Stunt Casting with The Virgin Read: Nightwing--Don't Stop, Can't Stop. Let's Get Twisted.

Nightwing # 141
Written by Peter Tomasi
Art by Rags Morales & Michael Bair
Published by DC Comics

Editors Note: This Interview Was Conducted At The Brooklyn Branch Of The Factual Opinion.

TFO: So, Why Nightwing?  For the most part, you've steered clear of super-heroes as much as possible, and had multiple opportunities to go after non-spandex books this week.  What's the deal?

Nina Miller: I think any of the non-super hero I'd either read before for the Virgin Read or they were just really weird.

TFO: What do you mean weird?

Nina Miller: Oh...There was the one that looked like it was about Felix the cat but without Felix the Cat's face, that was a new one, a first issue and then there was--that one where the art was really wacky, or the story were maybe...zombies?  Which I also don't totally dig, although, I liked...what's that movie I liked?  Nightfall?

TFO: Nightwatch?  Nightwatch.  You thought there was a comic that looked like Nightwatch?

Nina Miller: I can't remember.  [Laughing]  All I remember was that it was between...what was it?  Oh, it was between Nightwing and Batman Confidential.  Because I thought that maybe, with the Joker, Heath Ledger--maybe I'd do that.  But Nightwing was blue. [Laughs] And that's why I picked it.

TFO: Why did the color blue beat Heath Ledger?

Nina Miller:  I love blue.  It's my favorite color, as you know.  My bridesmaid dresses are periwinkle.  Honestly, something about the Nightwing cover was very striking and cool, it's attractive and he was--you know, he was "springing into action" from a tombstone, with knives in his face.

Which actually doesn't happen in the comic at all.

TFO: Does that bother you, when what's on the cover doesn't occur?

Nina Miller:  No, actually it just occurred to me now that it didn't happen.  Unless it's on the last page.  [Thumbing through issue.] Nope.  But yeah, honestly it was the only one that semi-appealed to my senses.

TFO: Would you say that this was the worst comic book you've ever read?  If not, why not?

Nina Miller: [Laughs]  No sir. It is definitely not the worst.  [Cell phone began ringing, with Europe's "The Final Countdown" as ringtone, Nina begins making beeping noises to the song] Noooo!  Sir.  It was not the worst comic book I've ever read.  I'd like to say what the worst comic I've ever read was but I can't think of one...maybe The Picture of Dorian Gray.  Maybe.  Anyway!  Why not?  Well--starting it off with Nightwing and Superman just shooting the shit in a park--that was kind of cool, especially how easily they talked to each.  That was probably one of my favorite parts of the comic.  The way that they talked there, and then later on, the way Nightwing talked to the Shazam-looking guy.

TFO: The Flash?

Nina Miller: [Smirking]  I guess so.  He's wearing Shazam's costume.  Shazam from the saturday morning cartoons.  Oh wait, but it wasn't a cartoon, it was actually live.  With people acting.

TFO: I have no idea what you're talking about.

Nina Miller:  It was a show I watched when I was little, and that was what he wore!  Red suit, with a thunderbolt, a lightning bolt!    That I liked.  This took place in New York, and I knew exactly where, because I've been to the Cloisters, I love the Cloisters.  But it was something--like a lot of these comics lately, I mean, the ones that I've liked...it's cinematic.  Or episodic?  I don't know if it's cinematic or episodic.  You know, they have definite scenes, each scene has a beginning, a middle and an end, they're all slowly intertwined.  Characters are introduced, and then you jump to a new scene, and then it has everything--it has his double identity.  Is that what it's called, double identity?  Who he is by day, and who he is by night.  Who he is with his friends,  what he's fighting for, how he's connected to Batman and...

TFO: Wait.  You know how's he's connected to Batman?

Nina Miller: [Laughing] Well, in the middle they show how he calls Batman and is all "Yo, what's up.  Buy all these buildings in Manhattan me, so then I can easily get through Manhattan because my motorcycle's too slow."  He can't fly.  I have a feeling that that's a thing, that he once could fly, and now he can't and that's a problem.  Although he is hang gliding at the end. 

TFO: He could never fly. He used to be Robin.

Nina Miller: Oh, okay.  Ahhh.  Oh yeah, his mask is like a bat.  So yeah, I liked it!  It was fun.

TFO: Wouldn't you agree that Superman is, for the most part, a tool?

Nina Miller: [Giggling, different from previous laughing]  Well, I don't feel I know superwell...Superman well enough to call him a tool.  But when I read he was paying his yearly respects to a hero buried at Valhalla, I thought "Does he always pay yearly respects?  He must know a lot of dead heroes.  He must be spending a lot of time at graveyards."  Right?  Wait, you think Superman is a tool?  In this comic?  I thought it was pretty funny how Superman took a picture with the guard, and the guard got to punch him and shit.

TFO: I have no opinion about Superman.  None whatsoever.

Nina Miller: Did I answer the question for you?  Can I interview you about Superman?

TFO: No.

Nina Miller: What do you think of Nightwing?

TFO: [Ignores question]  Do you like Rags Morales as an artist?  I've always thought he was a fat sack of boring.

Nina Miller: Well. [Laughs]  He was fine.  I get the...I mean, [flipping pages] I don't read comics as much as you guys do, so I'm not sitting here going "Borrringgg!  That last one was so much better!"  You know--I feel like he captured things really well.  It looks more like a cartoon.  Like I could turn this on and watch it in cartoon form, where as other artists don't seem as cartoony.  Is that true?  Do people say that?  That some artists don't seem as cartoony?

TFO: Did you seriously think Nightwing was good-looking?  Sometimes women say that about Nightwing, and I've always thought it was, while not as creepy as guys into female heroes, it was still sort of like: what, you like Nightwing?

Nina Miller: Well.  Only this--he seemed good-looking, but there where a couple of times that I said wait a minute, is that the same guy?  The same guy who, on this page, is here eating re-heated chinese food and the guy who's wearing the costume and talking to Batman?  Oh, okay, I guess it is.  I was never like wow he's hot.  But I was like, wow, Batman is NOT hot.  Compared to Nightwing in this issue.  I thought that was kind of weird.

TFO: Because Batman should always be hot?

Nina Miller: Yes, I think Batman should be hotter than Nightwing.  Don't you?

TFO: I have no opinion about that.

Nina Miller: Batman's hotness?  Well, look, the way he's drawn here like he's an uptight anal villain.

TFO: You think villains are anal?

Nina Milller: No.  He looks like "that" kind of villain.  He's very villainous, and he's very, very neat, and particular.  In fact, he could be...what's his face.  Who does Michael Caine play?

TFO: Alfred.

Nina Miller:  Yes.  I feel like he's got an Alfred face.  Not a Batman face.

TFO: Did you know that the other guy is Alfred?

Nina Miller: Yes, and he doesn't look like it.  They [Batman and Alfred] look kind of similar.  They could be brothers!  [Laughing] Right??  The way the jawline is...maybe they are!  Maybe that's the whole thing!  Maybe Alfred's really Batman's father!

TFO: Does it surprise you that, although this is the 141st issue, Nightwing is usually pretty horrible?

Nina Miller: What?

TFO: Does it surprise you that, although this is the 141st issue, Nightwing is usually pretty horrible?

Nina Miller: [Laughing throughout response] Wait, my answer was "what."  What are you typing? 

TFO: Does it surprise you that, although this is the 141st issue, Nightwing is usually pretty horrible?

Nina Miller: I don't know what to say.  I guess so.  It seems pretty cute.  Maybe that's bad?  Maybe comics shouldn't seem cute?  141--I didn't even notice.  You think by 140, at least, they'd have gotten their shit together.

TFO: Did it seem strange to you that Gotham City is so close to Manhattan?  Like, close enough to fly there?

Nina Miller: Yeah, that was weird!  At first I thought Gotham City was just another name for New York City, a name that is just used in comics, but this is clearly New York City--and then when Nightwing was shown looking at his new place..."The Hudson View Garden Apartments."  Then I was wondering if Gotham City was supposed to be Washington Heights?  So yeah, I don't get where it is.  There's even a map right here, a map of Manhattan.  So what's going on?  Where is Gotham City?  Do you know?

TFO: It's another place entirely.

Nina Miller: Is it like Roosevelt Island?

TFO: No, it has nothing to do with New York--I don't think they've ever said the state it's in.

Nina Miller: Is it like Long Island City?  Like you think it's on Long Island but it's in Queens?

TFO: No, it's Gotham City.  It's not like anything, it's not Gotham Island.

Nina Miller: [Laughing]

TFO: This Van Halen album, which I'm hearing for the first time.  Pretty boring, right?

Nina Miller: Yes. 

TFO: What about this new Vandermark 5?

Nina Miller: I can't hear it.  Is it one of those silent albums?  By a noise-rock band?  Making no noise?  Oh it's jazzy.  [Listening]  I like this.

TFO: After hearing about the Spoiler memorial case thing, what are you female feelings?  Are you excited about super-hero comics?  Again?

Nina Miller: [Laughs] What are my female feelings?  Are you trying to ask me what my take is on that whole thing? Or "what are my female feelings about super-hero comics?"  What are you really asking me?

TFO: I feel like that was the best formed question ever.  Answer it.

Nina Miller: What?!  Repeat the question please.

TFO: After hearing about the Spoiler memorial case thing, what are you female feelings?  Are you excited about super-hero comics?

Nina Miller:  Um.  Okay.  To seem like a real virgin comic reader, let me just explain how confused I was reading about anything about this thing, because first, I did not know that The Spoiler was a name of a super-hero.  What kind of a name is that?!  I think that women should be upset that a women super-hero is "The Spoiler?"  What does she "spoil" your plans, so you'll get upset?  That's really--ugh.  Does she tell you the endings of movies?  So that's the first point.  Then I read more, and it was explained to me that this whole thing that whatever all these people have been wanting, which is kind of a bizarre thing anyway, is that they want the costume of a female character hanging in a display case.  But it's not a real display case.  It's a display case in a comic book. I thought it was, maybe hanging somewhere, in a comic book store or somewhere.  I thought it was real, you know what I mean?  Remember, I'm coming at this from civilian land.  So then when I realized that it was something in a comic book, and that it did show up in a dream sequence, in one panel?  Seriously? 

There are other things to do with your time.  You know, everybody has their thing.  I like children. You like comics.  Wait, you don't have to write that. 

If you want to have a discussion women's roles, in society, or in feminism or anything like that, then I will gladly tell you my views on it.  There are...look, I kind of don't want you typing everything I say, because I'm kind of spewing at the mouth right now.  Look, I'm passionate about real interactions, and what's really going on in my life, and my real role as a woman.  I have things going on.  I have some thoughts about womanhood, relationships, families and raising children--just all sorts of things.  My place in the world.  My relationship to the world, as a women.  I don't think--I don't find this particular cause, via the comic world, to be a real vehicle for getting anything heard or anything done.  Not to dishonor any women who feel passionately about this, or feel they've really done something.  I don't know them, and I don't their history, so no, I don't mean to offend anyone.  But it's not resonating for me at all.

TFO: Who would win in a fight: Nightwing or Mike Huckabee?  Why?

Nina Miller: Who's Mike Huckabee?

TFO: He's running for president.

Nina Miller: [Laughs]  Oh, that guy!  I know who that is.  I thought you were talking about some comic character.

TFO: The question stands.

Nina Miller: Well, to piggyback on my last answer: Mike Huckabee, because he's real.

TFO: Is there anything else you want to say about this?

Nina Miller: About Mike Huckabee?

TFO: About Nightwing.

Nina Miller: Should we talk about the cornrows?  What's up with that.

TFO: Do you have some deep thoughts about cornrows?

Nina Miller: No, I just think it's a funny choice for a hairstyle of this...who is this character?  What's her history?

TFO: She's a new character.  Just works in the library.

Nina Miller: No, it's in the museum of the city of new york.

TFO: Oh.  Is that a real museum?

Nina Miller: I don't know.  Maybe it's like the transit museum?  It's just unrealistic, because anyone with blond hair, with their hair in cornrows---you'd see their scalp.  It's just not really attractive.  Unless she's a black woman, with hair that's been dyed.  But they didn't draw her like that.  Did I have anything else to say?

TFO: How do you want to close this out?

Nina Miller: Well, it is funny that Nightwing doesn't fly.  Wing is in his name.  I love that he hang glides, but that must be a bitch to find a place to take off from.  And land--oh, and how do you travel with those?  OH!  I thought about the ladies of the comic world and wondering what they would say about...who is that?

TFO: Power Girl.

Nina Miller: Yes, Power Girl, hanging in the middle of the page.  Hanging from the ceiling.  It's funny, because there's only one other woman in the whole comic, this museum chick.

TFO: She's actually flying.

Nina Miller: Who's flying?

TFO: Power Girl.

Nina Miller: That's what she's doing right there?  She's not hanging from something?  It's just kind of funny, because it's almost like--hey, there's some token...what's the word I'm looking for?  Not sexuality.

TFO: Whore?

Nina Miller: Eye candy.  Token eye candy.  That belt she wears--what is it holding up?  And then the other thing that draws your eye to her cleavage?  I thought it was funny, because on the one hand, people would scream about women being so objectified, but I just find it funny.  You know--men like sex, I like sex, I don't think it's so bad that it's in there.  She's not horribly objectified--her boobs seem in proportion, and she actually has big hips and legs.  So...rock on, Power Girl.

-Nina Miller, 2008

Comments

[Sharif]

"I mean, [flipping pages] I don't read comics as much as you guys do, so I'm not sitting here going "Borrringgg! That last one was so much better!""

Nicely turned-around.She nailed you TFO.

[TFO Moderator]

Oh she nailed me alright. Wait a sec...oh, shit,i think this nasty thing wants to nail me AGAIN. baby i cant walk i just. oh god. i gotta go.

[Tim O'Neil]

I believe they have let slip a few times over the years that Gotham City is supposed to be in New Jersey.

[TFO Moderator]

I've heard the Jersey stuff before, but the primary source is roleplaying games, which I am pretty sure don't exist.

Still the concept of the Wayne family being the Royalty of...Dirty Jerz is sort of fascinating.

[Amy]

Not only is Mike Huckabee real, he's also endorsed by Chuck Norris.

[Hutch]

After hearing about the Spoiler memorial case thing, what are your female feelings?

Seriously?
That was the worst question ever.
Okay, not ever. But it was a crappy question.
After hearing about the New York Jets trading Jonathan Vilma to the New Orleans Saints, what are your male feelings?
Geez man.

[TFO Moderator]

Crappy question yes, but that's on me. Just trying to shoehorn in some of the contemporary stuff, you know, the set-the-blog-world-on-fire debate. We're working on our interview skills, they're not as fully developed as our sleeping and coffee drinking. We'll get their soon enough.