For Dick Grayson the road to becoming Nightwing probably started many years before Nightwing's first appearance. In 1964 a group of teenage sidekicks was formed called the Teen Titans. Robin emerged as the natural leader via a mixture of popularity and force of personality. The Titans thought of themselves as a family and moved further and further out from under their mentors' wings.

When Denny O'Neil and Neal Adams were assigned Batman they decided that if they were to do the character properly, they had to take him back to his roots as a dark night detective. And they couldn't do that if Robin was hanging around.

At roughly the same time The Teen Titans had to split up to go to their various colleges. Dick eventually decided to go to college as well giving the opportunity for loads of solo Robin stories.

"It wasn't really until the original Titans split up that Batman and Robin had to face up to the fact of how far they'd drifted apart!" Dick Grayson. The Secret Origin of Nightwing, Secret Origins #13 (3rd Series)

In 1980 Marv Wolfman and George Perez brought the Titans back together in The New Teen Titans. It was an enormous success. Dick, though, was still separated from Batman and felt uncomfortable using the name Robin. In every outsider's opinion they are Batman AND Robin.

Batman eventually came across Jason Todd and decided that he had the potential to become a new Robin. Dick Grayson, therefore, found himself with no option other than to come up with a new identity. Dick first appeared as Nightwing in Tales of The Teen Titans #44: he took the name in honour of Superman who had originally used the name (first appearance Superman #158, December 1962). How often have we seen a character's name taken by a new character? This is just another instance in the long tradition of DC recycling names.

Since then Nightwing's career has been on two different tracks that seem to have had little influence on, or connection with each other: his role with the Titans and his place in the Batman family. "A Lonely Place in Dying" is one of the few stories to have involved both Batman's and Titans' titles.

When Nightwing finally appeared in Knightsend (the conclusion of Knightfall) it was his first appearance in the Bat comics for a while. He must have been confused and upset as to Bruce's reasons for asking Jean Paul (Azrael) to take over as the Bat rather than ask his accepted protege. After Bruce took back the mantle of the Bat from Azrael he still wasn't ready, mentally, to return to being the Bat full-time. He asked Dick to stand in as Batman until he was ready to return, which brought Dick firmly back into the Bat Family.

Since the Tim Drake Robin was given his own ongoing series in 1993 it was understandable that WingNuts, and others, would demand that Dick Grayson get an ongoing series. Nightwing: the original Robin, the original sidekick and was the most popular character in comics not to have his own series until 1996.

DC tested the water with a one-shot and a mini-series that were clearly controlled from the Bat Offices. The one shot brought back Alfred for the first time after he left during Knightfall and was immediately followed by a 4 issue mini-series that gave him a new costume, some escrima sticks, a new sense of purpose and at the end a case in the tough town of Bludhaven.

The Bat editors made what now seems an inspired choice by handing the writing chores to regular Bat scribe Chuck Dixon. As well as his own title Nightwing has appeared regularly in the other Bat titles ever since.

The fact that Chuck Dixon writes Robin, Nightwing and Birds of Prey means that there is, at times, a greater sense of continuity between the title. It must have been easier to get the permission to create the relationship between Dick and Babs, which has progressed in both Nightwing and Birds of Prey. He has also formed a strong bond with Tim Drake

"His parents' murder went unavenged for years! And his hatred for criminals just kept growing until he finally turned some of the hatred in on himself.
"He couldn't save his parents as a boy -- although he'd saved so many others since -- and he couldn't find their killer! I sometimes think he feels responsible for their deaths -- as if he were the one who killed them!"
"So you see, for all the similarities between us I didn't turn out a thing like him!"
"He freed me from his obsession!" Dick Grayson, The Secret Origin of Nightwing

Nightwing was the most popular title produced by the Bat editors that didn't headline Batman until the start of the new Batgirl series.