Thoughts about Dick Grayson...

Okay, I'm about to do something that's going to likely completely ruin my fun. I'm going to try to examine rationally my irrational hatred of Dick Grayson.

It shouldn't be a shock to any reader of my blog that I hate Dick Grayson. I get such sheer enjoyment out of hating Dick Grayson that it belies any sort of reason. There was a temporary span of time (when Wolfman took over Nightwing) that I believed I hated Dick less. As it turns out, while I found Wolfman's Grayson more enjoyable to read...I still hate Dick Grayson.

And the thing is. I have no idea why!

On paper, I should like Dick Grayson. I readily admit, he's a nice guy, open sort, fairly intelligent. He's a skilled fighter. Definitely competent. All things I tend to like.

He's good looking, definitely, he's got silly taste in clothes, good taste in women (Babs and Kory are both too good for him. :-P), he interacts in interesting ways with characters I like, he's even made me like characters I'm normally indifferent to (Supergirl)...

Sure he can be portrayed incompetently, but when he's good he's really really good. (Obsidian Age will always be the pinnacle of adult Dick Grayson portrayals for me).

And yet. His presence in a comic makes me twitch. I read his lines and I grind my teeth all "why is this person clogging this panel time". And for the life of me, I just don't get it myself. He's a largely inoffensive character.

I used to think he could be "salvaged", but now, he pretty much is, and I STILL can't stand him.

I think maybe it's the angst. I love angst in general, but I tend to prefer characters that respond to angst in particular ways. I enjoy characters that are stoic, that suck it up and repress the angst until the point that it gets quite problematic. I enjoy characters that are defiant, that externalize the angst in anger, violence and hitting things.

I don't tend to enjoy what I call "the wallowers". I tend to figure, if a character is aware enough of their unhappiness to mope about it (as opposed to self denial in the form of sucking it up or hitting things) they should probably be trying to find ways to deal with it. (I'm not saying it should be FIXED and that the characters shouldn't ever backslide...just that I'd like to see some effort in that direction)

It's why I like Obsidian much more now than I did when he was a basket case in JSA. Now he's clearly gotten help, he's much better adjusted, and I'm sure if he DID have an angsty moment or two I would be much more sympathetic than I was when he was raving, whiny and evil in JSA.

On the other hand, this is Dick we're talking about, so it's very likely even if he went to a psychiatrist every day, stopped serial dating and just decided to clear his head for a while, cleared up some of those daddy issues with Bruce, and became a happy well adjusted person, I probably still would irrationally hate him.

It's my thing. :-)

Is there any character you guys irrationally hate for no sane reason at all?