Nightwing is Back!

I was not all that impressed by the last run of Nightwing. I have always been a big fan so I was going to continue reading the book for a while even though I wasn't really likeing it.

But now I don't have anything to worry about! Marv Wolfman (NEW TEEN TITANS) comes onboard this issue as the new regular writer, replacing Bruce Jones. I really don't know what Jones was thinking with the arc that he did. Jones was writing him as a self obsessed loser with no sense of direction. Not the type of thing you would expect after having spent a year traveling the world with Bruce and Tim. Maybe part of the reason was that it was hurried. I am sure by now you all know that Nightwing was supposed to die during Crisis, not Superboy, and I think that they meant to replace Dick Grayson with Jason Todd, the way they did back in the day. I think that is also why the Jason Todd story was never really wrapped up last year in Winick's Batman arc.

But now they were left with where to put Dick in this New DC world they created. No longer Robin, and with the realization that he was never going to be Batman, where did that leave the former teen wonder? In the time before the Crisis, Devin Grayson had written one of the best Nightwing stories in years - getting Dick to seemingly betray everything he ever knew and join the Dark Side. Only to reveal that it had all been part of his plan to get everyone, the capes and the villains, out of Bludhaven for good and leave it to the humans. It was the kind of stunt that even Batman wouldn't have been able to pull off. That's why the Society leveled the town in the first place, they wanted to make an example out of him and put him in his place, if not in the ground.

But they never really touched on this either in Crisis or in his own book. They had to realize that Dick would know he was responsible. That an entire city died because he had the audacity to take on the Society by himself. It was the kind of event that should have broken him, if not for good, then at least for a while. He jumped right into the Crisis, not even really stopping to think about what had happened. There was more introspection on Robin's part, and he had only lived in the city for a couple of months, as opposed the several years that Nightwing must have been there. I want to say they did part of an issue on his state of mind immediately following the blast, including a brief talk with Superman, but that was nowhere near enough really.

I did like the attitude that Winick gave him in the Outsiders book as part of OYL, much more akin to what he was doing before the crisis, trying to take the bad guys down first. And I hear that DC has big plans for him this year, including a leading part in the last quarter of 52, and a pivotal role in dealing with the new Monitors. So I am really looking forward to the new Wolfman arc as it is supposed to be the beginning of his new role in the world. And if you too felt let down by Jone's run, I really do recommend that you come by and pick up the new issue. Wolfman already has him started down the road to be one the leading stars of the new DC universe.

-Dan