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A forever in-work compendium of Marvel and DC canon immigrants. What's a canon immigrant? Go here to find out!

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Costume Spotlight: Nightwing (Rebirth)

One of the goals of DC Rebirth is to make the characters more closely resemble their most popular versions. In some cases, that means making a character's physical appearance look more like an adaptational counterpart. last week we discussed Wonder Woman, but Nightwing is another good example.

When most people think of Nightwing, this is what they picture. It debuted in the Nightwing miniseries (1995) that led to him getting an ongoing:


Nightwing kept this costume until the New 52, and whenever Nightwing showed up in a show or video game, he wore a version of this costume. Except, for some reason, the blue part was turned into a bird. Almost every single time.

 



These are just five examples: The New Batman Adventures, Teen Titans, The Batman, Young Justice, and the Son of Batman trilogy.

In the New 52, beginning in Nightwing #1 (September 2011) to be precise, Nightwing got a new look after almost 20 years:


Then he quit being Nightwing and became a spy, but as part of the course correction - for lack of a better word - of Rebirth, Nightwing showed up in Nightwing: Rebirth #1 (July 2016) looking like this:

It's not exactly the same as any animated appearance, but it is clearly inspired by them.

3 comments:

  1. Just a little note about something I discovered recently...

    Tusky, Aquaman's walrus pal, is a canon immigrant. He was created for and first appeared in the 1967 Filmation Aquaman cartoon before being brought into comics in Aquaman #36. The timing is tight, as Aquaman #36 is dated November '67, and was probably on the stands in September, the same month the cartoon premiered, but given the longer lead time for animation I'm pretty sure the cartoon came first.

    Also, the three robot villains in Aquaman #36 are from the cartoon.

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    1. Considering that issue's cover says "The King of the sea is now the king of tv!", I feel comfortable saying it specifically introduced multiple characters from the cartoon as a tie-in. So be on the lookout for new posts about them in a few weeks.

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