Ok this is like my master list of opinions on Devin Grayson so if I left anything out feel free to comment
“Tarantula was a self insert”
So many people claim that Tarantula is a self insert, "Mary sue" type character because,, why exactly? She was a fully fleshed out character who appeared in 25+ nightwing comics. She was a plot relevant antagonist who nightwing very much did not like. Why would someone write their self insert like that for someone they're supposedly so obsessed with? Not to mention she was a young Mexican woman while Devin grayson was a 34 year old white woman. And here's her openly denying it:
She’s openly talked about being a sexual assault survivor and relating to Dick, the character she was writer for, not Tarantula.
"Sexualized rape"
Many people say that she sexualized rape and didn't take it seriously. I've seen people even say that she moved on from it too quickly in the comics. Read the arc if you wanna talk about it— it was 100% treated as something traumatic. Dick was traumatized and depressed, having flashbacks to it and everything. He spiraled for 20+ issues about it. A huge part of his character is not seeing himself as a victim, especially when that's paired with the guilt of letting someone die, so no he never sat down with a therapist and cried about it. Having him shut down and not talk about it was an accurate portrayal of his character, not to mention the fact that he was a male victim in 2004.
I also keep seeing people say that Devin said "it wasn't rape because he was a man.” She literally never said that, they're misquoting an interview where she said this:
I understand being put off by the phrasing and *smile,* but she's not saying he wasn't raped, she's openly saying it was NOT consensual, she just hadn't used the word rape in the comic because that's not how the character saw it. It's not a public service announcement, it's a narrative, so they're not gonna spoon feed it to you. That's why she said "aren't writers frustrating?"
She later apologized for how she spoke about it in the interview, but the text itself isn't problematic. It's just a dark theme, which many other comics do, and it honestly wasn't handled badly by her! The issues after Nightwing 93 were well written, heart wrenching reads! The worst thing about it was the arc getting cut short, which she talks about here:
Also she used the word rape in the original script, so despite that out of context line from the interview, she always framed it as an assault and I feel like anyone who actually read the arc would be able to see that.
It really bugs me how a lot of Nightwing “fans” treat him like a real person who was personally assaulted by Devin Grayson herself. I say this is the case because I see countless sad Tarantula edits with the caption saying something along the lines of “I’ll never forgive Devin Grayson,” “I hate Devin Grayson,” etc. I think it’s wildly hypocritical to be emotionally moved enough by a piece of art to make an edit about it, and then damn the author at the same time as if her intent wasn’t to create a tragic story— a tragic story that you enjoyed! It’s okay to like sad stories and it’s okay to write sad stories. This weird virtue signaling is pointless.
“Changed her last name because she’s so obsessed with Nightwing”
I don’t have the screenshot, but she also mentioned not being a long term comic fan and having to catch up by reading a bunch of comics when she started working for DC. Her first DC comic was published in 1996 when she was 26, so she got into comics after the name change in her early 20’s. She also mentioned that she would’ve chosen a different name if she knew she would be writing for Nightwing. That would be a pretty elaborate lie spread out through multiple interviews.
“Pro incest”
I’m sorry but Fredric Wertham clocked this 70 years ago, and I’m only half joking. She did not invent the concept, and people greatly exaggerate what she said about it.
It’s so important to note that this was a random interview where she was talking about her own personal headcanon that she did not attempt to write into canon. Before I even talk about what she said I wanna make that so clear— her portrayal of Bruce and Dick’s dynamic in canon was never sexual, and was a good and interesting display of a dysfunctional relationship. They’re weird codependent characters with a confusing 85 year old relationship that was never clearly defined. If you want Dick calling Bruce “dad” then read Tom Taylor, but that’s a very recent and inaccurate portrayal.
As for the headcanon itself, she never said she shipped them or that she thinks anything would ever happen between them. She obviously openly has a darker approach to Dick’s character and a brief, confused, codependent crush on someone who is as complicated as Bruce is to him is not the craziest thing to be said about them.
And the best part is, no one has to agree because she never tried to make it canon.
“Stereotyped a WOC”
I understand arguments being made on both sides for this, but it’s usually just a bad faith argument used to dogpile an overly hated female author, completely ignoring the obvious.
Tarantula had two things built into her character from the beginning: She was an antagonist and she was John Law’s successor. That means she’s going to act aggressive and do bad things, and she’s working under an identity based on a Tarantula from Mexico. So Grayson made her a Mexican woman. That seems like the obvious explanation to me, but I understand why it rubs some people the wrong way. She obviously didn’t have to be Mexican, so I get the critique, but it just seems like blatant disingenuous dogpiling when it’s put next to a bunch of false rumors.
“Fetishized Romani people”
Devin Grayson’s approach to making Dick Romani was ignorant and poorly handled. I don’t think anyone is defending that. The only thing I can say is that it was obviously not with malicious intent, and fetishization is a strong word for someone who mishandled a marginalized group 25 years ago.
It was a handful of comics in the 2000’s and she was far from the first person to do something like that. That doesn’t make it okay, but if you can’t look past poorly aged writing like that then you probably shouldn’t be reading comics, and I expect to see the same energy for every other author from the 40’s to the 2000’s. It’s just so obvious when someone is legitimately talking about racism (which I obviously would not argue) vs when they’re dogpiling and tacking this onto a bunch of misinformation.
I would never say "this person also did it so its ok" but Marv Wolfman is legitimately worse than Devin Grayson in basically every way and yet every time someone talks abt the new teen titans or deathstroke, the comment section isnt filled with people talking abt him like they do for Grayson. It's a combination of of misogyny, misinformation, virtue signaling, and her just being popular to hate right now. So even when someone says something about something she legitimately did wrong, it's always in a weird nasty way and paired with a bunch of misinformation in a way that no one talks about male authors.
