#bea bennett

How DickBabs Contributed to the Playboy/Cheater Reputation of Nightwing.

a study on how Dick's character suffers whenever Dickbabs is being pushed by BlackCat-01.

Post:

I want to be very clear, this isn’t hate toward Barbara Gordon. I just have to speak out because there’s a very obvious pattern of Nightwing being written problematically whenever this ship is pushed. It’s heartbreaking to see Dick turned into a playboy or a cheater in the comic community, and it’s hard to support the ship when so many stories portray him this way.

People often point to Nightwing Annual #2 (2007) as the "cheating Nightwing" moment, but that one story alone doesn’t tell the whole picture, and it’s been retconned. There are countless other examples where Dick behaves questionably in his relationships while pining for Barbara. Whenever writers try to frame Barbara as his "true love," it often comes at the cost of other women in his life, like Starfire, Helena, Shawn, Bea, and others who get dismissed, insulted, or treated as placeholders until Barbara appears.

This isn’t just framing or shipping drama, it’s a clear pattern that has hurt Nightwing’s character over the years. And it’s why I just can’t support DickBabs, because the writing consistently makes him seem disrespectful, unfaithful, or manipulative, even when that wasn’t who he used to be.

Nightwing (2007) Annual #2

Dick confesses his undying love for Barbara, cheats on Kory the night before their wedding, and then hands Babs the wedding invitation the next morning like it’s no big deal. This wasn’t an accident, it was a deliberate move to erase Kory’s importance and turn her into a disposable fling.

Nightwing (2005) #104 and Nightwing: Year One

Dick is actively dating Kory but is still flirting with Barbara. He nearly even kisses her until she pulls away, and she insults Kory with the infamous "Spice Girl" comment. Dick comes off as a disrespectful cheating boyfriend, and Kory is reduced to a punchline.

Nightwing (2013) Annual #1

Dick asks Barbara to run away with him to Chicago while she has a boyfriend in a coma. Manipulative, insensitive, and boundary-crossing, clearly prioritizing Barbara over decency.

Batgirl (2015) #45

Dick tries to kiss Barbara while she’s dating Luke Fox. Barbara stops him before he can kiss her. She tells him he can’t waltz back into her life.

Batgirl (2020) #50

Barbara is in a relationship with Jason Bard. Dick continues to pursue her, while her boyfriend is irrelevant. It adds nothing to the story except making Dick look selfish. Dick is literally willing to homewreck for Barbara.

Batgirl and the Birds of Prey (2017) #8

Dick is dating Shawn Tsang at the time. Helena and Barbara are patching him up. Barbara flirts with him while he’s shirtless, puts her hand on his cheek, and remarks that his abs are "very distracting to her." Meanwhile, Dick’s relationship with Shawn is completely ignored, yet he’s still shown to be with her. Barbara is treated as the only one who matters romantically.

Nightwing (2000) #43

Dick was seeing Bridget Clancy during that period. She finds a huge framed photo of him and Barbara next to another photo of the two of them and leaves in tears. His insensitivity isn’t addressed, again being used solely to tease the inevitability of DickBabs. The worst part of the picture is that it’s a photo of him and Barbara on the beach hugging, being touchy, Dick shirtless, and Barbara in her bikini. No, this is not a normal picture you just happen to have lying around your apartment…and then having the audacity to hang it right beside the photo of you and your current "flame."

Nightwing (2016) #22

Dick is about to have sex with Shawn Tsang (aka Defacer), but he’s shown thinking about a conversation he had with Barbara during the act. Literally, he is obsessed with her and hasn’t moved on, even during intimacy with his actual girlfriend.

Batman: The Widening Gyre (2009) #1

Dick says to Bruce: "Tell Babs it was always her above any of them!"

This line essentially erases every meaningful relationship Dick has had before Barbara, reducing his past partners to placeholders in his story. It frames Barbara as the "one true love" at the expense of his other relationships, making Dick look like he views everyone else as disposable, it actively rewrite his history, implying that the emotional bonds he had with Starfire, and others never mattered. It’s dismissive not just of his past relationships, but of his growth as a character, like all the women who shaped him are irrelevant until Barbara appears. It makes it look like Nightwing’s moral compass and loyalty only exist when Barbara is involved, which is completely out of character.

Grayson (2016) #20

Otto Netz, a villain, is attempting to take over Dick’s body and mind. During this, he tells Helena Bertinelli that the only woman Dick ever loved was Barbara, and adds that she is far prettier than Helena.

I was completely speechless. This line implies that Dick’s past relationships meant nothing.

On top of that, saying Helena is "less pretty" than Barbara is unnecessarily cruel and dismissive. It frames Barbara as the flawless ideal, reducing every other woman in Dick’s life to a secondary, lesser role.

Although Nightwing Annual #2 (2007) in which he cheated on Kory the night before their wedding, was retconned, numerous other questionable moments in his relationships are still canon.

Since Nightwing is a property of the Batman office, most of his writers are clearly pro-Dickbabs. In order to make the relationship convincing, they’ll do anything, even write Dick as someone who oversteps boundaries, treats other women poorly, or cheats, all to frame this pairing as his "OTP."

It doesn’t feel right to say this, but I don’t think Dick and Barbara deserve to be a happy couple. Like they are right now. This ship was essentially built by rewriting Dick into someone unfaithful or manipulative and by sidelining or erasing every other woman who mattered to him. That’s why, to me, this pairing never feels earned.

(‎I definitely agree with OP here.. this is exactly one of the reasons why i don't like Dickbabs, their relationship cannot stand on it's own without tearing down and undermining the other important women in Dick's life. It's an Insecure spiteful ship full of bitterness and hate for other women. It's rooted in racism and misogyny yet their fans act like it's a healthy ship you can't criticize.)

I just want to add more examples to OP's points.

Bea Bennett was another victim of the misogynistic Dickbabs writers.

She was a Black woman Dick dated, a Black Rights Activist and they met during his amnesia arc. Even after Dick got his memories back, he admitted he was still in love with Bea and even told Alfred he wanted to build a life with her. But then the Bat-editorial came up with an excuse to break them up so Tom Taylor could start pushing DickBabs again.

They had Dick end things with Bea for apparently "her safety,” in Nightwing #76 and Bruce even encouraged him to break up with her by talking about “heroes can’t be happy.” but literally two issues later, Taylor starts setting up a romantic plot between Dick and Barbara... and suddenly Dick is allowed to be happy now that he’s paired with Barbara.

It completely contradicts the reason they just used to break him and Bea up. And they made Bruce look like a pure hypocrite with him shipping Dickbabs.

and it was also disrespectful to Bea’s character. They had Dick move on from her ridiculously fast just two issues after the breakup, he’s already having lovey dovey moments with Barbara like he just completely forgot that he just recently broke up with Bea.

and few years after Tom Taylor kept pushing Dickbabs, they decided to retcon Bea’s past history In Nightwing Annual 2024.

They started inventing a story claiming Bea only dated Dick because she was being paid to watch him, basically retconning her into some villain/spy in his life. They completely rewrote her character and diminished her importance to Dick so Barbara can be framed as the “better,” more innocent option.

It’s the same thing as what they did to Kory. They invented that scenario in Nightwing Annual #2 where they claimed Dick cheated on Kory with Barbara the night before the wedding even though that originally never happened. Dick and Kory’s wedding was in 1993, and that cheating plot was only written in 2007. Dick was originally loyal to Kory back when they were together before the Dickbabs writers character assasinated him.

Just like how Kory got retconned into a Meaningless Sexual Fling, Bea got retconned into a Villain so they can prop up Barbara as his One True Love.

Another example of them treating other women like Garbage is in Young Justice, where Dick basically got rewritten into a different person once they started setting up the Dickbabs plot.

Before that plot existed, he wasn’t portrayed as a playboy at all. In Season 1, he only had eyes for Zatanna. They broke up off-screen in Season 2 on good terms, and their history wasn’t downplayed.

But after Season 2 ended, they released a comic tie-in that introduced the Dickbabs storyline and suddenly Dick was rewritten as this “playboy” who was labeled a “dog,” someone who supposedly hooked up with different women until he was “ready” for his true love Barbara, they always say he needs to be ready for Babs first before Babs enters into a relationship with him, acting as if Barbara is some sort of SPECIAL Woman that he needs to change himself for her. They pushed this idea that Dick was a mess who slept around while waiting for Barbara, and that she was the one who finally “fixed” him.

Calling him a Mature Man when he's with Barbara while describing him as a “dog" when he’s with other women basically disrespects Zatanna and the others, it reduces them to nothing more than distractions and sexual entertainments he was just trying to keep busy with while waiting for the Special Barbara Gordon to be with him.

‎What makes it even worse is how Barbara fans and Dickbabs shippers celebrate these panels. They put them in their edits, use them as “proof,” and act like it confirms Dickbabs as some destined one true love pairing.

‎They’re perfectly fine with writers slut-shaming and putting down any woman who isn’t Barbara as long as it benefits their ship. But the moment someone says even the slightest critical thing about Barbara or their ship, they are quick to personally insult and label that person as a "misogynist" and publicly shame them for having an opinion.

Convergence: Nightwing and Oracle Cover — Art by George Perez

Nightwing/Huntress #3 Cover — Art by Kath Lobo

Batman/Superman: World's Finest #44 Variant Cover — Nightwing #91 (2016) Cover B Jamal Campbell

Art by Gabriel Picolo

Action Comics Vol 1 #613 — New Titans #71 (1988)

Art by sherlmerl

Nightiwng #15 (2011)

Nightwing #15 (2016)

Nightwing #68 (2016)

Art by sa.yah.ra on IG

Titans Secrets Files #2

World's Finest #111

Action Comics #1051

New Teen Titans #5 (1980)

Brightest Day Aftermath: The Search for Swamp Thing Vol 1 #1 (For whoever's wondering, that Batman is Dick. This is such a rare pair that I've never heard of before that I had to include it lol)

Dick and Midnighter (Nightwing #0 (2016))

Whew, took a lot to gather all that lol.

Some ships were picked from comments under a Reddit post I've made. This was mainly a post I've made for reddit, but decided it would be nice to post here too.

Where's Dick been?

Tw: court of owls and the human Experimentation that comes with it, Murder, Death, Hallucinations(?), Torture, child endangerment(?) but we been knew

Least

Dick X Wally: this is the quintessential friends to lovers story it’s adorable. Naturally a lil bit of toxicity bc nightwing is not a healthy person but still the ratio is 99% cute and 1% angst as adults. Feel free to angst away with the Robin/KF thing

Worlds where this is cute: young justice, earth prime pre Wally meeting Linda.

Dick X Kori: listen to me, if you ignore all the shitty writing (yes the babs wedding thing) they r perfect <3. The only person who I believe can be the lights light ya know. The broke up because they both took hits they couldn’t recover from but they still love each other and they’re my favorite canon pairing they should get back together and have a kid and be a cute lil family.

Worlds where this is cute: TT, Earth prime, DCAU, injustice, titans tomorrow, Lego Batman (every single earth actually)

Dick X Zatanna: cute, childhood crush turned sweethearts turned friends nothing to say here I just don’t think it would be toxic

Worlds where this is cute: young justice

Worlds where this should never happen: all the rest (she dated his dad)

Dick X Joey: I love them so I’m biased their relationship is on par with Dick and Wally taking field trips in the 80s. Also this is joeys most popular ship and that makes me laugh. BUT ANYWAY they’re just very homoerotic and I feel like they respect each other enough the toxicity would be on the lower side.

Worlds where this is cute: literally anytime before he possesses his dad’s body.

Times this is concerning: post possessing nightwings body (anyone remember that happening I just ignore it now, cuz I hate the whole evil Joey thing but if you wanna take this ship from 30% toxic to 140% write it post possession with the dude who had autonomy issues)

Dick x Kara: I just feel like the hero worship would get in the way a little bit

Worlds where this is cute: worlds finest

Worlds where this isn’t: the rest

Dick x Roy: I love them sm ur honor (despite how low I’m putting this, it’s one one my top ships) listen Dick and Roy adore each other and would die for each other, but the baggage?? The years of expectations?? The fights??? The fact that Dick gets more and more closed off when he’s mad usually but him and Roy in the same room and fists fly?? But the only people who can talk to Dick when he’s spiraling are Roy and Donna. Like ROY HARPER is one of Dick people!! You don’t understand how much I love how they can hurt each other while loving each other so so so much. They cause me pain. I don’t believe they’d ever mellow out Dick and Wally tho bc they’re whole relationship is heated they have never had a chill emotion about each other in their history of being characters that exist in the same space.

Worlds where this is cute: literally any world where the titans exist/have existed with speedy and Robin as core members

Worlds where no?: new 52 (I hate new 52 and ignore it tho so no universe sucks bc new 52 isn’t real and can’t hurt me)

Dick X Harley Quinn: see I hated this ship and I hate it in canon but I once read a fic that was good enough I now ship it on the dl and think it would be good for Harley to be with someone who can be a safety net. But like this is AU rare pair type shit and it’s low bc I literally cannot picture a canon universe where this isn’t the most toxic thing ever.

Worlds where yes: DCAU (AU) not even the canon one like the AU of the AU that is the DCAU (take a shot Everytime I say AU)

Dick X Shawn Tsang: I’m sorry yall Shawn was such a boring character I forgot she existed but I remember that she broke up with him after he lost his memory cuz she thought he was ghosting her and like not only does it feel like she just existed to give dick a love interest. Also this comic featured the character death wing and so it’s so low not bc the ship sucks except it does bc why dick?? Are you dating someone who hates heroes?? Why r u like this??? Stopppp but also bc imo the ship has a white bread type of content that is toxic to me personally and that’s more important.

Dick x Bea Bennet: I loved them sm in the beginning, best part of the Ric Grayson arc and then they added the spyral ties and made her a pirate and tbh that ruined it for me. Dick and Bea only work as a cute relationship if Bea is a way out or a window into the outside world like something to ground the man who is always trying to get his feet off the ground. It would be interesting. But now she’s just another another relationship where he didn’t know who he was dating and tbh I don’t think he’d be down for that post literally everything that’s ever happened to him romantically after the age of 16

Dick Babs: yes it’s this low, no I will not change it. It should be lower but I used to ship this so it’s only my fond memories keeping it this high. Babs slept with his father after dating him in at least 2 universes. Dick left Gotham for freedom and she quite literally drags him back Everytime they’re together it feels like about 30 years of Dicks character development is erased. And let’s not talk about Barbara used to be a congress woman Gordon. They deaged her to make her a decent love interest for someone who was a kid when she was running for congress. And because of the fact their characters don’t naturally balance out the way some of his other canon ships do (Bea, Shawn, KORI(the best canon ship imo), hell even Helena) it leads to the characters becoming flanderizations of themselves. Dick is a loveable himbo whose only defining characteristic is his ass and I hate to say it Barbara Gordon literally just turns into female Bruce and I hate it so much but genuinely read though some of their older stuff it’s like..ugh. Anyway I hate this ship I think it’s bad for both of them and while I’m not babs biggest fan I still like her and she and Dick should be best friends who get drunk on weekends and shit talk the bats and their respective teams (titans, birds of pray)

Dick X Helena bertinelli: yall wtf is this ship, if this is your main ship? Why? Tell me? Like what?? Helena??? Esp prime earth Helena?? He has more chemistry with midnighter than her (but we are not discussing the harem so I will remain silent)

Now the most toxic ship that isn’t incestuous is so obvious bc no one has ever pictured this ship with a modicum of health in it except its creator (derogatory) I’m 99% sure every single fic tagged this also has the domestic violence tag

Dick X Catalina Flores. Yeah no a billion times no this shit is so toxic the jack Napier fell into it and became the joker. This shit so toxic it only serves as a trauma boat for another person to swoop in and get him out I hate this so much.

Now dick is an old character so he has about a billion other relationships. But these are either the recent ones (Shawn, Bea) or the ones that have a lot of ao3 clout (birdflash) or something that makes my heart soft (dick and Joey) plus his most iconic 2 pairing I will not be getting into characters like Daphne, Clancy or Betty or anything else or the creepy ones like the fact he’s had shit with both catwoman and taila.