While Titans is now entering the fourth season and has gained a great fan base that appreciates this new, dark take on many of the younger and less well-recognized characters from the mythos of DC Comics, there have been many questionable changes to the characters in the show from their original comic book incarnations.
Dick Grayson, or Nightwing, is one of the most drastically changed in many ways. His comic book counterpart is vastly different from the character that has been leading the Titans crew in the TV show since the show began in 2018.
6 The Nightwing Mantle
After Dick Grayson finally stepped away in Titans from the Robin mantle, he went to jail and found a new mantle in Nightwing after a conversation with his cellmate. The cellmate spoke of a legend from his village, a figure called Alazul who would swoop down to save people in the form of a bird. While Dick found this strange, he later helped his cellmate escape prison and became inspired to create the Nightwing persona.
In the comics, the Nightwing mantle was inspired by Dick Grayson’s need to distance himself from Batman as he grew up, and the story he was told that inspired him actually came from Superman. A Kryptonian legend fueled Dick’s desire to create something new, and the Nightwing mantle came from his inspirations from two of DC’s most iconic heroes. The Titans version was definitely a more convoluted story, but it would have been difficult to bring Superman to the show to suddenly inspire him in this manner.
5 His Fighting Style
In Titans, Dick Grayson is presented as a brutal brawler, with his violent tendencies giving his personality a lot of edges and making him more reminiscent of other Robin characters from the comics. This brawling style and his darker personality have been criticized by fans of the show as being unfaithful to the comic book version of the character.
Comparatively, Dick Grayson in the comics was brought up as an acrobat and his fighting style retained that gymnastic ability. He was also a very controlled hero, and never had such a brutal period where his personality shifted into such an anti-heroic place as he is shown in much of Titans.
4 His Leadership Qualities
Dick has grown over the course of the Titans show into being a better leader for the team. But in season 1 especially, fans were irritated with how often he left the team, yelled at them, and was generally unpleasant to them. This is again indicative of the personality changes the show led with when it was first released from his comic book counterpart.
However, from his first leadership role as head of the Teen Titans in 1964, Dick in the comics has always been a fine and admirable leader. Indeed, in both comics and shows, since Dick is one of the less powerful beings on the team, it is a significant aspect of his membership that he is the leader of the team. Originally, the show version of Dick being the leader of the team didn’t make a lot of sense, he didn’t even seem to like most of his team.
3 His Relationship With Batman
Dick Grayson was taken under the wing of Batman as his ward after becoming an orphan. He then went on to become Robin, the Boy Wonder and stood at the side of Batman as his sidekick for many years. All of this occurred in both DC Comics and the Titans show. However, what happens after he becomes an adult and moves on is very different.
In Titans, Dick has become violently estranged from Bruce Wayne and blames him for his own violent ways and lack of control. In the comics, Dick and Bruce’s relationship was always close, even if they had their arguments. Bruce considered Dick truly to be his own son and Dick didn’t blame Bruce for the way he raised him.
2 His Secret Identity
When Dick moved out of Gotham and became a police officer in the comics, he simultaneously took on the mantle of Nightwing. In Titans, these events come at vastly different times, and he is still Robin when he becomes a police officer in Detroit.
After abandoning the Robin persona in season one, Dick fights crime mostly as himself and isn’t shy about turning up to crime scenes in his civilian clothes. It took over a season for him to bring the Nightwing persona together, and in that time he didn’t care at all about criminals knowing his true name. In DC Comics, Dick Grayson always carefully guarded his identity, taking cues from his mentor Batman, who has (almost) always done the same.
1 A Role Model
The biggest overall change that Titans makes to Dick Grayson’s character in the show is his standing in the DC Universe. In the comics, other heroes look to him as an example, being one of the first “second-generation” heroes, many of the members of teams like the Teen Titans and the Outsiders have taken their cues from him and looked up to him as a role model.
Between the changes made in the show to his brutality with criminals, abrasiveness with other members of the team, and even his initial reluctance to be a hero at all, other heroes don’t seem to look up to him even a little. He isn’t a good role model, and while he is building to becoming more of a well-regarded character as the seasons go by, this significant change has shifted the entire direction and arc of his character from the beginning of Titans.