his best friend. All things considered, it was a much more pleasant power fantasy than Batman himself, who watched his parents die in an alley.
Sure, Robin's parents died too, but not only did he get a new dad, his new dad was Batman. No offense to the Flying Graysons, but that's almost always going to be an upgrade.
Before long, the sidekick population exploded in the same way that superheroes had boomed after Superman. Marvel's original Human Torch teamed up with Toro a few months after Robin, giving readers the dubious image of a man on fire being accompanied into battle by a child who was also on fire. By the time Captain America debuted alongside Bucky Barnes in 1941, a kid sidekick was virtually mandatory for the genre, but none of them could hold a candle to Robin's popularity.
#Nightwing #Robin #DC
The sensational character find | 0:17
The Boy Wonder | 1:41
Going Solo | 2:49
The first Nightwing | 3:44
Wingin' it | 5:04
Non-wing | 6:08
Nightwing on screen | 7:28
Nightwing in Titans | 8:59
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