Nightwing #1

In the past I've mentioned how Dick Grayson is my favorite character. I don't care what costume he's in, or how old he is, he's my favorite. Needless to say, I've enjoyed the last two years of comics tremendously. Finally, DC put elite teams on Dick Grayson titles, and the results were tremendous, with Scott Snyder's "The Black Mirror," and Grant Morrison's "Batman and Robin" chalking up to some of the favorite stuff I've ever read.

The problem was that while they did well, it could only keep Dick under the cowl for so long. And then they devised this relaunch/reboot/re-whatever they want to call it in the middle of last year, this meant an end of an era for Dick. Part of the editorial mandate was that with the exception of Green Lantern (because Geoff Johns is one of the heads of DC creative, so of course his storylines aren't interrupted) all the characters should be returned to their traditional roles if at all possible. This meant there would be only one Batman (Bruce), Dick would be Nightwing, and Barbara Gordon would be Batgirl and so on and so forth. In all likeliness Dick would have only been Batman only until the end of Grant Morrison's "Batman Inc." story (which probably would have ended next spring) but still, that's half a years worth of more Dick Grayson stories by the best creative teams. 


The biggest worry was that Nightwing would be forced into the same problems it had after Chuck Dixon left the title in Volume 1. C-list writers and artists, lackluster stories, and dumb editorial mandates that muddied the waters, in what was a strong book up until then. So initially when I heard that the creative team on the book was Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows, I was dismayed. This was not Scott Snyder, or Grant Morrison or even Peter Tomasi, the man who almost saved Nightwing Vol. 1 before Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin ensured its demise.

Ended well too.

It started good.....

But then "Batman: Gates of Gotham" came out. And it was fantastic. And while Scott Snyder and Kyle Higgins were listed as co-writers, it started to come out that while Snyder came up with the big picture story, Higgins was doing most of the work. And then all of a sudden I got excited.

And then some art from Nightwing #1 started to come out, and it was fantastic. The pencils had a dark, evil and vivid tone to them. It looked how a Nightwing comic should. And so I got really excited over the last two months about Dick finally being Nightwing.

And issue one did not disappoint. This comic was well balanced with enough backstory to have everything make sense, but it didn't drag on about the past as if this a redo of "Nightwing: Year One." It moved quickly from a few pages of his history, to a few pages of his situation right now, right into the drama.

Like most other Bat-titles so far, this one was rather violent at times, as the new villain Saiko massacres two cops for shits and giggles. But overall the action was intense, fun, and fierce. But the strength of this issue definitely is Dick Grayson's voice. Kyle Higgins nails it. This is an adult Dick Grayson, confident, no longer second guessing himself like in the past. The past two decades of Dick stories have almost exclusively dealt with him being not as good as Bruce, but it's clear now that he's definitely on par with him (see image below).

Also, see what I mean by awesome art? Eddy Barrows is killing it. Rod Reis is also kicking ass on colors, don't want to leave him out either when dishing out praise.  Huge kudos all around, this book is on a path to success.

What I enjoyed: Everything? Also, apparently Batman and Nightwing are going to be tying-in together. Great side-effect from their Gates of Gotham collaboration.You'll put the pieces together if you read Batman #1.

What I didn't: I guess my only real beef though here is that the villain Saiko is a hired killer according to Nightwing, I would hope Higgins would have debuted with someone tying into Dick's past.

Conclusion: Go pick this up. Starts a little slow but now that all the introduction stuff is out of the way it should pick up real fast. It gets a 8.6/10 (B+).