Nightwing #16 - Welll, THAT wasn't telegraphed a year ago...

[icon_uk]

It's basically an issue long take down of Nightwing, which should be fun for me, but



Dick arrives at the fairground he's been setting up since the first couple of issues of the relaunch, and which the Joker has targeted.

He finds that Joker has filled the big top with the corpses of former employees of the circus he's exhumed (Where he got so many and so quickly is just another Joker-plot power) but the Joker does note...



Of course big explosions happen and there some random punching and hitting things as the Joker hints (as wbove) that he knows who Nightwing really is (He comments that Nightwing appeared to follow the circus last year, which might be gnericm, but then makes the joke about hanging bones from the trapeze).

The sort of "out" they have is that a the explosions are full of Joker gas, which for some reason Dick wasn't expecting. So it's possible that some of what Dick see's and hears after this are hallucinations, rather than real, but I definitely suspect that this next bit really happens.





Since the word go, we've joked that starting a circus/fairground in Gotham was asking for trouble, but it was a nice idea that Dick would believe it was possible. So after over a year of this being basically the ONLY character arc that Dick has, the one most glaringly, tediously obvious thing that the Joker could have done is...exactly what he's done... Am I supposed to find this horrifying? Or shocking? It's really neither because it's just so... obvious. It also makes a complete waste of any Dick Grayson scene we've had in a year, because this is everything he was about. I get that's supposed to make it pivotal, but it just seems.... bland.

Of course, also because the Joker has unstoppable super duper abilities in this story, the circus folk who Dick had evacuated as soon as he heard the Joker was active have of course been Jokerised too... which again is supposed to be shocking but just makes me feel I've wasted any time I've invested in this entire series because there's nothing left after this, and the DCnU Dick Grayson has little going for him because he has no Titans past, we have no idea how the rest of the DCU views him, or anything like that.

Naturally, as was inevitable because this is a satellite story not the main one, the Joker ends up having captured Dick, and even the sight of the Joker hauling away a trussed up Nightwing doesn't make this issue feel any less of a let down to me.

Comments

[auggie18]

To quote MST3K: "Well, that happened."

[chrisdv]

As much as I've enjoyed the series, it feels like being a Bat-book has really hampered it from gaining any momentum by dragging it into the two events.

Shame that this is the last issue with Eddy Barrows on art, his work has been one of the highlights of the book for me.

Completely sick of Joker being a complete Villain Sue. A year of planning or not, there's no way he'd be able to take down ALL of the Bat family in the time it takes Batman to get from Wayne Manor to Arkham Asylum.

Side note: Wasn't it implied in the pre-Flashpoint timeline that Joker knew Batman's identity, but simply didn't care because it wouldn't be fun for him to go after Bruce Wayne & not his beloved Bats?

[icon_uk]

Aside from some fabulous art, the relaunch has really been a kick in the groin for Dick Grayson, he lost the entire point of a KID sidekick by being 16 before he became Robin, was only Robin for about a year, has not Titans history. Night of the Owls made a complete hash of his entire past and painfully contrived family history for absolutely no interesting return, and this has just basically undone most of what had been built up in his title.

Oh, and yes, the Joker knowing that the Robin he killed was named Jason, and other sort of hints kind of implied he knew, but didn't care, which made a certain amount of sense, and makes this whole "Does he/doesn't he?" thing sort of pointless to me.

[chrisdv]

And annoyingly, they made the point in Nightwing 1 that Dick had still been been Batman when Bruce was on vacation.

It's very clear at this point that DC had no clue what they were doing when they hit the reset button, since they keep changing backstories every other month.

[silverhammerman]

The changes to the history of the Robins is probably the one thing that I hate most about the New 52. They've stripped the relationship between Batman and the various Robins of all significance.

[zechs80]

Not just the Robins but the Batgirls too. Don't forget them.

[silverhammerman]

Indeed, it really was the whole Batfamily that got screwed over in the reboot. I'm actually not sure who has it worse now, the Batgirls have been almost completely ditched, but at least it's a somewhat clean break, whereas the Robins are all there but have had their history and significance utterly sapped. The whole thing is very frustrating.

[mrstatham]

It really does make me cry 'bullshit' when people say nothing's really changed for the Bat-Family in the reboot. The only set of titles that seem completely untouched by the reboot were.. *drum roll* Green Lantern and those associated titles. Which.. You know, completely reeks of favouritism from one of the top people in the company, in a "Oh, I know we're resetting everything again, but can I keep some of my stuff?" way.

[silverhammerman]

The Batbooks might actually have been some of the worst handled in the reboot with regards to continuity. Most titles, Green Arrow, Flash, Wonder Woman, etc, all got pretty cleanly rebooted into a new status quo, and all the Green Lantern stuff left virtually untouched, as you said, but the Batbooks are the only ones that got such weird half measures. Everything's the same, the all the stuff that gave them weight and nuance is gone.
I don't know if it was because they didn't want to interrupt Grant Morrison's Batman Inc stuff, which I still maintain should have been allowed to wrap up in its own separate continuity, or because the Batbooks, with the many Robins and Batgirls, were simply too difficult to reboot into a five year timeframe.

[mrstatham]

I don't think they can even justify Batman Inc as not wanting to tamper with stuff, because they did anyway. And they can't even use the number of Batgirls to justify the half-measures, because we still have ALL the canon Robins at once and only ONE Batgirl. If they could squeeze four Robins into five years, they could do the same for the girls.

[darkknightjrk]

To be fair with the Titans history thing, we know that he's had adventures with Roy Harper and Starfire--they just weren't an official team with a T-shaped tower like before. But ultimately I do agree that really the only bit of development Dick's had in the New 52 is the circus.

[kenn_el]

Barrows has been wonderful on the art when he was able to draw the book, but overall the art is really inconsistent. I'm looking forward to the new artist and the opportunity to drop Titans now that Barrows is headed there.
I agree that some of the changes were not to Dick's benefit, but the loss of his Titans history is largely Victor having to be in the JL, the removal of Wally and Donna from the DCU, and the compressed timeline.
Dick might be able to restart the circus after this (though Lord knows why he would want to), but maybe this'll be the instigating event to make him more a part of the larger DCU? Maybe he'll sign up for the JLA or something? He'll have no ties, and his tenure with Batman is shorter than my high school/college bartending gig. It can't be THAT difficult to leave.

[icon_uk]

I think we're going to see the Joker defeated but. in doing so and because this is that sort of crossover, he'll have "won" by killing the "Family", not as individuals, but by destroying the trust the Family have (We've already seen Dick and co's manufactured fuming that Bruce lied to them about the Joker knowing their ID's and it's still not clear whether he does or not.)

[arise]

Well, that saves me picking up the first couple of Nightwing trades.

[randyripoff]

I'm sorry, normally I love the Joker, I love Batman, I love the Bat-Family, but nothing that's happening in the current DC universe with them appeals to me in the slightest.

[onceaskrull]

That's how I've felt for the past 6-7 months. I stopped buying new releases (except Young Justice), and honestly? I haven't missed it. Most of what I read, I felt like I was reading because I should be reading it, not because I was enjoying it. My heart's just not in it.

[akodo_rokku]

Can this event please end with Damian killing the Joker? It'd be the best, especially since they keep teasing that the Joker may have killed Alfred.

And of course Bruce would be all :-( about Damian killing someone (again) but we'd all be cheering and truly loving the kid for the first time.

You can Lazarus Pit the Joker later (and it'd even fix his face) but for once can the Joker die horribly for the awful things he's done? Please?

[darkknightjrk]

Personally, I'm hoping it ends with the whole family circling around Joker and just punching the fuck out of him. Like so.

[silverhammerman]

That's exactly what I've been hoping for, because thematically I think it would only be appropriate for Batman to prove the Joker wrong, and show that his "family" actually makes him stronger. It could still happen at this point, but I was really hoping we'd get to see an earlier turning point with this story, like we did when Batman started taking the fight to the Court of Owls.

[darkknightjrk]

I could sort-of see it as a mix of both, where the family is ultimately still together, but things have happened that makes things uncomfortable and painful for a while.

[icon_uk]

Trouble is the Joker has had the shit comprehensively kicked out of him by each Batfamily member in turn whilst they were being captured, given the timeframe of this story he's been punched like a jackhammer was applied to his face for half an hour, and STILL he's unharmed.

[timgueugen]

The answer is obvious. Jokerbots.

[spacebetween]

Even Harley has given him the smack down

[silverhammerman]

Many, I am just so incredibly tired of Death in the Family. None of these characters got to have a proper confrontation with the Joker, since they all have to be on the line for when Batman faces him in the main book, and from the looks of it, it means the tie-ins aren't very satisfying.
Really not loving the main book either, Capullo's art is unique and enjoyable, and Snyder's a good writer, but I just haven't enjoyed this event at all.

[darkknightjrk]

I get what you mean--on one hand, it seems like this story would be tailor-made for an event story, at least more so than Night of the Owls was, but what I think helped Night of the Owls was that they were mostly very tight and contained stories that could just as easily work as one-off issues in their own books ("Oh snap, an undead owl assassin!" *WHACK BIFF POW* "Well that was odd. Now where was I?"), whereas here you get stories that fit the idea of it, but the sheer amount of tie-ins and the length of them make it a little hard to swallow.

I wonder if it would have worked more if they tried the one-off tie-ins again. Or maybe as back-ups in the main Batman book.

[zechs80]

Ditto. Some of these should be epic confrontations too with this being the "first" fights between Barbara and Jason in this universe, but they come out to their inevitable conclusion because.. Joker has to win. In this short amount of time. UGH.

[ablackraptor]

The writing of the parts of the event I've read have been great, and the art is wonderful, but yeah, the events just not working, largely for the same reasons as mentioned above.
I actually missed the last issue as it came out during a week I couldn't make it to the Comic book store, so I don't have the first part of Nightwing's tie-in, so I may just skip this issue and check the next issue of the book out afterwards.

[zapbiffpow]

Man, I feel really sorry for Dick. He put all of his inheritance into that place - they should have thought of a better, more creative end to this attack instead of blowing up Amusement Mile.

I liked the part where Dick goes into hallucinations (which I didn't realize) and Joker goes in and calls him 'Dickie'. I literally said out loud 'holy shit JOKER REALLY KNOWS!'

Then I saw Dick feebly calling out Jimmy's name. Best jump-scare of sorts I've had
in a while, though.

[sun_man]

wow it didn't take long for Nightwing to regress back to 2006.

Higgins isn't terrible but he is certainly overrated

[wizardru]

Sooo.....the tl:dr version of the last two years of Nightwing are: we've undone everything interesting about the character, played the obvious Joker card and now we're going to wipe the slate clean again for REASONS.

Got it.

I keep hearing how great Batman is currently...and I'm not sure why. This all seems so...just sort of there, I guess. I remember stuff like No Man's Land, where the status quo was thoroughly upended so effectively and great stories came out of it. This all seems...predictable is maybe unfair, but maybe 'rote' might be a better term. It's unsurprising and feels like it's all 'on script'.

Nightwing can't beat the Joker, despite being younger, stronger, faster, better trained and being on his home ground. Because the Joker has plot protection (which explains why a massive explosion nearly kills Nightwing but doesn't even scratch the Joker, who is less than ten feet away). One would assume the same applies to Batgirl and everyone else.

[bradygirl_12]

Bah! My dislike of what the reboot did to Dick and the rest of the Bat-Family has been said before, but this just really annoys me. Instead of events that are predictable and annoying, how about self-contained stories? How about for a REAL shocker, the Joker is the one killed off and other villains get center stage? The Joker just comes off as a badly-written horror villain these days, no style, no dark humor that makes you laugh guiltily. It's just sick and twisted and makes you feel like you need a shower after reading anything with the Joker in it.

But, I guess that's what sells these days, right? Gore and sadism?

[rordulum]

"But, I guess that's what sells these days, right? Gore and sadism?"

And sex. Don't forget sex.

The whole DCnU is just so charmless and extreme. It's like someone decided to do an Elseworlds story where everyone was an asshole and nothing good ever happens to anyone.

[bradygirl_12]

Oh, gods, yes! The whole damned AU is so grim and dark it'd make Pollyanna want to slit her wrists. I understand wanting some form of realism in comics so they're not complete Silver Age crack, but honest-to-Kurt Schaffenberger, can't we have an Elseworld that isn't a total downer? I dunno, maybe the villains just want to rob the Gotham Museum or the local bank? Instead of leaving this trail of mutilated bodies behind them?

I wouldn't mind the sex except it's so exploitative (mostly of the women, of course) and shallow and transparent.

Gore and violence...ugh. I don't like either one. I rarely read it. Not a big horror fan. But if you do it well, I can appreciate it. But when I'm bombarded with it in nearly every issue...yuck!

The JLA comic is a good example of bleh: all my favorite heroes team up and then form a high school clique and leave all the other heroes out, fight amongst themselves, and don't appear to even like each other for the last five years. I'm not surprised there's going to be a Trinity War because heaven forbid the three greatest heroes of the DCU act like adults!

/end ranty mcrant

[rordulum]

Amen.

It's all just so disheartening, and I've gone from picking up a good half dozen DC books to a grand total of zero, thanks to this reboot.

Gore and violence will turn me off a book before gratuitous sex will, I'll admit. I stopped reading Invincible when the idea behind showing gore seemed to go from making a point about superhero violence and just started being gore porn titillation for 13 year old boys.

The whole of DC seem to be screaming directly at that market, to the exclusion of everything else.

Comic books used to be fun, now they're just miserable. The only one I'm still reading now is Gambit, because that definitely is fun. Good, old fashioned action heroics with a quip and a wink. Which is why it probably won't last long.

[bradygirl_12]

Funny how a niche medium always complains about its lack of mainstream appeal (except for its movies and TV shows) and then narrows its target audience. They have all kinds of fans out there if they just realized it: men, women, boys, girls, straights, gays, lesbians, bis, married, single, professional, working-class...*sighs*

[arbre_rieur]

Because in the absence of Big Two comics you enjoy, there are naturally no other comic books, from the various other publishers, for you to read?

[jlroberson]

Seriously. The biggest example would be Image, but this is a perfect moment--like happened in the mid-80s--to start discovering that there's lots of comics that aren't vertically integrated corporate monstrosities endlessly cheating you.

[maxisanacorn]

I was really liking what Morrison was doing with Joker. He seemed much smarter, the whole Sexton thing was genius and so in control. I always feel Joker always is better when more restrained and not so slash happy and chaotic. Chaos but calculated. This is way too slasher film. I don't like. I don't like the new Batfamily. It's terrible. Has Babs said anything or interacted well with ANY of the Batboys other than Nightwing?

[icon_uk]

Don't think so, well other than the family conference in this crossover (I THINK she was there) and even her most recent meeting with Nightwing was very poor, with her basically sniping at him for dealing with a case, ANY case, whilst the Joker was active.