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INTERVIEW: The Brains and Brawn Behind Nightwing: Prodigal Son

***UPDATE***: As of  December 6, 2013, Nightwing: Prodigal Son is days away from shooting while in the middle of a Kickstarter campaign (donate here!). Below is the interview with the creators of the series originally published March 9, 2013, but stay tuned for more updates about this awesome series!

Are you looking for a new superhero show, but prefer Gotham to Starling City? Sick of Bruce Wayne getting all the attention, but love Batman’s rogue gallery? Want a show made by and for fans of the comics? Then look no further than Nightwing: Prodigal Son, the upcoming fan series from Brady RobertsJD Buzz,  and Pete Powers, among others.

You can check out the awesome trailer for the series here.

I had a chance to speak with Roberts (Dick Grayson/Nightwing) and Powers (Bane) about their involvement in the project, how it came to be, what inspired them, and what we have to look forward to!

AP2HYC: So how did this whole project get started?

Brady Roberts: Well I work pretty regularly in the film industry, and Pete’s in the entertainment industry as well, in professional wrestling and film. I started joking around with it with the director [JD Buzz], from Edmonton, last summer in June, talking about doing something Batman related. We knew a lot of guys that had different costumes and stuff, and he was really good with the CGI. Then we started talking more seriously about it and then we decided to shoot a little trailer.

AP2HYC: So why did you pick Nightwing over doing a Batman film?

Brady: I think the Batman ones are so overdone, and it was nice to see a take on Nightwing. He’s a really popular character and a character that everyone involved was really interested in.

Pete Powers: The other part of that too is that Nightwing and Dick Grayson is such an interesting character to write for, or to try and create a story for. Obviously me and Brady are both very passionate about the books, not just about Batman but the entire story arc, and Dick Grayson plays a massive role in that and he’s just such an interesting character to write for. I have always said that I would always want to do something with Grayson. I think we’ve had that conversation before as well.

Brady: Yeah.

Pete: …where I said I would love to write for Dick Grayson, I would love to do something about Dick Grayson. The thing is, he’s not Batman, and he’s got to deal with a completely other set of emotions, similar emotions, but a completely different set of things that Batman does, and it’s interesting to look at things from his perspective rather than always having it from Batman’s perspective.

Brady: And it’s interesting that that’s never been explored in live-action, either. All the live action takes on Dick Grayson have been pretty poor, in my opinion. Chris O’Donnell, poor to horrible. Dick should be better than Batman, really, because he’s trained by Batman at such a young age. When he’s getting into this mid-twenties age, he should be incredible by this point. And it’s nice to see that.

Pete: If you look at it from a fanboy perspective and you’re thinking about who are our top three ninjas of the DC Universe, you got Batman, you got Deathstroke, and maybe, I don’t know, Lady Shiva as a close three. But Dick Grayson, again is trained by Batman. At what, between age 10 and 12 say, he’s adopted. Okay, Batman’s obviously Batman, he’s the best, but Dick Grayson is being trained by the best at such a young age.

Brady: And at some point the student’s going to pass the teacher.

Pete: You would like to think that.

About the author

David Molofsky

David is the Founder & Editor-in-Cape of AP2HYC.