GRAYSON ON GRAYSON
Devin Grayson talks Titans and the appeal of Dick Grayson
Portions of this article originally appeared in the July 13, 1998 edition of the Comic Wire at Comic Book Resources.
Devin Grayson, one can say without fear of contradiction, is a superstar of tomorrow. A relative newcomer to the world of comics, over the next six months, she’s about to become synonymous with one of DC Comics‘ most respected franchises: the formerly teen Titans.
Grayson has three separate projects featuring former members of the Teen Titans, culminating in a new ongoing series next January, called simply “The Titans.”
As opposed to the recent Teen Titans team created by Dan Jurgens, Grayson is starting with familiar faces:
Nightwing, Donna Troy, the Flash, Arsenal and Tempest “are on the team for good — there is no conflict with Flash being a JLA member, which he will continue to be, nor with Nightwing and Tempest being key members of other DCU books,” Grayson told the Comic Wire this weekend. “Eric Luke, the new Wonder Woman writer, is happy to let us use and rename Donna (which we’re attending to now), and Arsenal has been in our editorial jurisdiction for a while now.”
In other words, the core Titans members will be the same as when the team first debuted roughly a quarter-century ago. Robin, Wonder Girl, Kid Flash, Speedy and Aqualad have gone through a number of changes since then, though, including some of them getting bumped up to starring status. Grayson has that covered as well.
“Because many of these characters can be expected to periodically need to bow out of certain Titans adventures to tend to matters in their own books or what not, they themselves decide to nominate what I’ve been calling a ‘second tier’ team – five additional members with no serious prior commitments who can all be expected to be on hand every single issue, as the ‘originals’ rotate through (not the other way around). The lineup of those additional five has not yet been announced (though it has been established and approved), but will be revealed in ‘The Titans’ #1 in January.”
The new series has been one of the most discussed of any prospective project in recent memory. Along with that comes a good deal of misinformation, which Grayson set the record straight on.
Of the five second-tier heroes, four of them have been Titans at some point in their histories, and the fifth is new to the family, as Grayson likes to think of them. That probably means several members from the Wolfman/Perez “New Teen Titans” era and maybe some from the Jurgens run as well.
“Fans aching to see the Titans of old, though, should definitely check out the three part mini-series I’m doing with Phil Jimenez (due out in October): JLA/Titans. Though we’re doing everything we can to make it accessible and exciting to new readers, I’ll confess that it’s really a fanboy wet dream, and our biggest concession to the ‘when are we gonna see [insert favorite Titan here]?’ crowd. I’m hoping older fans will be gorged enough on guest appearances after JLA/Titans — which touches base with just about EVERYBODY at one point or another — to allow me some time to introduce new readers to our new core Titans group in the beginning of the actual series. Phil and I are having so much fun with JLA/Titans, I really think readers will get a kick out of it.”
Donna Troy fans take note: Despite a rumor that recently cropped up online, Donna Troy will not be reclaiming her “Troia” name in the new series. And the vague power she apparently received during the “Genesis” crossover last night will be defined as well.
The last time Roy Harper, the former Speedy and now known as Arsenal, appeared in the Jurgens Titans series, he received a new costume very similar to the “Red Arrow” one he wore in Mark Waid’s “Kingdom Come” miniseries several years ago.
“Roy will be undergoing (yet another) costume change in the four-part Arsenal miniseries, ‘Six Degrees,’ (written by me, with art by Rick Mays) which comes out, I believe, in August. He will be keeping the name ‘Arsenal.’ Though I like the ‘Kingdom Come’ look and definitely want to keep him tied in with his archery roots, and I hate having to change his costume again so soon, I feel strongly that it’s too early for him, at this point in his life, to be running around in a costume that is essentially a salute to Ollie. There are things he needs to work out first. Maybe we’ll see him return to that costume again in the future, after he’s finished proving himself as his own man.”
Speaking of “Kingdom Come,” although Grayson is loathe to divulge too much at this point – “The comics industry is starting to get ‘movie trailer fever:’ we’re always rushing to give major plot points away, and what’s the fun in that? – look for either Changeling or Cyberion to take a big step towards their “Kingdom Come” incarnation (either Menagerie or Robotman) in the JLA/Titans miniseries.
One of the perks of doing these Titans projects for Grayson is being able to write the DCU’s other Grayson, the former Robin, Dick “Nightwing” Grayson. Her recent “Nightwing/Huntress” mini-series recently came to an end, and she’s already got ideas for other Nightwing stories. She thinks his appeal is obvious:
“I think the reason Nightwing is so popular, though I do speak only for myself, is that he’s an excellent projection target for the animus. To contrast Batman’s darkness, Dick has always been portrayed as being warmer, more human, one could even say ‘sweeter,’ than the typical male hero. He has some of the nicer, more traditionally ‘feminine’ traits (like thoughtfulness, compassion, and even a certain degree of innocence) wrapped up in a nonetheless very masculine, potentially fierce, I-could-kill-you-with-my-bare-hands package,” Grayson said. “It’s easy, I think, for females to project their ‘male selves’ onto him – he is a less harsh, frightening image of a protector than Batman, and more of a knight in shining armor type – who of course, in their archetypal roles, weren’t meant to carry women off to safety literally, so much as to help them integrate their more competent “masculine” traits into an idealized future self. Dick Grayson is a very well-integrated character. Part puer, part trickster, and certainly all hero, in the age-old business of using fictional narrative to address internal archetype integration, he’s a very powerful tool.”
(“Puer?” Grayson explains: “‘Puer‘ is a Jungian term (with Latin roots: ‘Puer natus est nobis,’: ‘a child is born’) for the archetypal child, though later it was given an almost romantic connotation by Vogler, et al, so that it sort of came to refer to ‘eternal young man,’ which was how I meant it. Poor Dick. Does he realize he’s going to be twenty-three or so for the rest of his existence? … But even if it wasn’t literal, I think it would still describe an obvious component of his nature.”)
And all this talk of Jungian archetypes and the symbolic appeal of Dick Grayson to female comic fans may miss some of the point. It works, Devin Grayson allows, “maybe on a subconscious level. Though those I’ve questioned tend to stick with the more basic assertion, and I quote: ‘he’s heckuv fine!'”
Of course, most superheroes, almost by definition, are good-looking studs. And it’s his other qualities that make him stand out to Grayson.
“Similarly, I think many males can relate to him, because, being a better-balanced character, he’s more real – though he is muscle-bound, he’s also intelligent and wracked with feelings of inadequacy. And, unlike many of our more prominent heroes, he’s human. Easy to relate to.
“Beyond that, and ignoring the obvious points about his good looks and charisma, I think in the Bat-mythos, at least, much as Batman has come to represent, as [editor] Denny O’Neil so perfectly put it, ‘urbanity co-opted,’ the Dick Grayson character has come to represent ‘loyalty endured.’ He has fought his whole life against a domineering, dark, difficult (though magnificently just and justified) father figure, and chosen, instead of vanquishing him, to aid him and uphold many of his ideals. It was an honorable choice, and a rare one in the history of stories, and one that I think really resonates for a lot of us Gen Xers, who grew up in a world without, for the most part, heroes or loyalty or ideals and/or people worth dying for. I look at a character like Nightwing and I see a gorgeously rendered picture of worthwhile loyalty. That’s a very rare quality.
“Also, it’s just plain cool that after more than 50 years of being handled by innumerable creative teams and editorial administrations, he, as a character, has managed to retain some core recognizability and sense of individuality. Again I think we’re seeing the power of the archetype here — in every incarnation, he’s been unique and in some way consistent. The same is true for, say, Batman and Superman, and it’s part of what makes comics so exciting.”
Grayson is new on the comic scene, with her first publication, in “The Batman Chronicles,” coming only a few years ago. Her meteoric ascent has meant she hasn’t lost her sense of wonder at working on some of comics’ most prominent characters.
“You can’t lose sight of the fact that it’s a tremendous honor to be working with these characters. I remember the first time I wrote the word ‘Batmobile,’ as a professional, I just fell off my chair laughing … and then I got back up and sat down again and just really felt a PART of something, which as a writer is actually a very rare experience. Most of writing is very solitary. One of the things I love about this medium is that it’s so collaborative.”
Grayson’s first professionally published work in comic books was in “The Batman Chronicles,” a quarterly anthology that covers all eras of Batman’s history and focuses on characters and events often pushed off-stage in the regular books. Her story depicted the first meeting between Dick Grayson, then still a very new sidekick named Robin, and Barbara Gordon, herself a neophyte hero just becoming known as Batgirl. The story is playful and silly, although Devin Grayson lightly implied a certain attraction between the two characters. Love and romance amongst the Spandex set is also the focus of 1998’s “Nightwing/Huntress” miniseries, and she has loose plans for another miniseries featuring Nightwing and another member of the Batman franchise.
“As someone who didn’t grow up reading comics, I’m really interested in bringing more realistic relationships into the medium. If real, superheroes would be very physically driven, often emotionally challenged individuals, in need of a lot of reassurance about being safe and alive, and also in need of a lot of freedom and ‘space.’ The ‘hero’ community would also be relatively small and close-knit, so it’d be really hard to completely avoid former flames. I think there would be a lot more variations in their relationships with one another than just ‘meet, fall in love, get married,’ or ‘meet, fall in love, break up and never speak again.’ I’m hoping to explore some of those variations (as NW/H was meant to do).
Although she’s already looking at a very full plate – Grayson is also writing “Catwoman” monthly and will be doing at least one four-issue story in the upcoming “No Man’s Land” year-long story in next year’s Batman books – 1999 will also bring her very own creator-owned team book from DC, the details of which she’s keeping to herself.
“We’ve been referring to it in the press, for the time being, as ‘Project W’ – just because we’re deliberately being mysterious. Yvel Guichet, who worked with me on the [just released] Batman Annual, is penciling the first issue as I write this.”
