Review Shooter: Nightwing 2
The past always seems to have a way of haunting you. Though, it seems to happen in comics way more than any one person should go through. Nightwing 2 builds on the legacy of Dick Grayson as a former circus performer, while also continuing the mystery of “Saiko.”
Nightwing 2 picks up literally where Nightwing 1 ended with Nightwing in battle with this mysterious attacker. Who isn’t after Nightwing, but Dick Grayson because he is one of Gotham’s most ruthless murderers apparently. Somehow, Nightwing doesn’t buy it, and it leads to a funny little thought box from Dick.
After a few back and forth exchanges, Dick’s attacker feels its time to make a hasty retreat and distracts Nightwing by blowing up a nearby vehicle. Of course, he gets away and we cut to Dick in his apartment. It isn’t long before he is greeted at the door by Raya, one of the girl’s from Haly’s Circus who is now back in his life. She needs to get to Atlantic City, and needs Dick to go with her. Who is Dick to say no to a pretty girl, and next time you know they are on a Wayne Enterprise Jet heading to Atlantic City!
Here we are introduced to Mr. Haly, the man who owns the circus, and who has a bigger collection in his warehouse than the Batcave, and there are some pretty awesome stuff in there. We learn that Mr. Haly knows about Dick’s secret, and the way he figures it out makes sense, and that he doesn’t think its the life for him. Dick is given control of the circus as well as the warehouse.
As you may note, thus far, this has been a very Dick driven issue, which works well. Things change after he hooks up with Raya on the plane, and we’re back to Nightwing and Saiko dueling it out in the warehouse. I’ll leave the rest of the comic up to you to discover.
The issue is a much stronger issue than the first. I feel that by focusing on Dick, especially away from the rest of the Bat-family, helps to build the character back up. While his tenure as Batman was great, its nice to see him out of Bruce’s shadow again. While I dislike the introduction of all of these magical characters who hadn’t been around before, it does work in building up a possible supporting cast for the title. It will be interesting to see where they go with a lot of the plot points in the comic. Namely, Dick now owning the circus and this Raya girl.
The art in the book is solid round and round. Like noted before, I was really impressed by the spread of Haly’s Warehouse. There are a lot of cool visual objects in there. Nightwing’s costume doesn’t bother me much, though the change to red has still not been explained.
New Reader Accessibility: 4– It starts where issue 1 ended, but other than that, you really don’t need to have read much Nightwing to enjoy this comic. Like I said, most of the cast has been introduced in these last two comics, and one is only given a name here.
Recommendation: Check It– I still think the series needs to be pushed a little further before it becomes a most-own title, but it is well-worth checking out the content!
