Nightwing #3 – Review

By: Kyle Higgins (writer), Eddy Barrows & Eduardo Pansica (pencillers), JP Mayer, Paulo Siqueira, Eber Ferreira (inkers), Rod Reis & Allen Passalaqua (colorist)

The Story: So long, Mr. Haly.  Love, the circus freaks.

The Review: It’s not surprising most of our heroes’ childhoods remain a bit vague; at that age, there’s little depth to be mined, except for grim, life-lasting traumas, of course.  Still, some characters can stand to have their early lives developed a little more, like Nightwing.  He had a fairly wacky upbringing, yet it evidently gave him with the right stuff to hurdle over tragedy and become the respected hero he is today.  How exactly did a circus childhood do that?

Higgins clears up that question to some degree here, establishing quite a few new relationships in Dick’s life along the way.  Aside from “girl next door” Raya, his little gang of circus friends included the daredevil Raymond and the mischievous Zane.  With jolly Mr. Haly watching over them, you see Dick pretty much grew up in a Hollywood-movie idyll, complete with a scene where instead of giving the kids the extra chores he promised their parents, Mr. Haly instead lends Zane the keys to his truck so they can see a midnight movie.  Sap to the max, but touching.

All of these figures now reassert themselves into Dick’s life—not literally, since two of them are now dead.  Mr. Haly, having left for that great three-ring arena in the sky last issue, also left behind a dying wish for Dick to take charge of the show and protect the secret of the circus (a Boxcar Children title if I ever heard one) too.  Obviously, Haly’s real son isn’t all too pleased his inheritance was passed to his prodigal “brother,” so that’ll be a major source of tension to come

But Bryan Haly’s resentment is fairly commonplace against the showdown between Nightwing and Zane, who left show biz to become a kind of booking agent for killers.  When our hero goes to see if his former friend might have been responsible for hiring Saiko, things go downhill.  After all, you don’t work with assassins on a daily basis without learning a thing or two about getting your hands dirty yourself.