Young Love, Forever Destined To Fail?

Nightwing annual 1
DC Comics
Kyle Higgins, writer
Jason Masters, Daniel Sampere and Vicente Cifuentes, artists
Special shout-out to the creator of The History of Dick/Babs (So Far) site for helping refresh and/or double-check my memory on some of the books I've read but was too lazy to dig out for reference this time around.

This was a great done-in-one issue by regular Nightwing writer Kyle Higgins, but then I'm partial to the subject matter.

I've long been a fan of Dick Grayson, first as Robin and later as Nightwing. I didn't read that many of the 1970s and early-80s Batman Family and Detective Comics stories that featured Robin and Batgirl in both solo stories and team-ups when they were new. But I've always liked the Barbara Gordon Batgirl character, too.

Now, as many of my longtime readers know, I'm a huge fan of the Titans, absolutely loving the Wolfman/Perez reboot from 1980 onward (as well as discovering and liking the earlier incarnations of the team much after the fact). As a fan of that series, I confess, I loved the Robin/Starfire relationship. Dick and Koriand'r of Tamaran made a great couple readers hoped would endure.

But before that run of Titans came to an end, so too did the relationship between Dick and Kory. Later writers hinted at the couple's feelings for each other remaining in the various Titans relaunches since then, but those hints and suggestions never went anywhere.

Jump ahead a few years and Nightwing is given his own series, and Barbara Gordon gives up being Batgirl shortly before being crippled by the Joker. That was a tragic story, but out of those events came Barbara's new identity as Oracle, a much stronger personality and just as heroic as Batgirl had ever been portrayed. And writers began hinting back to the early careers of Dick and Barbara and a possible budding attraction that never reached full potential. Adding to that retconned romance was the de-aging of Batgirl. When she debuted, Barbara Gordon was easily 10 years older than the Boy Wonder; but nowadays, the pair are very close to the same age and always have been.

Around that same time, I finally caught up on a number of those old Batman Family and Detective Comics stories mentioned before. A mutual attraction and possible relationship between Robin and Batgirl was not a wholly new idea. The current stories played it up as more than it had been at the time of those earlier stories, but there were definite hints at affection on the part of Robin, at least, even back in the 70s and 80s. Adding to the current portrayal of the pair being interested in each other in the past were re-tellings of each of their origins -- including Robin: Year One and Batgirl: Year One.

In time, the two began a relationship facilitated by the fact that writer Chuck Dixon was crafting both their respective adventures in Nightwing and Birds of Prey. All of that culminated in the pre-New 52 DC continuity in the controversial Nightwing annual No. 2 (January 2007) when Dick proposes to Barbara, but alas, a wedding does NOT follow. The book was controversial for some of its retconned history. For example, the scenes where Dick Grayson stops to see Barbara Gordon for the first time after she was crippled by the Joker. The pair end up spending the night together, but Dick is not just there to check on his old friend -- he's also there to invite Barbara to his and Kory's wedding. Ouch! That's a bit of retconning I could have done without.

I was a fan of a relationship between Dick and Barbara. Through the great writing of the various stories that built their relationship, I came to see Barbara as the great love of Dick's life. These two characters seem to genuinely care about and for each other, and I have often hoped they would find a way to get together -- not for a hook-up, but for a real, lasting relationship.

Fast forward another few years to The New 52, DC's reboot of its superhero universe continuity. Many characters' histories were changed, but one of the things I was glad to see survived the reboot was the mutual attraction between Dick and Barbara early in their careers. It was hinted at in the very first New 52 Nightwing story arc when Dick is reunited with several of his friends from Haly's Circus, including Raya, a girl Dick's own age whom he'd had feelings for long before the circus came to Gotham, Dick's parents were killed and he started down the road that would lead to his becoming Robin. In one issue of that arc, Barbara guest-starred, and (spoilers) she seemed to distrust Raya. Dick writes Barbara's reaction off to jealousy because he and Barbara have flirted before. The past mutual attraction was also a part of the action in The New 52's Batgirl No. 3.

This issue, the first New 52 annual for Nightwing, takes that suggestion even further, bringing back the idea that Dick and Barbara have long had feelings for one another but could never quite make things work out to actually date before. During the course of a current case the pair are working together, they spend a lot of time reminiscing about their first meeting and first kiss. It is nice to see this favorite concept from the old continuity creep back into the new. And, since the original Teen Titans' history seems to have been wiped out with the New 52, there goes that whole thing between Dick and Babs after he and Kory are engaged.

Oh, and this annual also introduces The New 52 version of the Bat-villain Firefly, playing a bit with readers' expectations. It's a good read; you should check it out!