Things are sure looking up for Dick Grayson these days. Not only is he a big player in The LEGO Batman Movie, but now we've learned that director Chris McKay is apparently in talks to direct WB's live-action Nightwing movie.

DC Extended Universe: Every Upcoming Movie 26 IMAGES

Robin: Year One

Teen Titans: The Judas Contract

Nightwing: Bludhaven

Nightwing: The Great Leap

Nightwing: Traps and Trapezes

Grayson

Art by Mikel Janin. (DC Comics)

We doubt WB will have much trouble topping Dick's last live-action appearance in 1997's Batman & Robin. Even so, we hope the new movie will draw plenty of inspiration from Dick Grayson's comic book adventures. There are a lot of classic stories to choose from, but here are the ones we think are the most important.Let's face it - the only thing more ridiculous than the idea of a grown man dressing like a bat and fighting crime is said grown man recruiting a teenage boy to help him. The very concept of Robin is pretty outlandish, and it's going to be an uphill battle for WB to make Dick Grayson work in the context of the ultra-serious DC Extended Universe.There's no better guide for how to handle Robin's origin story than Robin: Year One (from writers Chuck Dixon and Scott Beatty and artists Javier Pulido and Marcos Martin). Published in the wake of Batman: Year One, this story took a similarly grounded approach to exploring Dick's first year as a costumed crime-fighter. But rather than be all doom and gloom, Year One emphasizes the light Dick brought into Bruce's increasingly dark and brooding world. It's really a celebration of their brotherly bond, one made all the more effective by the fact that Alfred serves as the story's narrator. Heck, just imagine a Nightwing movie with Jeremy Irons as the narrator...It might seem strange to look to a Teen Titans story for story fodder in a solo Nightwing movie, but The Judas Contract is one of the most critical stories in Dick Grayson's long history. After all, it marks the point where Dick left his Robin identity behind for good and became Nightwing. Regardless of whether the movie takes place during Dick's first days as Nightwing or well into his solo career, we'd like to see it focus on that pivotal transformation.And even if the full Teen Titans roster doesn't appear, we would like to see Starfire and Deathstroke play a role in the movie. As a handsome man about town, Dick Grayson needs a good love interest/partner, and no one fills that role better than Starfire. As for Deathstroke, we know that he'll be appearing in The Batman (played by Joe Manganiello). Why not carry him over to Nightwing next? There's no better foe to challenge the acrobatically inclined Nightwing than this super-strong and super-smart assassin.Writer Chuck Dixon and artist Scott McDaniel are regarded by many as the definitive Nightwing creative team. They were at the helm when DC relaunched the character in 1996, and their work really set the tone for the character going forward.Perhaps their most significant contribution to the Nightwing mythos was the creation of Bludhaven, the only city more crime-infested than Gotham. Bludhaven quickly became Dick Grayson's preferred stomping grounds, and we have to assume it'll be the setting for the new movie. Dixon and McDaniel also cemented Dick's rivalry with Blockbuster, a monstrous villain whose strength is exceeded only by his great intellect. If Deathstroke isn't the main villain of the movie, then Blockbuster seems like the most deserving candidate.Nightwing: The Great Leap collects a handful of stories (by writer Pete Tomasi and artists Don Kramer and Rags Morales) that occurred just as DC was preparing to transition Dick Grayson to become the new Batman. This book basically reads like a last hurrah for Nightwing in the pre-New 52 universe. But even if even ignoring that angle, there's some good stuff here that's worth drawing from in the new movie.The Great Leap features confrontations with two classic Batman rogues, Two-Face and Ra's al Ghul. The Two-Face story is particularly clever in that it sees Harvey Dent turning to Nightwing for help protecting a woman that Two-Face wants dead. The Ra's story features an ample helping of Nightwing battling ninjas, which is never a bad thing. And both conflicts force Dick to reflect on his long history with Batman and the sort of hero he wants to be. That sounds like the perfect foundation for his character arc in the DCEU.When DC ushered in the New 52, Dick Grayson ended his short but fruitful stint as Batman and went back to his Nightwing identity. The new series (from writer Kyle Higgins and artist Eddy Barrows) worked as a good "back to basics" Nightwing comic, but also one that added some interesting new wrinkles to the character.One of those wrinkles involved focusing on Dick's history with Haly's Circus, forcing him to relive the painful memories of his past and eventually building to a point where he became the circus' new owner. Not for the first time, Dick transformed from trust find baby into true blue collar superhero. Basically like DC's answer to Spider-Man, and that's somethign the DCEU could really use right now.Higgins' Nightwing run was also notable for fleshing out the ties between Dick and the shadowy organization known as the Court of Owls, revealing that he had been targeted for recruitment even as a young boy. The Nightwing/Court of Owls feud is soemthing that's still playing out in DC's comics even now, and it's a storyline that seems very well-suited for the big screen treatment.Dick Grayson had a pretty rough go in DC's Forever Evil storyline, as his identity was revealed to the world and his career as Nightwing was brought to a close. That could have been the catalyst for a dark, brooding new period in Dick's life, but surprisingly, DC went in a very different direction.With Grayson (from writers Tim Seeley and Tom Kign and artist Mikel Janin), Dick took a break from playing superhero to serve as a globe-trotting super-spy. Grayson built on loose ends from Grant Morrison's Batman run, with Dick joining the organization Spyral as "Agent 37" and serving as a mole for Batman.We don't necessarily want to see the Nightwing movie directly adapt any stories from Grayson. We think the DCEU needs to get Nightwing right before worrying about his Grayson-era adventures. But tonally, Grayson is exactly what we want to see. It's a surprisingly lighthearted book given all the espionage trappings and the event that led into Dick's career change. It's a comic that reminded readers that Dick Grayson is a hero who enjoys what he does and isn't afraid to flaunt his hot bod whenever the opportunity arises:Grayson helped pave the way for the lighter, happier DCU that exists now in DC Rebirth. Given how much criticism the DCEU has taken for its grim, brooding approach to these characters, we think a Nightwing movie could do the same thing for the movies that Grayson did for DC's comics.

Jesse is a mild-mannered writer for IGN. Allow him to lend a machete to your intellectual thicket by following @jschedeen on Twitter , or Kicksplode on MyIGN