Tag Archives: Nightwing

Nov 2 2017

Relationships Shine in Batman 34

by Spencer Irwin

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Batman may have just gotten engaged, but can you really imagine he and Catwoman going through life as a “normal” married couple, living a mundane domestic life? Of course you can’t, and not just because they have Alfred — it’s because they’re superheroes, wrapped up in grandiose, larger-than-life concerns. While one of those typically superheroic goals — tracking down Holly Robinson — is technically motivating our heroes in Batman 34, Tom King and Joelle Jones make the smart choice to ground the issue in relationships and emotions, making this an issue driven by the spark between characters. For the first time, maybe I can imagine Bruce and Selina as an everyday married couple — albeit one whose “dates” consist of confronting murderous exes in the desert. Continue reading →

Oct 31 2017

Trust and Impetuousness in Batgirl 16

By Drew Baumgartner

Batgirl 16

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Guys, I love American Vandal. It’s sendup of Netflix-style documentaries is spot-on, but the thing I love most about it is just how accurately it captures teen life. It renders the goofiness and triviality of high school life in intricate, loving detail, fixating on details that is both hilarious and instantly familiar. But at the center of all the dick jokes and awkwardness is the very real disconnect between the impulsive actions of teens and the logical analysis of adults. What’s more, it examines how the “seriousness” that adults adopt maybe leads them to dismiss important details (like the absence of “ball hairs” on graffiti dicks) that a teen — who actually takes those details seriously — wouldn’t. It makes a rather compelling case for teens as the best detectives for teen-related crimes, as they’re more sensitive to the heightened emotional states and subtle social cues of their fellow teens and more immune to the idea that those details are irrelevant. Hope Larson tilts at something similar in Batgirl 16, suggesting that Babs and Dick might have actually been better detectives when they were younger. Continue reading →

Oct 11 2017

Batman: White Knight 1

by Ryan Desaulniers and Mark Mitchell

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

 He’s the hero Gotham deserves, but not the one it needs right now.

Jim Gordon, The Dark Knight

Ryan: Since that line was uttered in lamentation of Gotham’s corruption, I feel as if it’s almost become a canonical outlook on the Caped Crusader. The thing about that line, though, is that it’s purely subjective on Gordon’s part, and particular unto the circumstances of that Batman story in that film. And almost every statement can be used against the point for which it was originally made, right? Even scientists with objective data sets can use the same numbers to support the opposite side of an argument, or the same verse of scripture used to prove opposing points. In Batman: White Knight 1, Sean Murphy takes Jim Gordon’s iconic statement and uses it to sow the seeds of a Gotham wherein the Joker justifies his action with that logic, both as a villain and a hero. Continue reading →

Oct 10 2017

Artwork is Metal in Green Arrow 32

by Michael DeLaney 

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Green Arrow 32 is the conclusion to the Dark Nights: Metal tie-in “Gotham Resistance,” so you could be forgiven for your confusion if you haven’t been following the previous chapters in Teen Titans, Nightwing and Suicide Squad. As much as “Gotham Resistance” is one story, each individual title manages to maintain a piece of its own unique identity. A large part of Green Arrow‘s Rebirth identity has been artist Juan E. Ferreyra, who is far and away the most memorable thing about this issue. Continue reading →

Oct 3 2017

Murder by Proxy in Batgirl 15

By Michael DeLaney

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

Villains tend to die by some one in ten chance coincidence of their own making – like Green Goblin getting impaled on his own glider. Similarly, storytellers jump through some creative hoops in order for our heroes to feel some respect of responsibility for their enemy’s end. Which is what Hope Larson does in Batgirl 15, as Nightwing vaporizes a woman’s body to dust via proxy. Continue reading →

Aug 29 2017

Nightwing: The New Order 1: Discussion

by Mark Mitchell and Ryan Desaulniers 

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, proceed at your own risk!

slim-banner

Mark: Dick Grayson is know for his perfection; the best ass in comics, the most suave personality, the most kickass combatant — generally the coolest guy in the universe. It’s an impressive feat, then, that writer Kyle Higgins and artist Trevor McCarthy (with colors by Dean White) are able to so thoroughly undermine Nightwing’s image of perfection in Nightwing: The New Order 1 without making us completely turn on the character. Continue reading →

Aug 28 2017

Unknown history sits at the heart of Batgirl 14

by Drew Baumgartner

Batgirl 14

This article contains SPOILERS. If you haven’t read the issue yet, read on at your own risk!

I’ve never been a huge fan of dramatic irony — I can appreciate how giving us more information than the characters have can produce tension (or humor), but that information kind of gets in the way of relating to the characters. Still, I have a heck of a lot more patience for dramatic irony than I do its exact opposite, where characters are privy to information that is deliberately withheld from the audience. Not only does the tension it create feel cheaper (amounting to little more than a narrative chant of “I know something you don’t know”), it makes the characters even harder to relate to, as we’re necessarily left in the dark about what they might be thinking or feeling. All of which kept me from truly enjoying Batgirl 14. Continue reading →

Jan 24 2017

Nightwing 13

nightwing-13

Today, Mark and Spencer are discussing Nightwing 13, originally released January 18th, 2017. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Mark: There’s a moment in Nightwing 13 that clearly encapsulates the little, niggling issues in this current arc of Tim Seeley and Marcus To’s Nightwing that prevent me from really embracing the book like I want to. It’s a small moment, to be sure, and it’s easy to gloss over thanks to the stronger WHAM-BAM-BOOM elements in the issue. But the devil is in the details, and the difference between a good book and a great book is usually mere inches. Continue reading →

Dec 23 2016

Nightwing 11

nightwing-11

Today, Mark and Spencer are discussing Nightwing 11, originally released December 21st, 2016. As always, this article containers SPOILERS.

Mark: Being written by a member of the team that created a New 52 MVP contender in Grayson, the expectation was that Nightwing would continue that series’ characterization of Dick Grayson as, essentially, the most awesome person alive. Tom King, Tim Seeley, and Mikel Janin’s Grayson leaned heavily on Dick’s “Best Ass in Comics” reputation. Their Grayson was sexy, funny, smart, and could kick ass—basically, he was perfect. And while it should have been impossible to write an ongoing series about a seemingly flawless character, King and Seeley made it work month after month. But now almost one full year into Tim Seeley’s solo run, it’s clear that Nightwing is its own beast. The question, then, is who is this Dick Grayson? Continue reading →

Nov 21 2016

Nightwing 9

nightwing-9

Today, Spencer and Mark are discussing Nightwing 9, originally released November 16th, 2016. As always, this article contains SPOILERS.

Spencer: If you go back and read my reviews of recent Nightwing issues, I’m on record as calling this run “grim” more than once. I’m still a bit puzzled as to why writer Tim Seeley has filled Dick with so much angst, but at least Nightwing 9 is an acknowledgement of this trend, and seemingly an active move away from it. It’s a refreshing look at why Dick Grayson is such a powerful character in the first place. Continue reading →