Before the shocking events of “Forever Evil” expose Dick Grayson to the world, the former sidekick completes his only real New 52 solo adventure in “Nightwing” #24.
Written by Kyle Higgins
Illustrated by Will ConradWho gets the last laugh? The Prankster vs. Nightwing!
Dick Grayson will always be Robin, both in the eye of the public, and the fictional inhabitants of the DC Universe. The image of Batman and Robin – the Dynamic Duo – is part of popular conscious, and so is Grayson as the first and longest serving Robin. Despite the fact that Grayson left the green tights behind and became the superhero Nightwing nearly thirty years ago (two or three years by in-universe chronology), it has been very hard for Grayson to establish his own identity. The shadow of the Bat is long and smothering, the nature of the New 52 Bat-verse has made Nightwing’s escape even more difficult. With the ‘Court of Owls’, ‘Death of the Family’ and ‘Batman Incorporated’ story arcs involving all of Batman’s allies and reshaping their personal histories, for the first two years of the New 52 Nightwing spent most of the time reacting to what happened in other characters’ books. Author Kyle Higgins made the wise decision to take Nightwing away from his familiar surroundings at the first opportunity, and, along with illustrator Will Conrad, bring Dick Grayson’s first real solo adventure to a satisfying conclusion in “Nightwing” #24.
A few months ago Grayson finally closed up shop in Gotham and headed for the windy city of Chicago, breaking free of Batman’s unrelenting presence and embarked on much more personal mission. In the wake of Damian Wayne’s death, the Joker’s destruction of the rebuilt Hailey’s Circus, and Bruce Wayne’s typical emotional unavailability, Dick Grayson was pretty miserable. Then came the news that the supposedly dead mobster Tony Zucco, the man who murdered Grayson’s parents, was alive and well, and living in Chicago under a new identity. Grayson leaves Gotham behind, and finds himself in a new city that hates superheroes, and facing a new villain: the Prankster. The past five issues have wound the fates of Nightwing, Prankster, and Zucco closer and closer together, and the story itself became so large that the Mayor of Chicago becomes entangled with the possible disaster approaching the city.
Kyle Higgins understands Dick Grayson, pure and simple. As the guiding voice behind “Nightwing” since its New 52 debut, Higgins has kept Grayson’s character very consistent, even as wild status quo changes happen all around him, and has managed to make his growth and development feel natural. Dick Grayson believes in the good in people and, while he doesn’t trust everyone, the fact that he trusts anyone sets him apart from his masked mentor. Grayson arrives in Chicago bitter, angry, and bent on personal vengeance, but soon his heroic instincts kick in as Chicago comes under attack. Higgins is smart not to stretch Grayson’a angry period for very long, as his true personality returns as he finds a greater purpose than revenge in the new city. The anger of a young boy who saw his parents die never truly leaves Grayson, but Higgins realizes that the character is a hero because he wants to help people, because a long time ago someone helped him, and not because he’s trying to bring his parents back from the dead.
Rather than tell a simple cat vs mouse story with Nightwing and Zucco, the story quickly grows to become a wider story about Chicago and the city’s relationship with masked superheroes. Higgins, a real life Chicago native, obviously knows the city backwards and forwards and makes it a character unto itself in the story. He fleshes out the history, and turns Chicago into a city that has rejected superheroes for their destructive vigilante ways, and is therefore ill prepared when a super-villain threatens the population. The Prankster, a rebooted Golden Age villain, is like a combination of the Riddler’s obsessive planning and the Joker’s love of anarchic chaos. As the story progresses, Higgins draws Nightwing and Prankster closer together, and shows the parallels between the two. This becomes much more apparent as the Prankster’s origin is revealed to be an angry boy out for revenge. While some readers will likely be disappointed with this somewhat familiar origin, Higgins uses it to draw an interesting comparison between hero and villain, and the subtle differences between the two.
Continued belowWill Conrad handles art duty on “Nightwing” #24, and the action filled finale gives him plenty of time to show off. The book opens with an action scene, full of quick panels and angled lines that convey the blistering energy of the fight. Nightwing races around the city on a motorcycle in an effort to reach a bomb, and the panels actually look exhilarating, in addition to features a rather bad-ass splash page with Nightwing jumping over an angry crowd. Even with the blistering pace of the book, Conrad never loses sight of the details that make the pages rich and beautiful. Even as Nightwing is flying past famed Chicago landmarks, they are still carefully rendered and are far from dashed off.
One of the shortcomings of the whole “Nightwing” series is that the art team has been in a state of flux from the very beginning. Eddy Barrows drew twelve of the first seventeen issues, but since then three different art teams have been on the book. The Chicago storyline itself was initially drawn by Brett Booth before Conrad came on board to finish the arc. The rapid changeover has meant that the artists have not had the time to add a bit of their unique style to the look of the book, and instead lean fairly close to the DC realistic house style. This is not to the say that Conrad’s pencils are boring or plain. On the contrary, his images are full of details, and the hard angles used to render the characters’ faces are quite effective in showing emotions, even if they do lean a bit on the anime side of things. It would just be interesting to see an artist have a long run on the book, get comfortable with the character, and expand the artistic style of “Nightwing” in a more unique direction.
“Nightwing” #24 brings Dick Grayson’s Chicago adventures to a satisfying end. With the initial crossovers within the Bat-family books, and the events of “Forever Evil”, it looks like this arc will be Nightwing’s only self-contained story in the immediate future of the New 52. Will Conrad fills the pages with explosive images and keeps the pace of the book speeding towards the conclusion, and fills Chicago with rich details that really flesh out the world. Kyle Higgins embraces the opportunity to tell a story that is unique to the history of Dick Grayson himself, and not tied to his past as Batman’s sidekick. Higgins crafts an arc for the character that lets him release a great deal of his anger, and avoids the easy trap of making Nightwing into Batman-light.
Final Verdict: 7.5 – Buy if you’re a Bat-family fan. When the story is collected in a trade it will be a great opportunity for readers to see a new take on one of DC’s most quietly iconic characters.
