The Story
In the aftermath of Death of the Family, Nightwing’s world is falling to pieces. Two of his friends are dead, the surviving members of Haly’s circus have lost faith in him, and with Amusement Mile destroyed by fire and the Joker’s chemicals, Dick is destroyed financially as well. His inner turmoil causes him to act more rash, and violently. And while everyone seems to believe him when he says he is fine, Damian is the only one who doesn’t buy it and calls Dick out on his behavior.
The Review
While Dick acts quite out of character in this issue, his behavior makes complete sense. Joker hit him hard. He both relied on a lot of people and had them rely on him. In a sense Joker was victorious as far as Dick is concerned. Kyle Higgins uses Death of the Family quite expertly to transition from the first part of Nightwing’s story to the next.
While I’m not anticipating Nightwing’s rumored departure from Gotham, after all I enjoy him best when he’s interacting with the rest of his family, I trust Higgins enough to make it interesting. After all, Nightwing has been among my top three Batman books of the past year. Though it’s not like that list is actually official as of yet.
This issue does illustrate how much of a shame it is that we don’t get to see Nightwing and Batgirl interacting more. The two have a fun chemistry, and even in a dour scene like the one in this book, I still enjoy seeing the two. I hope that in the future we get a chance to see the two play off each other more. Though I suppose that is unlikely, considering how DC likes to keep their title characters confined to their own books for the most part.
Overall this was a well paced book with a satisfying payoff. Though I will see that the panel showing off Raya’s cleavage was a bit creepy. I know it’s just ink on paper, but that’s still a corpse guys. Not the best material to undergo the sexualization process. Unless one is into that sort of thing, but I imagine most wouldn’t confess to that.
I look forward to seeing where Higgins goes with the reveal that interest is shifting towards the Graysons. I predict it will be something along the lines of Dick’s identity being compromised, but I am open to being surprised. Either way, Nightwing is a great book and I look forward to reading more.
The Grade