Adam Graham's Blog: Christians and Superheroes - Posts Tagged "dick-grayson"

Nightwing (2016-) Vol. 2: Back to Bludhaven by Tim Seeley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 9-15 of Nightwing. The book is essentially a five part story bracketed in by a One Shot. Issue 9 is, “Fighting Destiny” and finds Dick having some serious nightmares. Superman comes along to help him. Even though, he’s not the Superman Dick knows, the two have a good dynamic and it’s interesting to see that relationship to develop. There are also some good insight as Dick faces his fears.

Issues 10-14 is a five part story that has Dick moving to Blüdhaven in an attempt to get in touch with himself and find out who he really is and to enjoy a city where everything is black and white and he hoped to work in the light as a social worker. Unfortunately, it turns out not to be all that simple. As his boss is a former supervillainess and Blüdhaven has become a refuge for ex-minor villains seeking to turn over a new leaf who go by the name the Run Offs. In addition to that, there’s a series of murders that the Run Offs are being framed for. Overall, this story’s got solid characters, a good mystery, and also some nice character work for Dick.

Issue 15 features a new romance for Dick and focuses on its development . It’s counting down to the present and setitng up the next big storyline. I like the story and the way it just does focus on the relationship and insight into the characters without having to have those as elements jammed into an action story, even though its clearly set up for the next storyline. Given that there were already six issues in this trade, it’s probably reasonable to wonder if this shouldn’t have been included in the next trade, but that’s nitpicky.

Overall, Nightwing continues to be an enjoyable character driven series. This book manages to mine some good moments from what would normally be lesser characters including a battle with the infamous villain Orca. A solid installment.
***Disclosure: I Received a free digital copy from Net Galley in exchange for an honest review***




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Nightwing Vol. 3: Nightwing Must Die by Tim Seeley

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 16-21 of Nightwing.

The first five issues constitute the book's titular arc in which Nightwing's girlfriend Shawn is kidnapped just after requesting he get a pregnancy test. He's joined in his search by Robin who is determined to prove himself the rightful successor to Batman despite popular opinion...even on his own team.

Mostly, when this book works, it's because of Damian's character and the relationship to Nightwing and there are some good moments in there. Reading this book made me very curious to check out Grant Morrison's Batman and Robin run.

The story is just okay. It feels a bit long and isn't anything readers haven't seen several times before. The art is uneven and often unpleasant to look at.

Still, the relational stuff and tone of the Nightwing series still makes this an okay read.

Issue 21 is a one-shot featuring Wally West showing up in Bludhaven. This is a decent one shot. It's neither boring nor is it a spectacular one. It's just a nice little one off fight that sets the tone for things to come.

Overall, I'd probably most recommend this for Nightwing completists and fans of Damian Wayne.



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Nightwing Vol. 4: Blockbuster by Tim Seeley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This book collects Issues 22-28 of Nightwing. The first four issues are the titular Blockbuster arc and find the new Blockbuster (brother of the original) confronting Nightwing and asking for his help to take down Tigershark and free the city from crime. But whose side is he on and what are his motives? It's a nice four-part arc with a lot surprises and a lot of great guest villains.

A former criminal, Gizmo, who was helping Nightwing as a hacker is murdered and in the second three-issue arc, Night Wing teams up with the Huntress to find who killed his friend and who's behind the Second Hand, a group sending alien technology into Bludhaven and this three-part arc takes him back to his time at Spyral. Overall, another solid story.

The book's side characters deserve a comment. Shawn, his girlfriend at the start of the book (formerly the supervillain the Defacer) goes on a journey in the story as she begins by wanting Dick to get a job. However, she ends up breaking up with him and goes into a very dark place when Gizmo dies. The journey she takes as well as that of other former supervillains is an interesting and engaging one. The end for Shawn isn't catastrophic but is heartbreaking in its own way. I hope we see more of her character. It's a testament to writer Tim Seeley that this character has become that important.



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Nightwing, Vol. 5: Raptor's Revenge by Tim Seeley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Nightwing's world begins to collapse around him as the community center faces a funding crisis (because a Senator said something randomly), his ex-supervillian friends are mad at him, his police contact thinks he's into her after she gave him mouth-to-mouth, and to top it all off, Raptor is back to punish Bludhaven to get even with Dick, leading him to try and team up with the town's new boss, Blockbuster.

The first issue is a bit frantically paced and has some silly moments in it. However, once you get past it, the events really come together and the story builds to a solid conclusion for Tim Seeley's run. It's a true finale story with high stakes and a lot being dealt with. The story does feel slightly rushed as if there were how Seeley intended to end things, but that DC changes had forced him to move in this direction prematurely.

Still, Seeley had a decent run, and this wraps up nicely despite a few problems.



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Robin, The Boy Wonder: A Celebration of 75 Years by Bill Finger

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


This book celebrates the 75th Anniversary of Robin in 2015 by dedicating a section to each Robin. My thoughts on each section below:

1) Dick Grayson:

This section leans heavily into using Robin stories that have been repinted over and over again. Including his origin, the time that Bruce Wayne lost costudy of him to scheming relatives, and that type he behaved like a jerk to a girl who wanted to be a crimefighter, and the bicentenial issue where he teamed up with Batgirl to fight a demonically powered Benedict Arnold. These aren't bad, but I've read them all before. There are two exceptions. The Golden Age Robin Solo story, "The Barton Brothers" is a nice little story where he rounds up three criminal brothers with different hooks and gimmicks. Then there's the "Robin" chapter from Nightwing Year One which is actually kind of dreadful.

2) Jason Todd:

Wa get a look at the start of Jason's post-crisis origin and we get the second half of the comic that ended with a 900 number people would call to vote whether he would die. In between, there's a story where Batman and Robin are dealing with a diplomat's son who has a nasty way of treating women and we're left question how far this Robin might go. It's a bit light and incomplete, but Todd's era was short.

3) Tim Drake:
We get the issue where Drake first put on the costume of Robin, a downbeat Robin story by Chuck Dixon, and a team up between Robin and Nighwing that allows the characters to interact.Then there's a Superboy/Robin team up in the pages of Superman/Batman that's high on action, low on character development. These arent bad, but I think you start to see the challenge of putting modern comics with a book like this. The one-shot is rear and comics are written "for the trade." So of the four stories, we have one issue plucked out of multi-part story, and two other one-shots that aren't particularly remarkable and also written by people who didn't write Tim Drake.

4) Damian Wayne:
We get the issue where Damian comes to the Batcave and thinks he's going to claim his inheritance. He's surly and insufferable, but then again, that's Damian Wayne for you, particularly in the early days. We have an issue from Superman/Batman where there's a team-up with Supergirl, which works quite well. And then we have Batman and Robin Annual #1 from 2013 by Peter Tomasi in which Damian gets Batman to take a vacation in Europe and lays out a trail of clues leading him to reconnect with his family heritage while Damian dons the cowl in Bruce's absence and tries to hide it. I actually love this story the most. It does a great job showing how Damian's developed and the complicated relationship between father and son. It's great work anda reminder that I really need to check out Batman and Robin by Peter Tomasi.

5) Other Robins:
This is a big fault I have with this book. To most people, Robin is either Dick Grayson, Tim Drake, or Damian Wayne. Throwing in some alternate Earth versions is kind of silly and I think it would have been better to feature more stories with these characters.

"The Super-Crisis that Struck Earth-Two" barely features the pre-Crisis Earth 2 Robin and is actually the first of a two part story no tincluded in the book.

"The Dark Knight Triumphant" is a classic dark piece of comic writing from Batman: The Dark Knight by Frank Miller, but the alternate Robin barely features amongst people talking on cable news.

"Head Games" is a throwaway story about some future robot "Robin the Toy Wonder" from the DC One Million Event.

"A Life More Ordinary" is the most defensible story for inclusion in the book as its about Stephanie Brown becoming Robin for a brief time. Even here, I think it doesn't make as much sense or carry as much weith without the context.

Overall, if you've not read a whole lot about Robin, this isn't a bad collection to check out, and there are some good stories in here, but there are also a few stories that are thrown in and some of this that just feels like its being too cute by half with its selction critera.




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