When Nightwing and Starfire Didn't Get Married And No One Told Flash

CBR

By Brian Cronin

Published Nov 23, 2018

In their latest look at inexplicable comic book plots, CSBG spotlights the continuity foul-up of Nightwing and Starfire being married in Flash's comic

This is "How Can I Explain?", which is a feature spotlighting inexplicable comic book plots.

The other day, I wrote about how Dick Grayson and Wally West were never particularly close until a mild retcon in the mid-1990s suddenly had them as longtime best friends. In that article, though, I wrote about the guest appearance that Nightwing made in the pages of Mark Waid and Mike Weiringo's Flash run that was the set-up for the later reveal that Wally and Dick were best friends. It was a story that was the "victim" of a continuity foul-up. I said I would write about that foul-up later, but then my pal Michael asked about it on Facebook, and I guess I'll just do it now!

First, a little set-up!

There was this whole weird storyline in the New Titans where the shapeshifting Mirage captured Starfire and then took her place. She debuted a new, sexier costume and had sex with Nightwing a number of times. The story was pretty much resolved when I guess the new editor, Rob Simpson, figured that the whole thing was sort of glossed over, so Starfire suddenly got really angry about it again (fair enough, of course, the only issue is that it really didn't follow from how she was acting in the issues before this point). Finally, in New Titans #99 (by Wolfman, Tom Grummett and Al Vey), Nightwing finally gets Starfire to talk to him and he proposed marriage to her and she accepted...

Here's the deal, though. As I wrote in an old Nothing Was Delivered, the original plans for Nightwing is that he was going to get his own miniseries by Art Thibert that would have ended with Nightwing and Starfire engaged and then they would get married in New Titans #100.

However, as I noted in that piece:

[T]he project also went through some creative changes, as at another point in time, the concept behind the series was changed to Starfire being nearly killed and Nightwing having to track down her attacker. In both cases, the idea would have been that Nightwing would ultimately decide to get engaged to Starfire. The end result would have been a wedding in "New Titans" #100. The "New Titans Sellout Special" #1 had a poster to promote Thibert's then-upcoming series in it...

But then there were delays due to Thibert committing to launching a "Cable" ongoing series for Marvel. plus the orignal editor on the series (and the driving force of a lot of these plans), Jonathan Peterson, left DC Comics. Thibert ended up deciding to instead do a series for Image Comics that he would own entirely...

So Wolfman had to handle the engagement himself and obviously, with the change in editorial, the wedding plans were also altered, so in New Titans #100 (by Wolfman, Grummett and Bill Jaaska), right when they were about to be declared husband and wife, a now evil Raven attacks...

Raven then messes with Starfire's mind, leading to the wedding being called off...

Of course, the decision to make the wedding NOT happen was done late enough in the game that a Flash story arc set after the wedding guest-starring Nightwing and Starfire was already in the works...

Page 2: [valnet-url-page page=2 paginated=0 text='Oops...awkward guest appearance...']

In Flash #80 (by Mark Waid, Mike Wieringo and Jose Marzan Jr), the Flash's old girlfriend, Frances Kane, goes kind of nuts with her magnetic powers. The only way that Wally could stop her rampage was by convincing her that he still loved her...

Which was awkward for Flash's girlfriend to see on live TV.

So Starfire and Nightwing show up the next issue to help out with Frances, who they knew from the Titans, but the problem is that the issue mentions what WOULD have happened before the plot to New Titans #100 changed, so Dick and Kory are married and Dick was kicked out of Titans for some reason...