Ever since first rebranding himself asNightwing , Dick Grayson has strived firmly to pull himself out ofBatman’sshadow . More specifically , he ’s strive hard to be like anyone except Batman . It ’s nothing personal against Bruce Wayne himself , though , as account has show that Batman does n’t need Nightwing - or any of his wards , for that matter - to really be like him .

Rather than harbor the same dour attitude about and towards the world as Batman does , Nightwing works severely to be more of a well - aline hero . In hypothesis , to deter from Batman ’s path , Nightwing would be await by lector to cut up one out for himself . While he has done so in many ways , that does n’t mean that there is n’t at least one superhero that helped him go down a benchmark for his own unique path . infix Jay Garrick ’s Flash .

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Nightwing and Batman imagery

InFlash#134 by Mark Millar , Grant Morrison , and Paul Ryan , Nightwing has a lunchtime conversation withtwo versions of The Flash , Wally West and Jay Garrick . After learning from their waitress that Captain Cold is causing a drunken revelry downtown , Jay insists on going at it alone , squeeze Wally to take his doctor ’s advice and remain off his invertebrate foot until the next day . Wally reluctantly agrees and Jay heads off , piss clock time to pay for the check as well . “That ’s who I want to be when I uprise up,“Dick spout .

Jay Garrick’s Flash is The Hero Dick Grayson Wants to Be

It for sure clear sense as to why Nightwing admires Jay Garrick so much . After all , as far as being the ideal symbol of a well - adjusted hero , Jay accommodate that bill dead . Unlike other version of the hero , Jay Garrick ’s Flash is n’t seduced by darknessand manages to chew over a healthy balance between his superhero life and his personal life . Plus , one of Dick ’s best friends in the hero world is Wally West , so it only make sense that Nightwing would feel just as fondly about a Flash who forego him .

What ’s perhaps most interesting about Nightwing ’s admiration for Jay Garrick is how both contemplate such startlingly dissimilar generations of heroes and different sensibility of comic in oecumenical . Despite not debuting as his latest iteration of the character until the mid-80s , so many caliber and characteristics about Nightwing exemplify how mod heroes are portray , which may explain whyNightwingis the new plaza for DC ’s Multiverse . After all , Nightwing is jovial , tongue - in - cheek , daring , and reachable , as so many torpedo are being portrayed nowadays .

Meanwhile , everything about Jay Garrick reflects a bygone era of the Golden Age as someone who is decidedly pure , insanely serious in his stoicism , and filled with as much of an consuming sense of pride as he has a sentience of nobleness . Yet it ’s those classic torpedo tropes that Nightwing observe so likeable . Some of those qualities can even be attribute to Nightwing himself . By choosing to emulate and admire an idealistic hero of the past rather than Batman , Nightwingbecomes the ideal hero of the future .

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