NIGHTWING #1

NIGHTWING #1 by Craig

September 28, 2011, 5:35 pm
Filed under: Comic Reviews, DC Comics | Tags: DCNew52, EddyBarrows, KyleHiggins, Nightwing

Another number #1, another Batman comic – Dick Grayson flies into the DCnew52 in his own title Nightwing – but fortunately for Master Dick, Bruce doesn’t make an appearance, leaving him to figure things out on his own (he’s probably too busy helping Batwoman or the JLI anyway!).

Nightwing is brought to us from the minds of Kyle Higgins (writer) and Eddy Barrows (Penciller), two guys with decent enough backgrounds in DC. Higgins was a co-writer with Scott Snyder on the great Batman mini series Gates of Gotham, so I expect some of Snyder’s Bat-godliness (it’s a word now that I’ve used it!) to have rubbed off on him. Barrow’s is also responsible for a large number of recent books, including Superman’s final pre-new-52 run with J. Michael Straczynski, seven issues of 52 and three of the Blackest Night tie-ins – so the guy has plenty of experience.

What we end up with though is a comic of two halves. The first part is a cracker – jumping straight into Dick’s new beat on the streets of Gotham and coming face to face with your typical Gotham hoodlum, slashing people on a train… as you do! The mixture of fast paced action and Dick’s internal monologue works well together. The panelling is great; as if it’s happening so fast it can’t stay on the page, with some really interesting angles as we see Dick’s thought process on how to handle the situation. The writing here sticks to thoughts only, no speech, and really helps understand where Dick’s got to and how he starts off in the new 52.

He’s had a fair old journey from Robin to Nightwing, standing in as Batman and now back to being Nightwing – and it all seems to have been retained for the relaunch, which is great because I think there’s a lot of interesting stories to be told about how someone makes the transition back from being the Bat. And although Higgins has started us on this path, I can’t honestly say there was much of interest in the second half of the book. For some strange reason, after a fantastic blow-out start, we go back to comics by numbers in both the art and writing department. Everything’s a little more static and it takes a while to bring the story back to a point that’s exciting again. I totally understand that we can’t have panel after panel of non-stop action, but take Snyder’s excellent Batman #1 as an example – even though there’s a break in the middle, it doesn’t detract from the overall issue, and keeps you hooked throughout.

Although there doesn’t appear to be as complexly a woven plot going on in Nightwing, I do hold out hope that Higgins and Snyder are in cahoots and are planning something clever that brings the two issues together. For those of you that have read Batman #1 already, you’ll know that Mr Grayson’s name comes up in an interesting way at the end of the issue – and then there’s a few similar accusations made of him in Nightwing #1. Coincidence? I doubt it.

So Dick isn’t Batman anymore, he’s his own superhero and now has his own book – one that is a nice accompaniment to Bruce’s. Like Dick is to Bruce, Higgins has a lot to learn from his mentor, but I reckon he’s on the right path, and hopefully with a few more issues down the line, we’ll have forgotten what it was like to have a world without Nightwing.

Craig @hastiecraig

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