The best Nightwing’s Butt Artist is back on the job

DC expands its Dawn of DC lineup with three new creative teams

By Susana Polo@NerdGerhl Jan 25, 2023, 12:00pm EST

Art of Nightwing through his various costumes and eras. In most cases he is posed facing the camera, except for center front, where he has his back to the viewer, looking over his shoulder. His rear is lovingly rendered.

Susana Polo is an entertainment editor at Polygon, specializing in pop culture and genre fare, with a primary expertise in comic books. Previously, she founded The Mary Sue.

DC Comics is promising a new day with Dawn of DC, the company’s 2023 publishing initiative, set to deliver new updates for heroes and easy jumping on points for readers around the DC Universe. But the company’s latest announcement is sure to please long-time fans as well: Nicola Scott will draw the new Titans series.

Which means she gets to draw Nightwing’s butt again.

It’s unofficial but extremely winked-at lore in DC Comics that Dick Grayson, née Robin, now Nightwing, grew up to have one of the tightest butts in the superhero community, as commented on by heroes, villains, and his girlfriends alike. And while it’s the kind of memetic thing that’s difficult to trace back to any single source, Scott’s rendering of a reverse shot of the character in Secret Six #9 (2009) is considered to have had an outsize effect. Scott has historically embraced the blame/honor.

DC had previously announced a new Titans series (and it was teased as recently as last week’s issue of Nightwing), starring a lineup familiar to fans of the classic 1980 comic series and the Teen Titans animated series alike. But the creative team behind it was officially under wraps until today. Scott will team up with Nightwing writer Tom Taylor (Superman: Son of Kal-El, Suicide Squad), with the Titans Tower rebuilt in Dick Grayson’s home stomping grounds of Blüdhaven (think of it as the Newark, NJ, to Gotham’s New York, NY).

The company also revealed two other creative teams on Dawn of DC books, Morgan Hampton (graduate of DC’s Milestone Initiative talent development program) and Tom Raney (Uncanny X-Men, Avengers Academy) on a Cyborg solo series — and Jeremy Adams and Xermánico on Green Lantern (replacing Mariko Tamaki and an an unannounced artist, and renaming and refocusing the book from Hal Jordan specifically to Green Lantern generally).

Titans #1, Cyborg #1, and Green Lantern #1 will hit shelves in May.