While many characters have really benefited from rebirth, IMO Batman's books have been pretty mediocre.

Batman: Tom King has proven himself as a great writer on Grayson and Sheriff of Babylon, but his Batman work has been terrible. Is this really all he can give or is he half-assing it because they are making him write someone else's ideas?

Detective Comics: While serviceable, it has been completely bland and unmemorable. IMO, Tynion is just an okay writer and probably shouldn't have been given such a high profile gig (but, he's Scott Snyder's student, so nepotism in work)

All Star Batman: Scott Snyder has really seemed to have lost his touch. I get that he was trying to tell a different kind of Batman story, but I didn't find it interesting at all.

Add to all that the unnecessary addition of Gotham Girl and Duke to the already overly bloated Batfamily. I have no idea why DC allowed Snyder to add two new characters that no one wanted and no one likes. Hell, no one can even be assed to give Duke a alias.

It's not just you, the bat books have definitely been under par lately

I'm fully convinced Snyder intends to make Duke Batman in Marvel Captain Falcon style. He'll then write an all new Batman series or something. Truth is that Snyder doesn't seem to have much utility for DC outside of Batman and I think both parties realize that. An A list writer who's been under an exlusive contract for years should be getting milked for all his worth but as it stands it's all just Batman and his personal pets when it comes to Snyder. He's really just trying to extend his tenure on Batbooks using one pretext or another. I actually like ASB but his continued presence ad the head honcho is damaging.

Out of the bunch so far ASB has actually been the best one imo. It's a little corny and over the top but to be honest this is what we need right now. King's Batman is just acting like a damn idiot and the worst part is that half of the scripts aren't entirely his and when he tries to do them by himself he yet again fails miserabally.

@entropy_aegis: Yeah, DC wants us to think Snyder is the next Geoff Johns, but that is ludicrous. Johns actually built up the DCU and revitalized many characters. Other than Batman, Snyder has only worked on small tentures on Swamp Thing and Superman Unchained. I don't know if that's because he doesn't want to work on other characters or DC doesn't want him to.

Either way, I think he is out of ideas for Batman and scraping the bottom of his creative barrel at this point.

DC needs to go crawling to Chuck Dixon and offer him a crapload of money to get him back working on Batman because Snyder and his cronies are not measuring up.

Tom King's Batman is excellent if you pay attention to the themes he's building underneath all the unconventional storytelling, and aren't fixated on power levels or complaining that character A is not fitting some narrowly defined headcanon.

Tynion's Detective Comics is decent, but overrated, due to the sort of character fanservice and paint-by-numbers writing that plagues the rest of Rebirth.

Snyder's All-Star Batman is what it is.

Nightwing is one of the better books out there, if not top 5 in Rebirth.

Batgirl is perfectly fine for what it is, a series built to sell in trade format in book stores, targeted at a YA demographic.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey could be better, but it's not terrible.

Red Hood and the Outlaws is just terrible, but it's also not edited in the Bat office. Biggest crime is the waste of good art.

Overall, they're still a hell of a lot better than most of Rebirth, which is slowly shifting back towards uninspired inoffensive mediocrity.

When did this "Chuck Dixon is the savior of DC" meme take off? Really, Dixon? The guy who frequently characterized Batman as a one-dimensional jerk? The guy who spends his time on alt-right podcasts whining about those "evil liberals" going after him? Dixon wrote so much mediocrity back then, and his biggest contributions were really just building Batfamily relationships. Since then, writers like Simone, King, Seeley, and Tomasi have outdone him in that regard.

@entropy_aegis: Also no one cares for Duke lol.

That suit omg. The art was also atrocious.

Good thing JrJr is off the ar duties for ASBatman

I don't necessarily disagree with these complaints, but I am actually enjoying every Batman book quite a bit. I like All-Star a lot, and think the Two-Face story was really fun, but could do without Duke like a lot have people have said.

I like the team aspect of Detective Comics. I know some people don't like Batman teaming up so often, but I'm cool with what is happening, and am genuinely curious what will happen with Spoiler, and Tim Drake. There stories may be kind of comic book tropes being re-done, but I'm cool with a book embracing comic book tropes, like I think this one is.

The solo Batman book has been ok too. It's not anywhere near my favorite, but not anywhere near my least favorite book I'm reading. I probably wouldn't read it if I didn't feel invested in Gotham books right now, but I haven't been disappointed yet.

For what it's worth, I'm really enjoying Batman: Beyond. It's a fun book, and it's really hitting a lot of the marks the animated series hit. It's sad that it's sort of reverting back to basics, but I understand that's what Rebirth is all about, especially since a lot of people didn't like the Tim Drake series.

I'm curious though, where that leads to.

@tparks: If I gave the impression in my OP, I apologize, but I don't think that any of the books are terrible just very mediocre. IMO DC could do so much better for Batman since every writer seems to want to work on a Bat story.

I like the concept of Detective Comics as I like the Steph/Tim story, but the execution and choice of plot leave a lot to be desired. Like I said, Tynion is just an okay writer and not up to snuff to write such a high profile book (same with the other Snyder student who is joining the writing team, Marguerite Bennet) Add to the obvious pandering to diversity to have Batwing (a character that I thought everyone forgot existed) replace Tim as the tech guy.

I am so disappointed in the solo Bat book because I know Tom King can do much better than what he's been putting out. The Gotham story was cliche and trite and the dialogue in Bane story was written in a really weird pretentious style. Why are Batman and Catwoman suddenly only able to call each other 'Cat' and 'Bat'? That's not a nitpick to point out that they are talking completely differently than they ever have.

P.S. Why do you keep on reading books you don't enjoy? I either get so frustrated or disinterested in books I don't like that I feel its a waste.

@rdclip: I got your impression, and completely understand it. I just happen to be enjoying the books, and the gripes I have aren't very big of issues to me.

Ya, I didn't like how Catwoman or Bane was handled, but I do like Batman a lot in that arc. His issue of mowing through Bane's army with lots of silhouette acrobatic art style stuff was really cool.

I'm Also not crazy about Batwing replacing Red Robin. I was really enjoying reading Tim in the role he was in that book, but I'm also very curious to see what is happening to him, so it's a bad with a good. I can only imagine that there is a big Tim Drake story coming in that book, which I'm ready for.

I am still considering dropping Batman, but am still having fun with it as of now. Trust me though, I'm with you on not paying for comics you don't like. I refuse to read bad comics anymore, which is why I've dropped everyone of my Marvel titles last year. I was getting let down too often, and gave up on them. Batman isn't doing anything like that to me yet, so I'm going to keep reading until I don't enjoy it. Hopefully that day never comes.

@rurgandy: Simone and King have outdone Dixon in what exactly? Dixon as a Batman/ Batman family writer wipes the floor with those 2 and who cares about his politics? thus guy created Bane, Birds of Prey, Spoiler etc. Our so called liberals on the otherhand are too busy creating crap like Duke Thomas and Riri and Harper.

I dont want Dixon to return at all but his Batman, Catwoman and Bane run circles around Kings versions and he's a legit action writer which King desperately wants to become.

they have been lacking or outright mediocre. i dropped em on comixology.

i'll just stick with other books

They been meh.

I agree

Exactly. JSA, Hawkman, Green Lantern, etc. Snyder doesn't have Johns' talent.

What are you talking about? Dixon is responsible for Nightwing being what he is today, Stephanie Brown being what she is, Tim Drake being what he is, etc. He did more than just create Bat Family relationships, he fleshed out all of the characters involved the relationships. He definitely didn't focus solely on Batman as a one dimensional jerk, though Batman had his jerkiness (Which you could say for many high profile Batman writers, such as Ed Brubaker and Grant Morrison). Dixon's Batman>>>King's Batman. Not even a contest. Same goes for Bane and Catwoman for that matter. His politics are irrelevant to be honest. What have any of the writers you mentioned done in creating an actual Bat Family that surpasses him? Because that's what he did, created a family, with different dynamics for the different relationships.

Batjerk best batman. Dude is under a lot of pressure, he demands excellence, he is strict and he doesnt want people that will get themselves killed doing what he does.

I dislike the new 52 batman very much, bland idiot whose action devolve into punching matches constantly. Thats politically correct and a push over, old batman would have broken every bone in jacobs body, he would have squeezed everything he wanted from him then left him to rot on a jail for what he did.

Tumblr generation truly has taken over the batbooks.

Dixon threw Nightwing in a city that was essentially "Gotham but worse", had him get angry at Batman every other arc, and saddled him with a Kingpin knockoff as a villain. All while ignoring most of Dick's past development. And this is coming from someone who liked his work back then. It was good, but people need to take off the nostalgia goggles. King and Seeley did far more to make the character stand out without demonizing Batman. Seeley's take on Bludhaven as a Vegas analogue trying to reform its public image is far more interesting that "Gotham but more corrupt". Tomasi protrayed Nightwing as a wise-cracking and well-adjusted man who had a healthy relationship with Batman, and close friendships with nearly every superhero, which is far closer to the modern perception of Nightwing than Dixon's ever was.

Stephanie Brown is more beloved thanks to her run as Batgirl under Bryan Q. Miller. If it weren't for her time as Batgirl, she would have been long forgotten.

Tim Drake had a good run under Dixon, but the character has been largely irrelevant now that he's no longer Robin.

Simone wrote a better Birds of Prey. King has written some of the best Dick Grayson solo stories, ones that were not reiterated the same ideas over and over again, but required a modicum of thought. Dixon's Nightwing pales in comparison to what Morrison, Snyder, King, and Seeley have done with the character, and Dixon's Batman is bland and outdated by modern standards. Dixon wrote during a period where the writer's function was to throw a few words of exposition on a page, and then let the artist draw. It's the Dan Jurgens formula.

Oh god I just noticed the bit about Johns. Geoff Johns, really? The same Johns who retcons large swaths of DC history to fit his headcanon? The same Johns who keeps trying to build up big events, only the drop one plot point after another? The same Johns who had such big hardons for Hal Jordan and Barry Allen, that he brought them back to life, retconned away all the undesirable bits, and then shat on the legacy characters before him? Sure, his JSA, Green Lantern, and Aquaman were good, but let's not forget the dumpster fire that is Batman: Earth One, or how his entire Justice League run was an extended screenplay for a Michael Bay movie, or the stupidity that was Flashpoint. And why don't you ask Peter David Young Justice fans what they think of Johns's Teen Titans. Johns, more than any other big name writer, prioritizes fanservice moments above all else. It's why people only remember moments like good boy Hal punching out Batmeanie in GL Rebirth, or angsty murderous Wonder Woman, or all the "DAE Aquaman is cool" jokes.

And in doing so filled it with its own unique characters and environment that set it apart from Gotham, taking the chance to not just make it another Gotham City, but still keeping a member of the Bat Family in an environment that suited him.

He wasn't angry at Batman every other arc actually. In fact, there are some moments where the two get along just fine, even working together in Bludhaven, having a confrontation with Blockbuster, with Batman telling Nightwing that he trusts him to handle the city on his own. Granted, this was a time period where Batman and Nightwing did clash over their differences, which displayed itself in all of the Bat books at some point or another and this still occurs today on occasion.

Blockbuster might have been a Kingpin knockoff, but he worked, hence Dixon's run being the best received by far.

What past development did Dixon ignore exactly?

How was Batman demonized exactly? This sounds like the type of logic that dictates Batman can't be implied to have any type of flaw, in either himself or his relationships with other people, because he's Batman and must be perfect. Batman and Nightwing aren't the same person and people argue. Dixon didn't avoid that and I wouldn't even say that these other Nightwing writers you mention avoid that either. Dixon just didn't bother to write them disagreeing once, have them reach an agreement, and then act as if that solved all of the problems between the two, which had been developing for years.

You talk about Tomasi writing Nightwing as well adjusted and having a good relationship with Batman, when Nightwing was written in the same way during the years after Dixon's run on the title. Newsflash, that change in character was intentional and happened due to the two characters hashing their differences out and moving on. Their initial problems can be seen in the later Batman/Robin stories, Dick's time with the New Teen Titans, and are constantly referenced today as a reason that the two split to begin with. Dixon confronted this, dealt with it, and allowed the characters to move on from this afterwards. He also wasn't and isn't the only writers who has noted this. Dixon also wrote Nightwing as having fairly good relationships throughout the superhero community, without having him constantly bumping into other heroes. Whenever he did however, such as with Superman, he was shown to be on good terms with them. So, i'm not seeing what you're talking about. This isn't nostalgia, it's simply the facts.

If it weren't for Dixon creating her she never would have been Batgirl. He's the one who wrote and made her popular enough for that, along with making her popular enough for fans to be annoyed at her treatment at Batman's hands, her death, and how she was treated after her death.

Tim Drake became insanely popular under Dixon's pen and has remained popular to this day. I mean, he got the character to 100 issues. The decision to move him from the Robin role then wasn't Dixon's and really says nothing about Dixon's writing at all, so i'm not sure why you're mentioning that.

@rurgandy: Dixon defined Nightwing, all those stories about nightwing that dont feel original now, they were original when he wrote them, you are just biased against Dixon, and i seem to remember you making a comment about his political preferences, like they mattered.

About Steph, thats a stupid point to make, of course giving her more exposure made her more relevant. Fact is tho, Steph was a great character under Dixon, with far more depth and likability than when she was written for batgirl, but her basic traits still shone through. She had fans even after her debut because she was fairly interesting and people wanted more.

Only reason Tim became irrelevant was because no one has been writting him properly for over 6 years. He was a huge part of the batverse even when he was not robin. When a character spends enough time out of the lime light people forget about them, for the better part of a decade all his character development got either retconned or deleted, his personality, name, skillset and relationships changed or forgotten. It is inane to even suggest that it has anything to do with him being or not Robin, when the truth is the character used to be good enough that it didnt matter. Like how do i even describe to you the damage the character has sustained when for the better part of a decade he was left forgotten and unrecognizable on a crap book.

Finally i have to laugh at you suggesting that Tom Kings Grayson run was more in character than Dixons Nightwing run, the very idea is inane. In one you have a young adult getting out of his father home and trying to make it on his own in a very hostile environment, a dark place where the light in him shines through. In Grayson hes a clueless idiot that just wants to go home, the cast is full of likable and interesting characters, what makes Grayson a good read is everyone but the titular character, oh and where the light in him shines through. Only exception to this is probably the first annual, with is pretty amazing and one of my favorite renditions of the character.

I agree they're mediocre. But still some of the best in comics now. That's sad.

Dick's transition to Nightwing under Wolfman: Dick retires from being Robin for self-reflection, but gets called back into action when Deathstroke attacks the people he loves

Dick's transition to Nightwing under Dixon: Batman gets jealous of Dick spending time with the Titans, fires him, and then kidnaps Jason off the street because he misses Dick

Dixon also ignored that Dick and Bruce had already settled their differences in New Teen Titans, and widely ignored the Titans in general, outside of an occasional Wally appearance.

Dixon's Bludhaven was hardly unique. Dixon kept describing it as "Gotham but worse". Its distinctive feature was that it had lots of crime. At best, you could call it another Hell's Kitchen. Now compare that to the Spyral HQ or Seeley's Bludhaven, which already has a more dynamic history and houses more unique personalities than the typical street level supporting characters.

Stephanie was a fun supporting character, but her time as Batgirl elevated her well above what Dixon did with her. And her run as Batgirl is arguably still the best-written Batgirl solo series to date.

Tim Drake had a decent run, but his popularity came from him being the "one and only" Robin, who was featured in many other high profile books as well. He is to Robin what Kyle Rayner was to Green Lantern, in which their respective solo series were less important to their success than the amount of exposure DC pushed onto them. In this day and age, when multiple characters of those legacies are running around, they've been left in the margins.

Honestly, I don't even like Stephanie Brown as a character and i'm not going to act as if Dixon didn't manage to make the character appeal to a wide audience and put her on the map. Can't argue that. The Batgirl run would literally not have possibly happened without Chuck Dixon lol.

Completely agree on Tim. You can't really connect his decreased popularity now to Dixon in any way. These complaints make no sense.

@revan2424: Batman giving crap to robin for spending time doing something else than protecting gotham is a common enough trope. And it fit, because parents give crap to their children, its out of preocupation and love.

What happened was that Dick was old enough not to want to take crap from batman, its textbook growing up and trying to become your own adult. That is the direction dixon wanted to push for nightwing, a direction that to this day most depictions of him have kept. He drew the parallel with real life fathers and sons relationships, this is what inspired a lot of Dixons stories. It made sense, it inspired and informed their relationship ever since, and seeley is keeping up the exact same themes, because its that good of an idea. It humanizes bruce and dick and makes them seem a lot more like father and son and less like employee and employer.

Also Nightwing being DCs daredevil is hardly news, they both had a law related profession during the day, they use the same weapons, they have rougly the same fighting style, they are both in a hellhole, etc. Much like atom and antman, green arrow and hawkeye and the myriad other ripoffs from one or other company this one worked fairly well.

Of course Stephanie was elevated, she got her own freaking solo. But this is a reminder that Dixon wanted to do roughly the same by making her into the first official Robin instead of the embarrassing crap we got in preparation for war games. But again, even as batgirl and with her great run, she still wasnt as good a character as dixon wrote her, because the dude knows how to write teenagers, probably better than anyone in the industry.

Tim Drake had a consistently better run than freaking batman, the character was relatable, he fought crime during the night, went to school during the day, had to deal with paternal issues, had to deal with homework, had to deal with having two lives, gave us an insight into bruces mind on every issue, while immersing the reader into what it would be like to wear a costume and beat badguys. He was miserable most of the time, he had a barrage of problems, he felt he wasnt understood, he had to deal with drugs, betrayal, death, loss, and he did like a real teenager would, albeit a mature one that isnt a brat, exactly how he was introduced. Dixons Robin run gave us the best depiction of a Robin ever, one that was both genuine and interesting. He managed to be his own character and the perfect reader surrogate all in one.

The character itself was brilliant, we saw him grow from a fairly incompetent crime fighter into a machine in a journey that took over 20 years across several publications. Best Zero to Hero story DC ever told. By the time he was discarded in favor of hip anime evil ninja clan princess the potential for the character and future stories was huge, you could have done so much with him, he had a big following, still does. New 52 was truly the death of great ideas, and i firmly believe it almost ruined DC.

And dont even get me started on the batfamily dynamics, they were great, his Nightwing issues "The Boys" is p. much perfect.

Anyway, Dixon is a freaking genius and your criticisms are shallow.

@Soulaf: I think you aimed that comment at the wrong guy! You replied to Revan.

Also, you reminded me of when I used to love Tim Drake. With Dixon's run and then Peter David's Young Justice, Tim was my second favorite comic book hero under Batman. After the New 52, I stopped caring about the character. I stopped liking a lot of characters including Batman for awhile. I really dug Azzarello's Wonder Woman so that was cool. lol It was actually the only Wonder Woman I cared about, and it was my favorite run in the New 52.

@infantfinite128: New 52 was the death of too many great ideas and status quo. Hopefully rebirth takes a shovel to it all and brings back the interesting characters that we lost. Give Tim Drake to Nicieza and give him the freedom to make him back into who he was and hell get us there.

@Soulaf: That would be cool. I really enjoyed Red Robin.

And these guys wouldn't have written anything if it weren't for Dixon, Simone especially. BOP was Dixon's creation, he established the relationship between Babs and Dinah, he established between Helena and the rest of the Bat family. Today these characters are considered the staples of the franchise not Charlotte Radcliffe or Strix or Savant or whoever Simone created. Simone took what Dixon did to the next level but her own original ideas and concepts are either lacking or non existent.

The world building in Grayson is on Seeley not King, Seeley was the guy who used Morrisons stuff from Inc, it was Seeley's idea to use the Wildstorm characters and it was Seeley who brought back Helena. King wrote great stories but his world building on the Batman books is dismal, LOL @ Gotham Girl and Duke. Similarly his Suicide Squad was a non entity, a fricking bust and an epic fail. If Dixon wrote that I could have seen those characters getting a mini of their own. That's how BOP took off in the first place.

But even then the Grayson status quo was casually swept away but Dixon's stuff for better or worse has endured.

Morrison, Snyder and King never wrote Nightwing they wrote Batman and Agent 37. Nightwing is far more difficult to work with but yeah full credit to Seeley and Tomasi however Dixon's contributions cant be ignored. He put Nightwing on the map.

I'm not going to pretend that Dixon is actually better at writing than all those guys mentioned because frankly he's not but his world building and development is only matched by Morrison and maybe Seeley. I dont think Tomasi was on that level during his tenure on the Bat books and especially not Simone or King.

@entropy_aegis: Simone was the one who brought Huntress into the Birds of Prey. Dixon hated Huntress, because other writers would keep pushing her as a Nightwing love interest. Rucka did more with her in No Man's Land, and Simone was the one put her on the team and established her as the id to Dinah's ego and Barbara's superego. Just because Dixon put Dinah and Barbara together (which was a good pairing), it doesn't mean he gets credit for what comes later. By that logic, John Ostrander would get the bulk of the credit for making Barbara Oracle in the first place.

King wrote, by far, the strongest issues of Grayson. The Futures End issue, the gun issue, the desert, the fight against the doppelganger, and the Batfamily reunion were all King, and were all praised for reaching new character depths and their story execution. As for his "worldbuilding" skills, you don't have to look farther than Omega Men, Vision, and Sheriff of Babylon. Far better worldbuilding than "it's like Gotham, but really corrupt!"

It's very telling that Dixon's city and "rogues" have only shown up in name. Seeley himself said he didn't like Bludhaven, which is why he's remodeling it as a city that will properly reflect Nightwing. And why the only familar rogues are the ones that he could get away with completely reinventing.

Nightwing is far more difficult to work with? Really now? One of the biggest problems of Nightwing's tenure in Bludhaven was that the villains and plots were hardly distinguishable from any other street level book. Blockbuster could have easily been a Green Arrow or Daredevil villain. Writers didn't have to deal with the emotional baggage that came with Dick taking on the Batman mantle while mentoring Damian, or the intricacies of him being an undercover spy.

Dixon's strengths are writing relationships. His best issues were the Nightwing/Robin train issue, and the circus date with Barbara. He created Bludhaven, yes, but Bludhaven was only notable because it was Nightwing's city. Dixon is a status quo writer. He wrote decently enough in Bludhaven to keep Nightwing's sales numbers steady enough for a lengthy run, but never actually pushed the boundary. He stayed within comfortable confines, and in that regard, Tomasi's short run was better than any 14 issue stretch Dixon had, while Seeley/King brought in both original ideas and exceptional scripting.

And I do like a good portion of Dixon's stuff from back in the day, but that doesn't mean they're not beyond criticism, or worthy of the circlejerk he gets here. There's a reason why he's done absolutely nothing noteworthy from the past decade. Hell, given how he recently complained about "replacement characters" and big status quo changes and minorities, he would probably disapprove of half the stuff he wrote back then.

Dixon had already used her in BOP and yes he gets credit because he introduced Helena to the larger Bat family. The Robin books, the Nightwing books and Knightfall books fully developed Helena, Rucka and Simone took the ball from him when he left.

It was because Seeley was busy world building while Kings job was to bring legitimacy to the series and I dont see any world building on the Batman books, sorry but what he did on Vision has no bearing here. All I see is right now is Gotham Girl and no one gives a crap about her. He's done nothing worth a damn with any character in 15 issues. Tynion for all his flaws has already created a new world for Kate.

Seeley is utilizing the concepts as they are, he's merely changing the flavoring so that they would better reflect Dick.

With the exception of partnering with Damian all those other directions were because of editorial.

Either way I dont even care about Dixon's Nightwing, I prefer Seeley and even Tomasi's work the question here though was impact and Dixon has left it. Without him there's no Bat family and he writes the exact same characters King is using in his current run better by leaps and bounds. I'd rather read Bronze Tiger, Batman, Bane and Catwoman written by Dixon than King any day of the week and I dont care what King did on Omega Men because it has no bearing.

Huntress's involvement with the BoP during Dixon was her and Dinah chasing after a guy that they both slept with. It was dumb, forgettable, and had no bearing on how their relationship was handled later on. Helena in Nightwing was written as an angry killer who kept pining after Dick, because Dixon was mad about other writers interfering with his DickBabs ship.

All Tynion did with Kate in terms of "worldbuilding" was plop her with the Batfamily, when she already had her own corner of Gotham and her own niche.

Seeley's Nightwing run is a metacommentary crapping on everything that didn't work in Dixon's run. Raptor calls Nightwing a brand extension of Batman. Seeley's Bludhaven is trying to completely change its image from being defined solely by "having lots of crime". He even took villains that Dixon created, and did 180s on them so that they're not just stock jobbers.

It's funny that you talk about how Dixon isn't above criticism, when no one ever said he was to begin with, but seem to never do anything but cape to hell and back for the current group of Bat writers, constantly going on about how people just don't understand what's being written and how they're just whining.

What's the reason Dixon hasn't done anything in the past decade? Because I know you're not trying to imply that his writing wasn't well received or popular, because whether you like him or not it's a fact that he put Nightwing and Tim Drake on the map. Again, his run on Robin lasted for 100 issues, Nightwing for 70. He didn't come up with the concept for the Birds of Prey, but he put the heart and soul into the book, and nearly got 50 issues out of it and the brand itself remains to this day. He was the first person to really start doing something with Barbara Gordon as Oracle. DC is currently in the process of reprinting all of these series right now. Birds of Prey is something we take for granted now, in a time when Black Canary has never been more popular, but no one gave a damn about her or Oracle back when the series was first being created and the idea of them being paired together seemed silly. People were still asking for Barbara to gain the use of her legs again and to go back to being Batgirl before Dixon came along.

I'm not going to act like every single issue Dixon wrote was perfect. Of course it wasn't, no writer is perfect, not even people like Grant Morrison or Geoff Johns. But Dixon was clearly successful during his day, numerous elements that he presented to the characters he worked with remain, characters like Tim Drake, who he made massively popular, have fallen off hard in the years since, and his world building was simply excellent. And it worked on a higher level because of the fact that he was juggling all of these titles and was easily able to cross characters over from one to the other.

EDIT: "Raptor calls Nightwing a brand extension of Batman."

Oh please, people have been saying stuff like this since the 90s. This is hardly anything groundbreaking.

@nathaniel_christopher: And I gave credit where it was due, like when Dixon formed the relationships between between Nightwing, Robin, and the Birds of Prey. He handles character relationships well (even if he took some liberties with their histories, which in this day and age, this board would be fuming at) And yet within those series, he rarely had any memorable arcs, other than origin stories. The villains he created were forgettable and often derivative. Bludhaven only took off because it was Nightwing's city. Tim Drake's success came from being heavily pushed by higher-ups due to him being THE Robin, being part of Young Justice and the super-high profile Geoff Johns Teen Titans, and showing up in Batman books frequently. Standards for writing were much worse in the 90s, as writers were expected to just jot down exposition and then make way for the artist. The fact that a writer with a resume as long as his can't put out anything notable in this day and age, when other veterans have found critical success on the creator-owned front speaks to how well his writing abilities have held up.

Which was the direct result of Dixon's series man. Geoff Johns Titans series didn't start until 2003, after both Young Justice and the Robin solo, yet you seem more than willing to give him credit for the character's success, when by that point the kid had been a success for years. Hell, by that point his solo, under Dixon, was hitting the ten year mark. Really, you mention everything that played a role in it except Dixon's series, which is silly.

What does the concept of his abilities as a writer today have anything to do with the writing he was doing in the 90s? People try to use that same logic in regards to the current Batman run, constantly bringing up Omega Men. The writing and success of the two aren't related in any way. Bottom line, Chuck Dixon could be the worst writer in the world at this very moment and it would have zero bearing on the stuff he was putting out over ten years ago.

And before Dixon, Marv Wolfman wrote A Lonely Place of Dying, which ingrained Tim as THE Robin and a vital cog of the Batman family, because DC needed readers to accept Tim, and to avoid another Jason debacle. Dixon's run on Robin helped, sure, but it was hardly the only the biggest factor.

It was a bigger factor than one story arc, in which Tim didn't even gain his own Robin costume. A solo series, the first ANY Robin ever had, in which the character's own corner of the Bat universe was fleshed out, played a far larger role. And we've seen with both Jason and Damian that a character being "THE Robin" doesn't make fans like him.

@rurgandy: Yer not giving the character nearly enough credit, not every character can succeed, there are many characters that are granted solos and several publications in the hopes that theyll become popular. Only good characters last.

Lotta good points above, but still Dixon>>>>>King

Oh god, I just noticed the bit where you notice the bit about Johns. Your knowledge of comics lore far exceeds mine, but I want to stand up for 'Genius' Geoff Johns here.

His New 52 Aquaman and DC Universe Rebirth one-shot more than make up for the occasional youthful faux pas.

On the Dixon talk, yeah I don't care about his personal politics, he's one of the best modern Batman writers and is responsible for enlarging and fleshing out the Batman family to what it has become today. He put Nightwing in Bludhaven, one of his most independent and fan favourite status quos, he wrote a 100 issue Tim Drake Robin series, he created the Birds of Prey and he wrote Batman in Detective Comics. He was the major Batman writer in the 90s and I wish I had been old enough to read them at the time given how good they were on reflection.

Boy this thread turned off topic real quick. As for Batman books being bad. I totally agree.

I'll probably jump in once the crossover between Batman and Flash starts though. Afterwards, drop it again lol

Yeah, Batman hasn't been doing it for me since Rebirth. Something about the writing just feels off. After the Superman/Supergirl knockoff arc I dropped it. From what I hear about Bane and Catwoman's arc I'd say I did the right thing.

Today the Batbooks had not one but TWO jump the shark moments. Lets start with Harley Quinn:

So Red Tool takes it upon himself to deal with the Joker out of a desire to protect Harley. He confronts Joker, they spar verbally. When the Joker pushes his buttons, Red Tool starts pounding on him.

After that

She picks the Joker up, takes him home, and then kindly reminds him that she had previously warned if he ever showed her his face again it would be the last time.

So Harley and Big T tie him to a chair and put him out in traffic to gleefully watch while he’s hit by cars. Presumably it’s okay for Tony to help her since she asked him.

The comic ends with Harley looking at a battered, unconscious Joker and saying grimly, “He deserved it,” then telling Tony to help her take him so they can finish the job.

source Batman News (these are portions of the review of the latest issue of Harley Quinn). Well done Conner, I hope she feels pleased, Harley is finally her own woman again(for the billionth time). This character has become a blight upon both Joker and Ivy.

The other moment came from the lord and savior of comic books who is known as Tom King.For those who dont know Batman #15 was originally solicited as a Swamp Thing team up story, hell its still solicited as that but changed to extend the Catwoman story so why the sudden change? especially because King confirmed that the story is fully scripted and could be published at a later date. I'll tell you why King reversed the decision he made back in Batman #9, dude buckled under the pressure and changed his plans . Today the murder mystery that had plagued the book for the last few months was solved and the killer was revealed to be

and just like that "I am Suicide" just became even worse.

LOL what a sissy, maybe these idiots should think about what they're going to do thoroughly before making such huge decisions and then spending the following months trying to undo it. I thought Snyder had commitment issues but King just keeps surprising me every 2 weeks with his suckiness.

@entropy_aegis: Holy crap. I wonder how Frank Miller will feel about the second twist.

Good lord Batman #15 was pathetic. I'm done with King's Batman. This is not the Batman I grew up reading. Hell this is not even the same Batman who's showing up in every other book in Rebirth. If the only way for a story to work is to drag the main character down the mud, I think they should've gone back to the drawing board. I could've tolerated this garbage if it was somehow an Elseworld story, but there's no way I can accept this as being in continuity.