Nightwing #17

[superfangirl1]

Nightwing has lost everything. Raya his former love interest who tried to kill him has been killed by Joker. The members of Haley’s Circus survived being poisoned by Joker, but have now quit. Amusement Mile, the project in which Dick Grayson has invested his life savings has been burned to the ground.

Dick is completely broke so he couldn't even pay for the funerals of Jimmy and Raya, bringing up that awkward moment where the girl whose father killed your parents has to pay the bill.






All Dick has left is mercilessly beating trespassers in the ruins of Amusement Mile. Of course he can’t even let out all of his frustration anger without being stopped by Robin. The trespassers were hired by "The Dealer" to salvage whatever villainous memorabilia of the joker they can find to auction off to the members of the Mirror House.

Comments

[icon_uk]

Yeah, Damian did a LOT of "significant cameo-ing" this past month or two, for depressingly obvious reasons in retrospect.

[sun_man]

this could have been so much better.

ugh the art,,, just ugh.

Dialogue should have been better too. Good idea for a story but not well executed.

shame I'll miss these two together.

[darkknightjrk]

I really liked Ryp on art in the past, but it was a little weird here. I think it was the inker or colorist or something not quite gelling.

And the dialogue...whoof. I like that Higgins has an over-arching thing for Dick, trying to something that gives him an interesting achellie's heel that is in keeping with who he is, but DAMN, could he be a little more subtle?

[sun_man]

agreed on the dialogue. Subtle might almost be an understatement. I get what he was going for but writers need to realize, more is less. Don't just have the characters tell the reader.

This isn't first time Higgins has done this either

[icon_uk]

Depressingly, the DCnU has given us little in the way of evidence of Dick's astoundingly social nature as Nightwing, since we haven't seen him interact with ANY heroes who aren't already in the Bat-clan, and all his best friends have either been rebooted or retroactively deleted.

[sun_man]

yeah overall I'm dissapointed in the new 52 bat books. They aren't terrible, but aren't as good as they could have or should have been.

[jlroberson]

Funny how Damian's body proportions keep changing, isn't it? Some panels, he's taller than others.

[icon_uk]

Oh and one thing I don't get about this has been the whole "All Dick's money is invested in this" and "Dick's lost all his money". He's lost his OWN investment money, but it's not like he's going to be flat broke to THAT extent, what with the Wayne resources behind him.... certainly the funerals could have been covered by Bruce with the sort of money he'd find down the back of the sofa.

[darkknightjrk]

If I recall right, Dick took that investment money out of the Wayne hands and into his own person and bundled it with what Sonia was offering. So theoretically Bruce could have handled things, but Sonia would have been more likely to do that first.

I don't know the first thing about banking, but it didn't set off my BS-meter while reading it.

[icon_uk]

I think it was more the "can't pay for the funerals of two people" bit that got me, there's no way Dick would allow his pride to stop him asking Bruce to cover the costs, and not a chance in hell Bruce would say no.

[darkknightjrk]

That doesn't imply to me that that Dick wouldn't swallow his pride and ask, or that Bruce wouldn't cover it--just that Dick didn't have the money itself and Sonia was the one who offered first.

[elf]

That part caught me too. I haven't kept up with the series enough to know if Sonia offering would make sense, but I can't believe Dick wouldn't ask Bruce for the money for this.

That's aside from the issue that "Dick is broke" is just stupid. (Maybe he's caught without funds before the insurance kicks in?) Unless Bruce is broke, Dick isn't without tremendous resources. If he's "too proud to ask for them," that could affect his activities a bit, but he's not going to let other people suffer because he doesn't have good equipment or can't afford [plane fare/a motorcycle/whatever]. Or at least, not for long.

[jaybee3]

They seem to do this a lot. Remember that time period (yeah when Jason Todd was turned into a tentacle monster) when Dick became a male MODEL? And no one in NY high society knew who he was even after he said his name - the adopted son and heir (and a very public one at that) of one of the richest, most famous men in the world? And then they turn around when Bruce was "dead" and have him be in charge of Wayne Enterprises as if was the most natural thing in the world.

[icon_uk]

And let's not forget the Bludhaven PD not making the connection, neither the corrupt cops who might have seen him as ripe for a shakedown, or the clean cops who checked his background to see if he was trustworthy enough to join the "Clean Cop Cabal".

Or the mafia, who took him in as a member without apparently being aware of how much he was worth.

[wake_the_dragon]

With the last page with the Damien and Dick making plans to spend time with each other...I'll admit it legit almost made me cry. The only time I really liked Damien was when he was parterned with Dick, I just really liked their teamwork and that's gone now.

[darkknightjrk]

It was a nice moment when I first read it a few weeks ago. Now...it is really sad.

[filthysize]

That "we should do this more often" line was called back in Batman Inc 8.

http://i.imgur.com/Fk0rNrM.jpg

It was surprising. I didn't even know Morrison was reading the other books.

[darkknightjrk]

It's probably a bit more likely that Higgins knew about this, read the script, and put it in there knowing it would come out first, but that was a good bit of synergy there.

[nyadnar17]

Any particular reason they haven't just killed off Nightwing yet? I mean nothing he has done in the DcNU has mattered.


He didn't lead the Titans or stop Trigon.
His entire first year including his personal fortune was wiped out by the Joker.
And Damien is on the chopping block.

What exactly has he accomplished of note since the reboot.....no I am not bitter or anything.

[starwolf_oakley]

... Mr. DiDio? Is that you?

[nyadnar17]

I feel like this is Dido's revenge on Nightwing fans for ruining his planned ending to Infinite Crisis

[chrisdv]

Wasn't it Geoff Johns refusing to write it, not the fans revolting?

[mrstatham]

Yeah, but Johns is a fan of the character, clearly. Hence why he spoke out at the time on the character's behalf.

[jlroberson]

Wait, was Dick supposed to die then? I'm assuming Bruce's little moment reminiscing with Dick had originally been meant as a lead-up to that?

And yeah, Dick--who in many ways was a core-important character in the previous DCU(certainly the most well-connected; he'd worked with just about EVERYONE and was liked by as many) has been really shortchanged by the alterations. I personally have no liking of the idea he was only Robin for a year. Which is to say I can't swallow it; it makes no sense, and I think it's an idea best ignored.

[mrstatham]

Dick was supposed to die, yes. Not Superboy. I imagine he was substituted in for Dick at the last moment because Johns knew he could probably bring him back somewhere down the line.

And.. I suppose that might have been Didio's idea behind pushing for Dick's death; It's still a stupid idea, but the fact that he has connections to everyone, from the JLA to his old Titans to everyone in the Bat-Family, would.. Well, make for a stronger impact and pull everyone together. Or at least I can see Didio seeing that way. But really, it would have stripped the DCU of one of it's best characters, so I'm glad Johns pushed for something else that still had impact, but could be reversed.

[icon_uk]

Actually, I got the impression it was supposed to be the both of them, so Superman AND Batman would both lose their "sons" who died being the united heroes that Superman and Batman (and Wonder Woman) were NOT being.

[mrstatham]

Well, all I know from what they publicised is Dick being spared thanks to Johns. But that would make sense, and would once again have Wonder Woman getting the short end of the stick. But then they'd just wasted so long getting Donna back after killing her off anyway.

[mrstatham]

Wow, go fuck yourself when it comes to judging people based on things their father did, Barbara. There are simpler ways to put across 'I'm jealous'.

[espanolbot]

Yeah, good thing Cass and Steph don't exist any more (yeah, I've come to accept that) because Barb's attempts at mentoring them in the DCnU must have been awful.

[mrstatham]

Absolutely. I already disliked Barbara in the earliest issues of Steph's run, but god knows what she would've been like for the two of them here; Yet another reason I have next to no interest in this take on Barbara, really.

[jlroberson]

Still better than Miller's take on her as a pottymouthed, hyperactive little twerp who advises her dad to see another woman(Sarah Essen) when her own mother is going through deep alcoholism and is in critical condition from a car crash in the hospital.

And saying this to her dad very close to where her mother is. Really one of the ugliest things in ASSBAR(which I hope is never completed), though I will admit, though I always will be partial to the classic Batgirl costume, Miller/Lee's design wasn't bad.

[mrstatham]

Well, that's... That's Miller. His Wonder Woman calls men sperm-banks. His Batman expected a young boy to live off of rats. His Superman is a butt-monkey. I think we can happily close ASBAR behind some fire doors and let it burn. I've never really liked that much of Miller's work as is, really; I like DKSA and I like Year One for different reasons, but that's about it.

But this take on Barbara isn't just some Elseworlds one, it's the main continuity version, and I can't understand why they'd go out of their way to make a character that unlikable.

[nyadnar17]

To be fair, in the DCU its not exactly an uncommon or even inaccurate opinion to have.

[mrstatham]

Except when it comes to these two, given what we know of Dick and Barbara? It just comes across as ridiculously childish jealously. 'Why is SHE here?' is like, only several steps removed from an adolescent 'OhmiGOD, I cannot believe you're seeing HER.'

[nyadnar17]

Well you see....I got nothing. I try, I really do try to like and care about these people. It shouldn't be so hard.

[maseiken]

Barbara Gordon, everyone. Pure Class.

[sistermagpie]

I can't get into anything happening in this book, especially this Raya and Jimmy business. As far as I'm concerned they were dumb characters resenting Dick for stupid reasons (at least Jimmy was crazy) and acting entitled to his parents etc. and watching Dick worry over them just makes him annoying.

Although I guess Babs isn't much better here. And all the great relationships he had were kind of retconned away so...sucks to be Dick now. Sorry, make that Richard, apparently.

[icon_uk]

Jimmy was the completely innocent clown Joker murdered because he didn't like knock-offs.

You might be thinking of Raymond, who was the Talon reject who became Saiko.

Jimmy was the one who helped convince most of the circus to stay and trust Dick after the Saiko/Raya business.

[sistermagpie]

Oops1 Sorry, yes, I totally meant Raymond. Jimmy was more the type I usually think of when I think of Haley's Circus.

[big_daddy_d]

.....The fuck Babs?!....Just..really...I really hate when she appears in Nightwing and then acts like THAT!

Also nice to see that creators are remembering that Damian has more layers to him than being the witty "brat." It was one of the reasons he grew to become a favorite of mine. Still think the huge hyping of it all will just mean it's going to be undone very soon.

[jeyl]

What is up with Bab's coat? Is she auditioning for Lady Blackhawk?

[icon_uk]

She found it on the floor of the abandoned old clocktower she found herself sitting in when after the DCnU Reboot wave hit, she has no idea how it got there, or who might have worn such a thing, but it was cool looking, so she kept it.

[starpiper]

...wow, Babs. Just...wow. Does the writer of Nightwing just not like her or something? Because I'm thinking for some reason that there's been some other instance of her being an incredible jerk to Dick in his own title.

Is calling him Richard something Babs specifically does, or is that how everyone addresses him nowadays? Because while Dick might be a name that sets itself up for all sorts of jokes, Richard just sounds really...awkward. IDK.

[ladymercury_10]

I think it's in Nightwing #13, if I'm remembering right from the scans I saw on Tumblr? But yeah, they seem to fight a lot now. They fight in Batgirl #3, too, although that is more in-character and is somewhat resolved in that issue, and then later in Nightwing #4. (Edit: I meant it gets resolved in Nightwing #4, not that they fight again. They get along reasonably in that one.)

I don't know why Babs calls him Richard now, either. My best guess is that it's supposed to make them seem closer, because she calls him by his real name instead of what everyone else calls him? But I really have no idea.