A-Lister as in A list level in comics (story priority, creativity attached), other media and known prominently among the casual audience.
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Nightwing, can he become an A-Lister?
He can, but it would have to take an immense change of thinking within WB and DC for it to happen. You don't get Nightwing alone, you have to bring in the Titans. You want a solo vigilante movie, you do Batman because Batman is a proven success time and time again (because all WB does is Batman), but Nightwing isn't because he has never gone solo.
nightwing being an offshoot of batman means he will never be one of the top dogs. even robin is b-list at best.
>even robin is b-list at best.
That’s just moronic to say. Robin is more well known than every marvel character not named Spider-Man
the only shot he ever had as an A-lister was with the Titans but they have exactly one great story and have been liquid dogshit otherwise to the point where association is harmful. His solo nightwing stuff is ass with no sign of changing
> Having one good story is a requirement to be an A-lister It's just a matter of brand, age-group and having been around for long enough. Nightwing doesn't qualify. He will always be a Batman character.
To be an A-lister, one must have a popular rogues gallery, multiple iconic stories, a consistently top selling ongoing, and have to maintain that for decades. Green Lantern under Johns almost achieved that but as soon as Johns left it all fell apart. GL is B-tier at best now.
By your definition only Superman and Batman are A-Listers. Certainly not Flash or Aquaman or Wonder Woman.
Flash checks enough boxes, Aquaman barely qualifies, and Wonder Woman is a special case.
If teen wally is in the back ground and Barry is in the foreground then who is the flash in the middle?
Maybe Bart? I think at one point he went from Impulse to Kid Flash.
He’s moving so fast the one in the back is also the one in the front
That's Bart as Kid Flash in the back, then Wally in the middle, then Barry in the front.
>a consistently top selling ongoing
This is thinking is dead. Harley shows that as long as you can keep up the fans in other media, you're pretty much A list regardless of how the comics and stories go.GL shit the bed more because of the LA movie than anything.
Nightwing has similar materials as well but no real push because any time someone tries an outing with him its iron chained to Batman. His design and attitude could easily see him popular for a solo tv or movie like Daredevil.
boring character.
He is. Anyone doubting this is moronic. Dick Grayson has been an A-Lister since your parents were in short pants or even before.
He was an A-Lister as Robin.
He can't become an A-lister because he has no A-lister villains. He's good but he's a big fish in a small pond.
Eh. He was an A-Lister upon his introduction in comics as Robin. As Nightwing, he's been a solid C. And don't (you) me.
He got a city (Blüdhaven).
He has no memorable rouges (Torque was neat though)
His best stories are him as Batman.
And most people only care about his costume because it's cool.
As Robin he can but not as Nightwing.
If he's in a movie, but that's it.
He’s hard stuck at upper B because he can’t break into the movies. Every Batman film wants to be a reboot or trilogy at best, so there’s no room to establish Robin- and even if there was, nobody wants to make another Batman and Robin in the first place. A standalone Gotham Knights flick with Grayson as the POV character would honestly be the best shot.
I dunno, I feel like he might be in the upcoming Brave and the Bold.
Sure it's gonna focus on Damian, but part of Damian's deal is that he's a legacy character, and of course his brotherly relationship with Dick, so I think it makes sense to have Dick as Nightwing round, to establish that he started the Robin legacy and for Damian to have a brother around.
I'm also assuming Jason would be dead and Tim just skipped completely, with Damian taking on the role of having Bruce accept having a sidekick again, and makes more sense now that I think about it, considering Damian would require constant supervision.
I liked its 2008-2011 run
You mean the DickBats era?
You'll never see a world where Warner Bros will push Nigthwing as a brand or give him a solo movie. The closest he'll ever get get is being the main character in a Titans project.
But at the same time, Dick Grayson has been A-List for decades.
Nightwing - potentially.
Ask one thousand comic regular Marvel comic readers from the 1990s and another one thousand who were regularly reading through the 2000s to pick ANY Avenger team member who they though would be THE most significant, the most popular, or the MOST IMPORTANT to be the main character, or the lead character OR the most successful representation of a series of Marvel films that would be the most popular form of Superhero entertainment over a decade.
How many do you think would have chosen Tony Stark/Iron Man.
Then ask any 100 or 1000 or 10,000 or any number more than 100 of normies; that is people who might be familiar with comics and comic books, who might be aware of superhero movies because they either saw or even owned a VHS (or DVD) of Superman The Movie or Batman, or even who might be aware of superhero cartoons like the Fantastic Four, X-Men or the DCAU shows, BUT are not at all comic book readers.
ASK THESE normies to pick a superhero who thought would lead and be the main character of a series of connected and related superhero movies that they (and many other movie theater goers) would be watching and would be counted amongst the high grossing films over a decade.
Make it easy on them and give them two picture boards, one with say 10-20 Avengers team members and another with 10-20 DC/JLA/JSA members.
How high of a percentage do you think the Iron Manlet would have managed?
Nightwing is unique, though. Like, unique in all of mainstream comics. You can't just jump into a Nightwing solo. You need to establish Batman, then establishing Robin, then establishing how and why Robin left Batman to become Nightwing.
It's a lot. It's too much.
You can do all of that in a pre-title blurb if you don't insist on a half-assed melodrama plot that just puts the focus back on Batman. Normies already know who Robin is, so you just need to have Dick narrate his origin story and then "but now that I'm older, I've decided to return to my home of Bludhaven and protect it as my own hero."
>Bludhaven
gross
Superman the movie shows Kal El as a baby on Krypton, Clark as a toddler on Earth, in High School as a teen, and as a grown man. It shows his parents, his teen friends, and ultimately his coworkers.
By that measure a Nightwing movie needs to show Haley's Circus, Batman and Robin, and whatever supporting characters they actually want to use in the solo movie (probably Batgirl). Which is exactly what I said.
>gross
You want him to be an A-lister, you get him the frick away from Gotham and Batman. I don't care if you call it Bludhaven or whatever, but it needs to be a different city that Dick can call his own.
Captain America need that first movie to establish the character; they did little development of Steve Rogers in any of the Avengers movies (in face, cutting out some stuff that added character development in the finished released film); Dick is already reasonably established - a very brief montage would more than suffice, it can even be done in an animated format.
Likewise, Superman the Movie established: Ma and Pa, Smallville, Krypton, the Daily Planet, Metropolis, Lex, Lois, Jimmy, Perry and some other important facts, like Kryptonite, all in one movie.
One movie for Dick would more than suffice. Unlike the movie just released for Jaime/Blue Beetle, it doesn't need to be overstuffed, need a badly shoe-horned romance, or an entire collection of family OCs. It just needs what the Blue Beetle movie lacked:
A good story, well told and well-written.
Why the frick are you idiots comparing to the first Superman movie when they'd obviously be completely separate things. You're not getting a 3 hour long sweeping epic movie for fricking Nightwing. You don't NEED to establish things that are already part of pop culture osmosis or that can be recapped in a 30 second clip show. Narrate his backstory, show the title, move on. The more backstory baggage you actually show, the more he stays in Batman's shadow instead of moving out of it, which is the exact opposite you want if you're trying to make him an A-lister.
Why do people like you think "Batman's shadow" is a thing that exists, or a thing he needs to escape? If you did a Nightwing movie, and you're dead-set on keeping everything Batman related out of it, what do you even say about the character? What supporting characters do you use? What villains? Do you pretend the first 20 years of his life never happened? Do you gloss over the decade he spent in the Batcave? Does he never call home to his family? It's such a stupid mindset.
A character is an A-lister if they can sell entirely on their own. You can make a Batman movie and people will buy tickets entirely on it being a Batman movie. If you make a Nightwing movie and it has a bunch of Batman anyway, then Nightwing isn't going to be an A-lister, because he's relying on Batman and will continue to be associated with Batman.
If you want Nightwing to be a permanent B-lister then fine, not every character has to be an A-lister and stand on their own, and most characters are better if they're not. But the topic is about what it would take to make Nightwing an A-lister, and that means being able to stand without Batman.
This is the main reason why people shat on Homecoming so much, because it turned Spider-Man into Iron Man's B-lister instead of letting him stand on his own.
Because so many people have this mindset that every character piece needs to be an origin story of how they learned to walk and first sucked their mum's tit.
Some characters just work better as having it be a day in the life, quick flash back, or nothing said. Batman is too huge a property that you don't want to spend too much time on it or borrow characters least you end up feeling like Miles.
Stuff like Suicide Squad worked for Harley because it established that she ran into Batman, has a joker history, and spent most of the time letting her show who she is and how she operates differently from either of those two.
The Harley comparison is accurate. We all know they're just going to use Nightwing in the Titans in the end.
Out of avengers, it makes sense. Iron Man didn't come out of nowhere.
>He had a cartoon even in the 90s.
>His concept is cool.
>His costume was awesome with the constantly changing suit designs.
>Companies were fighting over get exclusive rights for him in games
>This is still rejects only era so not really worrying about Wolvie or Spidy out doing him.
>Only other "figure head" is Cap. And any exec would shoot him down as having no world appeal.
>Toy merchants dream
Otherwise yea get what your saying about unexpected characters can suddenly be big sucesses. Aquaman's movie is better example and a GOOD GL movie could very well have been DC's IM.
He kind of is
has there been any sidekick who became an a-lister?
Al I want is my Batgirl/Nightwing movies to get rid of the Titans stink that has lingered far too long.
he already is one as Robin
Without having a clear definition of A-list we all agree on everyone is just talking past each other. I could see an argument for that he is already an A-lister for example.