Until recently, Nightwing was a superhero very much on the periphery of my nerdery. All I really knew about him was that he had something to do with Batman, while not actually being Batman, and wasn’t to be confused with Darkwing Duck.
If you’re in the dark like I was, here’s the basics: as a teenager, Dick Grayson started his superheroic career as Batman’s sidekick Robin, but now all grown up, he’s moved to the ominously named Bludhaven, where he’s taken on a new persona, fighting crime as Nightwing, utilizing the skills he learned from Batman while carving out his own identity.
For those of us who are new to the Nightwing gig, volume one, On With The Show, (written by Dan Watters, with artwork by Dexter Soy) is a perfect jumping-on point, kicking off new storylines rather than being tied up in old ones.
The action begins with the leaders of Bludhaven’s various gangs being assassinated as they sit down for peace talks, plunging the city’s underworld into a chaotic turf war. Of course, Nightwing has to swing into action to prevent the violence from spiraling out of control, and of course, he quickly learns there’s a much darker conspiracy behind it all. I was surprised at how soon I was sucked into this, and one of the biggest factors was the sheer amount of fun stuff going on.
You want examples? It has a timely story about the militarization of police. It has mutant street gangs. It has a Batman cameo. It has a dark supernatural force lurking in the shadows. It has a bunny rabbit!
It would have been nice to see some of the action sequences stretched out longer, but this is a minor nitpick, and I’m looking forward to see what happens next (which leads to another nitpick, which is that when this volume ends, we’re still very much in the thick of things, and I have to wait until January to pick up volume two, Death Traps).
On with the show, indeed.
