Since Iâm once again thinking about it, Devin Grayson really had the worst luck in the world for her whump storyline.
Sure Iâm certain it would never have ranked up there with peopleâs favourites, but Iâd love to have seen what her original pitch for the resolution of the storyline was. Presumably the depression-almost-marriage, then Dick runs off and joins the mob, then we finally get a comfort arc where he realises heâs NOT that person and reconciles with the family.
Instead: 9 of the following 13 issues to Nightwing #93 were out of Devinâs control (War Games then Nightwing Year One), she gets her mob arc up only to be informed Dick will be getting sacrificed in Infinite Crisis, and she diverts over to the half done Slade story because nothing really matters at this point, hey? Editorial drops Chemo on BlĂŒdhaven because Dickâs dying anyway, we can sacrifice his city for drama, only for the rebellion to save Dick AFTER PAGES ARE TURNED IN.
I know everyone dislikes #93 and why they feel that way, but itâs also basically the last point for the subsequent two years where Devin had any control over the course of the title, at the end of which she was removed. #94&95 are the start of Dickâs reaction. She gets to write #100 and ONE proper story arc in after this point: the mob arc #107-112. Everything else is scraped together transitions or preempted or someone elseâs story.
If her story hadnât been disrupted for an ENTIRE YEAR at its lowest point by intervening events, so that fans had given up on getting any sort of catharsis out of the whump and had turned on Devin, I can see a world where people enjoy Devin Graysonâs run as âthe one where Dick gets to go off the railsâ. Itâd be his Red Robin - known to be Dick not acting normally, but with the fun that yeah, that was DESERVED, and Dick came out the other side solid.
But we donât live in that world, and instead we live in the world where fans spent an entire year in a holding pattern at Dickâs lowest point, and just gave up caring. The narrative was set. This was The Worst Story (until the subsequent two Worst Stories came about)
Oh god, where do I start. A lot of this is justâŠgeneral knowledge or stuff that pops out when you look at a timeline of how the stories going on shake out.
It is very, very clear when you look at how the storyline started, Devin Grayson pitched a âbreak the cutieâ plot. She spends 18 months carefully making everything go wrong in Dickâs life, and then presumably intended for him to come out the other side stronger and more committed to The Mission.
Iâm going to compare this again against Red Robin #1-12, which is a compact and successful example of this sort of storyline. RR #1-4 is Tim Hits Rock Bottom. The events of the past 5 years or so finally catch up with him and Tim Breaks. He yells at people heâs close to, pushes everyone away, and goes on the run. RR #5-8 is Tim swimming around going 'well Iâve given in to my Worst Impulses, Am I Evil?â and flirting with Doing Wrong. RR #9-12 is the resolution - Tim realises he still has people who love him and rely on him, he goes to heroically save Bruceâs loved ones, and gets a moment of pure sweet resolution hugging Dick in the Cave.
Devin Graysonâs whump plot for Dick essentially runs from #71-95, and then from #107-116. She desperately tries to wrap it up in #117 but itâs halfhearted at best. The intervening 11 issues (almost a YEAR) in the middle there, #96-106, consists of: 3 issues of War Games, one issue post-War Games that is essentially just the fallout and new status quo being explained to Dick (because he was unconscious during the final parts of War Games), Nightwing #100 (which is about long term stories and doesnât bother to seriously get back to the plot as itâs essentially a stand alone issue), and then #101-106, which are Nightwing: Year One, written by Chuck Dixon.
As a writer, Devin Grayson essentially had no choice about anything that happened in that year. Her plot got put on hold for two other stories. It also got put on ice at the worst possible moment: right as Dick hit rock bottom in #93, and let Tarantula shoot Blockbuster. #94-95 mostly consist of Dick wandering around in a daze, probably dissociating from the horror of what heâs just let happen, while Catalina tries to marry Dick.
In Red Robin terms, imagine if after RR #4, as Tim is lying there bleeding to death, the plot got put on hold for 11 months while Tim had to go back to Gotham for Blackest Night (instead of those issues just happening as separate tie ins), followed by another writer getting to spend 6 months recapping A Lonely Place of Dying. Imagine what that would do to the storyâs pacing.
Once Devin gets control of her story back, in issue #107, she launches into the Mob Arc. I like the Mob Arc, being #107-112. Itâs the equivalent of RR #5-8. Dickâs decides that heâs a Terrible Person, so heâs punishing himself working as an enforcer for the mob. Heâs also simultaneously remembering what itâs like to be part of a family, with a father who cares about you and a little sibling to protect. This is the upswing. Itâs where Dick is supposed to start recovering, and working out that heâs not Evil.
Unfortunately for everyone concerned, the plotting of Infinite Crisis is underway at this point, and Dan Didio wants to kill off a character to seal This Is Really Serious. He wants to do a Barry sacrifice. Didio picks Dick, for a variety of reasons that have been explained many different ways over the years, but that essentially boil down to âDidio saw Dick, as a legacy character, as superfluousâ. He wasnât Batman OR Robin, but he used to be Robin. People would care but it wouldnât disrupt things that much. Hereâs a very basic explanation from Didio - there have been a LOT more details leaked over the years.
Didio got it very, very, very wrong. His writerâs room for Infinite Crisis essentially staged a coup and forced Didio to accept that killing Dick Grayson would result in half the writers walking/resigning, including iirc Geoff Johns and Marv Wolfman. Geoff Johns was the lead writer for Infinite Crisis. People cared very much about Dick. They swapped his death out for Konâs instead (and the swap came very very late - Infinite Crisis is written as if Dickâs about to die, they swapped out pages at the last minute).
BECAUSE Dick was now fated to die during Infinite Crisis, Devin got told to wrap her story up. Nightwing was ending issue #117. She segued over into the Slade plot (which probably was her next intended move anyway - Dick training Rose would be the shock that brought him back out of his moping over being evil), but only gets 3 issues of this, including one where Roy gets to yell at Dick about What Are You Doing??? Sladeâs also simultaneously part of the Evil Plot going on in Infinite Crisis, and since Dickâs dying anyway, the event writers decide to drop Chemo on Bludhaven, to again ramp up the drama and sacrifice. If Dickâs dead they donât need the city, plus Devin Grayson had already killed off the majority of characters people cared about there anyway (Batgirl is already scheduled to end at the same time too, and moving Robin back to Gotham was the long term plan anyway).
Standing in the ruins of Bludhaven, in issue #116, Dick finally, finally reaches where RR #9-12 should start. He gets back into the blue fingerstripes and mourns his dead.
Unfortunately for everyone, this resolution arc gets exactly one issue, #117. Dick finally gets to tell Bruce what happened to Blockbuster (which if events hadnât intervened, was more likely to have happened back around #99 or so, or maybe a little later), and he gets engaged to Babs because heâs about to die and that was his little treat for getting offed (this is similar to how Steph got to be Robin because she was going to die in War Games. You get a little treat because youâre about to be dead).
Unfortunately for Devin Grayson, this level of resolution is about as popular as burnt toast. Didio is shaking up writers for most titles anyway in the aftermath of Infinite Crisis - the point of One Year Later is that they can set up fresh teams on all the books. Devin is off Nightwing, never having got to resolve her plot.
And also, because the last two years of storytelling on Nightwing have been approximately as popular as a root canal with the fans (due to, as I noted, the main plot spending a year in a holding pattern, followed by 11 issues that never fully got back on track after that disruption, as they also got completely thrown for a mess again by Infinite Crisis), Devin Grayson is essentially out the door at DC as well.
Iâve seen books still be successful around this level of editorial fuckery. But it takes skill, talent and a lot of luck, and Devin Grayson didnât have the trifecta.
(You want an example of a book that survived this level of nonsense? Marc Andreykoâs run on Manhunter. Which got cancelled TWICE and then finished up as a back-up in Streets of Gotham. And even that won the lottery several times)
Also, you CANâT finish a story like that by destroying the city. You just ⊠canât. Thereâs no way to salvage that.
When youâve amped up the incredibly personal emotional tension SO HIGH, you canât then switch to a larger-then-life tragedy. If he falls apart because of about 20 deaths, in a realistic and long-term way, you canât cap the story with thousands of deaths.
It breaks the tension. The only way to really respond is to laugh. We were so close to the character, and then we pan out and all his problems look so little and trite, and we feel kinda stupid for caring. Ha! It was just a few deaths! This is REAL tragedy! (Not that it was written in a way that engaged any real sense of connection. Just numbness.)
And then our last hope for ANY closure runs into Brothers In Blood. The last tatters of 'maybe he recovered on his trip and weâll get to see how that changed himâ are confronted by a tentacle monster. Yeah, this is a joke. Why do I even READ comics?
(Thatâs what my reaction was the first time, anyways. Thatâs where my comics read-through ended for several years. And I made a series of posts laughing at how ridiculous the angst levels were in Graysonâs work. [While also recommending it.] But THAT WASNâT GRAYSONâS FAULT. I just got no catharsis and needed some time to process all of it on my own, since the comics got sabotaged.)
The PĂĄrisi Udvar in Budapest, Hungary. Arcade/department store/ galleria built 1907-1913, in a mix of styles- venetian gothic, orientalism, jugendstil, renaissance.
I truly believe that when Light became Kira, he became his best authentic self. Not for anyone else, of course, but for he who had been in a straight jacket of conformity his whole lifeâ it must have been relieving.
âOh my god no, Iâm not a perfect person anymore! Wait. Actually, Iâm always perfect, no matter what! I can be a killer god and Iâm still better than anyone else! Wow. This is great. I love being myself.â Real self love everyone.
Even if he had to hide it from everyone except Ryuk, Light was objectively happier than at the beginning of the series. Thatâs why I donât like Yotsuba!Light more than Kira!Light actually, like heâs just an incomplete, less depraved version of who Light really is. An egomaniacal serial killer that likes being an asshole. Heâs back fitting himself into a box and I hate that for him.
Even L liked Y!Light less. Humming and hawwing in a depression for weeks because this wasnât the little neurotic sicko he had been hunting down. Where had his TRUE boyfriend gone?
I stand by Lightâs rights and his wrongs. Heâs much more fun and interesting with both.
Same for L! Morally grey, Kira obsessed detective or NOTHING! None of this âoooo lite no kiwwing is bad đ„șâ BARF. He wanted to bark at and chase Kira around a yard for enrichment.
Batsiblings convince Jason to get himself a cooking Tiktok account, and he gives in. To his surprise, he quickly gains millions of followers and a loyal auditory. The only problem? Jason has no idea that these people came here not necessary for recipes.
Jason: Geez, my followers had been pissing me off lately. Dick, confused: Huh? Why? Jason: They keep commenting ATE. Like, dude? Fucking where? I am not eating in my cooking videos. What is the fucking point? Tim, choking: Oh my fucking God-
Jason, making an angry text post for his followers: YOU ALL. STOP COMMENTING âRAWâ. MY MEAT IS NOT RAW. I AM A PROPER COOK. WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??? Cassandra: Maybe it is time to tell him⊠Tim, Steph, Duke, in unison: NO
Bruce, awkwardly trying to have a conversation with Jason: Hey, lad, how is your cooking blog is going? Jason: Uh, people keep commenting cryptid messages. Like, the last time I was showing the right way to tenderise meat for chops because apparently it wasnât clear and someone requested the whole video? Anyway, I did it, and the whole comment section was writing me âin bed, on the floor, on the couch, on a chair, against the wall, against the window, against the doorâ⊠Like, why would I do that, not in the kitchen? Bruce, no less clueless: Maybe it some kind of challenge. Kids love trying new stuff in extreme places nowadays. Jason: Huh. Maybe. Thanks. Bruce, just proud to have a proper conversation and somehow a help: Anytime, Jaylad! Damian, who was unblissfully educated on the slang matter by Tim (because it was his responsibility as a big brother to traumatise him), with his eye twitching: âŠNone of these words were in Koran
is there a style guide/dress code for gotham rogue henchmen out there somewhere
r/NoStupidQuestions is there a style guide/dress code for gotham rogue henchmen out there somewhere
u/RaddicalCon
âI mean, not something thatâs written down or printed out.
(Unless youâre from my birth-family, in which case itâs all written down, mostly in ancient books that stink of dry-rot and leather where Henchâre called things like âServitorsâ and 'Beholdenâ and thereâs a lot of rules about which parts of the manor youâre allowed to drag bodies through at what particular times of the day.)
Otherwise, itâs not like thereâs a HenchCo HQ that puts together an employee dress code or anything. As with most things Hench-related in Gotham, itâs all about unspoken rules and running tradition. Vibes, you know?
So hereâs some of those unwritten rules written down, because fuck the not-police.
A lot of bosses are going to have their own style and Hench-branding already in place. In this case, you wear what the Boss tells you to. Hopefully, theyâll supply you the uniform so you donât have to go down to the army surplus and hunt for body armor in the exact right shade of purple or something. Be careful of any Boss who has you buy/rent your uniform with promises you get your money back when you return it. Gotham is hell on clothes regardless of who you are, and thereâs no way youâre going to keep that uniform clean enough to be given your 'depositâ back. Fortunately, these sorts tend to be flash-in-the-pans. They usually wind up dead after they piss off one of the bigger fish, or they donât have anyone willing to bust their cheep-ass out after the first time their cheep ass gets locked up by the capes'n'cowls set.
Even if the Boss doesnât have specific uniform for their hench, they almost always have a certain theme/style of their own going on, and youâll want to play into that. When you join up, take a quick look around. If everyoneâs decked out in a certain style (jaunty green caps, black leather jackets, red shirts), itâs probably a good guess you want to dress similarly if you donât want to draw the Bossâ attention (Itâs almost never a good thing to have the Boss notice you as an individual as opposed to just One of the Minions).
Alright, so you found yourself hooked up with a crew where there doesnât seem to be any theming going on. Hereâs where the unspoken rules come in. You get to make your own outfit, but if you want to come across as a professional Hench, or at least one who knows what the fuck theyâre doing, youâre going to wanna stick with the standards. These will depend on exactly what kind of outfit youâve landed in.
Organized: 'This is a professional operation, boys, and we expect you all to look professional when on the clock.â Youâre working with one of the crime families, henching for Two-Face on Mr. Dentâs side of the room, or fronting for Sionis because youâre an unmitigated asshole or a raving idiot. Regardless, youâre going to want to get yourself a nice suit. Nothing too fancy, youâre not trying to imply youâre as good (or rich) as one of the big players. Something off the rack at one of those Fancyish Clothes wholesalers should do you fine. Add a fedora or something if you need to keep your hair warm, consider growing a pencil mustache if youâre able, or go for the classic full-eyelashes & red lips makeup if thatâs more your thing. You might even be able to get away with a trench-coat. Just keep it all either black, grey, or very subdued colors and youâll be fine. And make sure you know how to fight in them. Thereâs nothing worse than watching some guy who can normally tear it up in a street fight get a knife to the gut because he wasnât used to the way tight slacks constrained his ability to throw a kick or leap out of the way of something.
Heavies: Itâs easy to tell if youâre in one of these outfits. If youâre spending all your time moving unlabeled crates from one place to another place, standing guard over nondescript warehouses and abandoned factories, or showing up in back alleys to clarify the bossâ intentions to some hapless Gothemite, than youâre in a Heavy crew. None of the excitement of the others, but you donât have to dress up for it. Youâre not in the 'Public Facingâ part of the Bossâ operations, so you donât have to worry about keeping on-theme or even wearing something without holes in it. Conrats. My main suggestion and the most popular getup for this gig? Cable-knit turtleneck and knit cap. Gotham nights are piss-cold nine months out of the year, and itâs 9-10 odds youâre going to be doing all your work after sundown. Steel-toed boots are also a must. Basically: good, durable, sout, able to handle roughness and keep you warm. Donât try and be cute and wear ugly christmas sweaters or multicolored patterned hats or anything. The only ones there to appreciate your kicking swag are going to be your coworkers (and who gives a shit what they think) or the Bats. Whoâre going to use the fact that youâre distinctive to pick you out for the first to get face-punched. Not worth it.
Street: The Default level for Henching as a whole. Wear what you want. Something thatâll keep you as warm and protected as you feel like keeping yourself that youâre comfortable beating up assholes and getting your ass kicked in. Some form of tank-top/open-jacket combo is popular these days, as is the Tight Black T-Shirt and Ballcap getup. Weâre still not letting our freak-flag fly high, here. If youâre Henching, the point is usually not to have the cops and everyone else immediately notice you when you walk down the street. If that is your purpose, the Boss probably already has uniforms prepped alongside the gas bombs and explosives. The only thing I wanna stress is to keep up on your laundry. Too many guys take the chill of this setup as an excuse not to keep up on that, and there is nothing worse than having to work with someone who stinks like month-old foot-mold and shit. You are not earning yourself a breakout out of Blackgate if youâre putting your coworkers through that.
Wild: Okay, now you can let your freak-flag fly. This is what you want to go with if youâre henching for Two-Face on Harveyâs side of the room, or in one of those 'are we foot soldiers for a Rogue or are we a street gang?â situations. Letâs be honest, you probably donât want to sign onto one of these unless youâre comfortable blasting your brain chemistry to pieces on shit youâve never even heard of before. In exchange, you can wear whatever the hell you like, so long as itâs eye-catching. Combine your mesh tank-top, pink camo cargo pants, and an army-helmet with a dozen spikes, studs, and dyed feathers. Break out your midriff-baring leather jacket, fishnets, and combat boots. Take a trench-coat and wrap a streetâs worth of road signs around it. Drill elk antlers into a hockey mask and drop the whole thing into neon green paint. Just realize that if itâs fragile, itâs going to break in your first fight. And you will be in fights. Either against rival Roguesâ crews, or with the Bats. Learn how to take a punch, and for the love of god learn how to stay down after youâve taken that punch. The only thing getting up over and over again in a blood-frenzy will get you is an ever increasing stay in the ICU.
Of course, the easiest way to make sure youâre wearing the right shit for Henchwork is to NOT DO IT.
Iâm fucking serious, y'all. Just donât. If you want a snazzy uniform and an excuse to beat people up, join a private security company. If you want to fawn over an evil megalomaniac while furthering their plans for world domination, both Amazon and LexCorp have plenty of job openings. And if you just want to tear shit up for the hell of it, join a street gang. At least then the people by your side might actually give half-a-shit about you at the end of the day.
And to answer the most frequent question: You can find piles of discontinued hench outfits at any Gotham thrift-shop. Theyâve almost always got their own rack you can dig through to your weird little heartâs content.
ALT
ALT
