Nightwing #27 – Review

By: Kyle Higgins (writer), Will Conrad & Cliff Richards (art), Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: Nightwing juggles a manic mimic, a tea-crazed hatter, and a micro-managing roommate as life in Chicago continues.

The Review: One of the prime problems of Nightwing’s character is that he’s not Batman. Batman is the best and Nightwing is not him. Q.E.D Nightwing is not the best. Now many of us know better, but defining what qualities make Nightwing more than Batman-lite shows us another problem. Batman is driven, simple, and universally likable from the safe distance of readership. You don’t need to give Batman relatable problems, you just need him to be grizzled and spout a great one-liner now and again and that saves pages. The sane among us may champion the supreme interpersonal skills that make Nightwing the core of the DCU, but it’s actually his strengths that have often caused him to struggle.

Consider Nightwing #27, for instance. This is a terrible Batman story. Sure, it would be easy enough to replace Marionette with Catwoman and return the Mad Hatter to Gotham City, but the stakes are nowhere near high enough. One cop, one friend, and a hot thief? Batman saves that many people over breakfast! A Batman story like that could never survive in a world of “The Court of Owls” or “Death of the Family”s, but Nightwing? Nightwing could pull it off, if handled right. Enter Kyle Higgins, who continues to demonstrate that he understands Dick Grayson at least as well as he does Nightwing.

Part of what makes Higgins’ Nightwing so true to the character is how clearly you can hear both Batman and Robin rattling around in his head. One minor artistic misstep from Will Conrad on the opening page combines with Higgins’ writing to show us something that looks and sounds a lot like a Robin-era Dick in the Nightwing suit. From there Higgins adds some playful flirtation, a touch of self-deprecation, and a dash of honest-to-goodness nerdiness to positively nail Dick Grayson’s voice, and all in the first six pages.

Nightwing #26 – Review

By: Kyle Higgins (writer), Will Conrad with Cliff Richards (art), Pete Pantazis (colors)

The Story: Dick Grayson: Acrobat. Superhero. Cruddy roommate.

The Review: Perhaps wisely after last month’s detour into the past, Kyle Higgins chooses to distance this story from the now concluded Prankster arc. New readers will probably appreciate the fairly minimal references to past adventures, with this issue dropping us straight into a new case.

Luckily for us, Higgins hasn’t abandoned Dick’s personal life. Far from it, we actually get one of the most charming conundrums I’ve encountered in a superhero comic in some time. Whether Master Grayson’s further struggles are tedious or entertaining will depend on your temperament, but it worked for me. He also gets a low-paying job and embarrasses himself in front of a girl. Oh, Nightwing, never change.

On the superhero side of things, Nightwing finds himself chasing down a cat burglar with a taste for expensive drugs. The plot is honestly fairly pedestrian. Theft, especially non-violent theft, doesn’t feel quite up to Nightwing’s level, having just saved Chicago two months ago. Still, let it not be said that Higgins doesn’t do his best with it. The acrobatic stunts and witty repartee make the pair’s duel plenty easy to read and, happy with that, it wisely doesn’t overstay its welcome.