Nightwing 1 Thoughts

Writer: Kyle Higgins
Artist: Eddy Barrows

Ah, finally! Dick Grayson had to give up Nightwing several years ago when DC turned Bruce Wayne into Sam Beckett, and this reboot is the first time he's had his own comic since February of 08. I gotta say, as someone who's always been a larger fan of Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, he was definitely missed.

We come back to Nightwing with a new writer, Kyle Higgins (whose work I've never read before), and a new story. Reading the interviews, the idea with Nightwing was supposed to be that his time as Batman had made him an even better, stronger hero than before. I'd love for that to be true, but considering his best feat in the issue is beating some throwaway nut and...not doing all that well against the primary villain of the issue, I'm going for that to be Dick's perception rather than reality at the moment.

Still, from what I've read so far, we're heading down a new road. It's been a while since Dick had anything to do with Haley's Circus--particularly in Gotham*, and revisiting Dick's origins makes for a solid opening story. I have no doubt a lot of fans are curious about what each character's origins are in this relaunched DCU. For Nightwing, apparently we get to find out. Of course, in Gotham, even something as simple as one's past can become twisted.

Like most of the DCU relaunch titles, I'm left with a lot of questions at the close of this issue, but the only one I know I can answer is this: Yes, I missed Nightwing and I definitely want the second issue.














Bit of Comic Nerd Continuity Stuff Here. Skip unless you're hardcore:

This is one of the stories that really is told FAR better with the relaunch's timeline. Pre...pretty much everything, Bruce basically adopts Dick as a young child, no older than 12 (but probably 8). This means his time with the Circus as a performer is probably almost nil.

With this new timeline, which supposedly is only five years for everyone except Batman who was operating "in the shadows" for some time before superheroes were well-known, it's more plausible to believe that a Dick Grayson in his early 20's was probably adopted by Bruce seven years in the past, maybe a year into Bruce's time as Batman. You figure he was probably sixteen when Bruce took him in, and thus most likely spent several years as a working member of the Circus.