The hair thing was in reference to the fact that Tim was blown up really bad and had some two face level scarring. I remember thinking it would be magically undone before battle for the cowl started, and not shockingly it was magically undone without explanation on the last panel of the six issue story arc.

Nightwing and Flamebird coming back to the Superman mythos all but guaranteed that Grayson would be retiring the mantle long before this announcement. If I were to guess, Two Face does something in the arc that drives him to take up the Batman mantle. Harvey has been positioned as his big bad arch nemesis for almost a year. “Big plans for you and me down the line, Nightwing! Big Plans!” Those last words with the Battle for the Cowl teaser image say a rematch is coming.

I don’t see why Rucka has been handed Detective Comics to promote his precious pet character. Batwoman should be in a mini-series of her own and let Detective stay a Batman book.

I’m deeply concerned about Dick Grayson’s status too.

Kev – Rucka is being “handed Detective Comics” because he’s worked on the title previously and has proven himself to be one of the absolute preeminent writers of the Batman line from a non-Batman perspective. The insistence that Batman be a part of ‘TEC is pretty ludicrous in light of the fact that Batman will be featured in a number of other comics monthly and that the absolute best Batman comic of the last decade was GOTHAM CENTRAL, co-written by Greg Rucka and focusing on a cast of characters that weren’t Batman.

Simply put, ‘TEC is a noir comic that usually features Batman but should be more open than that… it can be crime drama, police procedural, or a whodunit. If you have any doubts, look at the title. I would love to see ‘TEC get back to its roots… it started out as a showcase for crime stories and Batman didn’t show up until later.

Not that I have anything against Batman. Far from it. I just think there’s such a thing as over-saturation. He’ll be in a half dozen comics every month, so how much more do you need? There have to be other characters worth writing.

As for Batwoman being Rucka’s “pet character” I’d say that every writer has their favorites and if said favorite happens to be a character you helped create or develop, then that’s fine. Did people complain about character favoritism every time Denny O’Neil wrote another Ra’s al Ghul story? How about when Paul Dini writes Harley Quinn? It’s OK for writers to have certain favorites that they gravitate towards.

I say stand back and let the man tell a story. The fact that he’s committed to a year on the book and that it’ll be illustrated by JH Williams III is absolutely fantastic news. JH WILLIAMS III !! Yes, it’s fantastic. I’m a huge fan of both these guys, so I’m thrilled.

The only thing I’m concerned with is that I think DC might re-number. I think fanboys get too caught up with the nerdy collections side of comics reading, but now that it’s my favorite comic, I really don’t want them to restart these books with new numbers. I don’t have any real reason for feeling this way, I’m just sentimental.

There is a mention in ‘Last Will and Testament’ in the portion about the core Bat-Family that strongly infers, from Tim’s POV, that Dick will take the Bat-mantle as ‘firstborn son’.

Batwoman is a “pet character” and her headlining Detective was probably a selling point so Rucka didn’t go to Marvel at some point. He isn’t an exclusive anymore.
Of course this is all conjecture.
Um, didn’t Gotham Central get cancelled?

You gotta be trippin’ if you think Mr. Williams will draw 12 issues of this title in a row. He was announced as the regular penciller on Mr. Dini’s run a couple years ago, and he did like, 3 issues in a row, then maybe one or two more after some fill-ins. Same deal on Batman – he was “the” artist with Mr. Morrison, and that didn’t last the duration of a trade paperback.

Nothing personal, I lurve Mr. Williams’ artwork and have bought most of what he’s drawn, it’s just that he’s pretty consistently not a fast penciller – probably because he puts so much care and attention into the design as well as the execution of his pages.

JH Williams only did the first issue of Dini’s run, then Don Kramer had to step in and be better than him (Kramer gets no respect).

Then he just sat around for the script to Seven Soldiers #1 to arrive, then did that arc in Batman with Morrison.

I agree with Ken B. I don’t want to see Grayson become Red Robin, albeit for a different reason. I have no problem with the Alex Rossification of characters if handled properly, but the Red Robin name and costume has been beaten to death over the last year.

First it was Jason Todd in the god awful Countdown. Then he inexplicably throws it away and some guy named the General starts wearing it. Then Robin (Drake) wears the hood for a cup of coffee until his massively scarred face healed.

At this point, Dick Grayson would be Red Robin IV. Overkill.

“Nothing personal, I lurve Mr. Williams’ artwork and have bought most of what he’s drawn, it’s just that he’s pretty consistently not a fast penciller – probably because he puts so much care and attention into the design as well as the execution of his pages.”

—————————————————-

Its probably a good thing, then, that he’s been working on this book for a year now. He’s got to be done with at least half of this work already, and the book won’t even hit until for another four months. Unless he pulls a JG Jones, I’m sure we’ll get all 12 issues.

Gosh, I wish I would have had that infomrtoain earlier!