Warning! Contains spoilers for Titans #11!
Summary
Nightwinglearned everything he knows from his mentorBatman,and this seems to extend even to Batman’s darker habits. While Nightwing has always been a skilled detective, his use of a second personality to store information might just make him an even greater detective than Batman.
Titans#11 by Tom Taylor and Lucas Meyer reveals thatNightwing currently houses two identities inside his brain: the ever-present and well-known Dick Grayson, and also the Circ-En-Arrh part of his brain, which, presumably, stands for circus. Thankfully, Circ-En-Arrh isn’t a cruel personality like the twistedBatman Zur-En-Arrh personality, who has been plaguing Batman with his cold and manipulative desire to take over Bruce Wayne’s life for good.
Instead of being a twisted alternate personality with his own wants and goals, theCirc-En-Arrh personality inside Nightwing is simply a secondary part of his brainwhere he can store information he doesn’t want telepaths to find. This allows Nightwing to subconsciously workout mysteries and think on clues without them being actively in the front of his mind where any psychic could see it.
Nightwing’s Modern Era Just Got the Perfect Nemesis, Making Him Even More A-List
Something that every major hero needs is a good rogues gallery, and Nightwing has struggled with this, but now he has the perfect nemesis.
Circ-En-Arrh Is Nightwing’s Alternate Personality
One of the hardest parts of being a detective in the DC Universe is simply the number of telepaths and mind readers. It’s difficult to be on a team without one at this point. The Titans have Raven and the Justice League have Martian Manhunter.The prospect of them entering someone’s mind and seeing all of their thoughts is certainly concerning for paranoid characters— like much of the Bat-Family. This paranoia was likely learned by Nightwing as well, sincehe took Batman’s Zur-En-Arrh systemand changed it just enough that he can have thoughts that even Dick Grayson himself isn’t aware of.
Readers can learn more about Batman’s battle with Zur-En-Arrh in theBatmanrun by Chip Zdarsky, Jorge Jiménez, and others, which begins with 2022’sBatman#125.
Nightwing has begun to suspect thatRaven has become the Dark-Winged Queen, the demonic fate that her evil father Trigon has always wanted for her. While Raven has tried to keep her turn to evil a secret, Nightwing has picked up on the clues. But since Raven is capable of reading minds,Nightwing has simply had no choice but to hand those thoughts over to Circ-En-Arrh. This could very well be a feat that puts Nightwing above Batman in terms of being a detective. As skilled as Batman is, he hasn’t found a surefire way to defend his mind from telepaths, and he has definitely fallen prey to his own alternate personality.
Circ-En-Arrh Will Continue to Prove Useful to Nightwing
The characters in the DC Universe need to be mindful of many threats, especially of the psychic variety. It’s not unusual for characters to travel through time, have their minds read, or even have their minds taken over. These threats have led to purely human characters, like Nightwing andBatman, inventing unbelievable solutions to unbelievable problems. While it might seem a bit much to create a partition in his mind to keep his thoughts hidden, there really isn’t any other solution forNightwingto deal with the absurdities of the DC Universe.
TITANS #11 (2024)
Nightwing
Nightwing is the superhero moniker taken up by Dick Grayson, upon his aging out of the Robin role and becoming a superhero of his own. Inspired by the original Kryptonian hero of the same name, Grayson has risen to comic book immortality with the identity, earning respect as one of the greatest leaders in the DC Universe.
