Why Nightwing Should Be The Next Batman Film

 

Warning:  spoilers ensue! If you haven’t seen Dark Knight Rises yet you might want to stop reading here… But for those of you who have seen the latest Batman movie, by all means, continue reading on…. Director Chris Nolan and actor Christian Bale have both said in several interviews going all the way back to last year that they will be making Batman films no more; Nolan even going as far as writing a farewell letter to the franchise. But it was made pretty clear by the end of the Dark Knight Rises (to the delight of many fans, I’m sure) that there will most likely be another Batman installment surrounding Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s character, Officer John Blake, whose first name was revealed at the end of the film to be Robin.

So should the next Batman film be about Robin, the younger, albeit smaller half of the dynamic duo? I say no. I think they should make the next film Nightwing instead. Here are a few reasons why….

1. Robin became Nightwing as an adult in the comics. There will be no way to completely satisfy all the die-hards because there are just too many versions of both Robin and Nightwing over the history of all the comics to begin with. Plus, they already changed Robin’s name from Dick Grayson for Dark Knight Rises probably to create suspense for those already familiar with the name. So it wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to just forego any more talk of Robin and make his alter ego Nightwing instead.

2. Nightwing is not a side-kick. If Christian Bale’s not going to play Batman again, they’d be stupid to recast. There have been so many versions already and besides Bale, Michael Keaton’s been the only other decent one (not counting the TV show, of course). And I think it would be a seriously dumb move to have Robin assume the Batman identity in the next movie because Bale has pretty much solidified himself as the iconic Batman and they already have all of Gotham thinking Batman’s dead.  So… if Batman’s gone, for all intents and purposes, an entire movie about Robin, who everyone knows to be Batman’s side-kick, would just be lame.

3. Nightwing’s costume is way cooler than Robin’s. Okay, this might be a little superficial, but they even had to make some changes to Robin’s costume for the Arkham City video game, which while it does look a lot better than before, I still like Nightwing’s better.

We saw at the end of Dark Knight Rises that not only did Bruce Wayne donate his mansion to the orphanage that (Robin) John Blake grew up in, Batman gave him directions to the Batcave so all that nifty equipment is now at Blake’s disposal. What’s he going to do with the suits that are already there? Just a little blue here and there and voila! Nightwing. Plus, he’s already been shown as being a police officer and their colors are black and blue already. Not to mention, Nightwing uses batons and so do cops, typically.

4. Joseph Gordon-Levitt. JGL is such a great actor and a popular one at that. We have yet to see him really break out in a studly, manly role. We’re already familiar with his versatility and he’s done the trusty right-hand man thing before in Inception. This would be his turn to be the badass so why set him up as being in someone’s shadow to begin with by making him “the boy wonder?”

5. Catwoman. I doubt we’ve seen the last of the kitty cat. Selena Kyle was shown sitting in the café across from Bruce Wayne at the end of DKR hinting at her continuing presence in the saga as well. And how about this scene from the New 52 February 2012 issue of Nightwing? Meow!