Nightwing #110 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Sami Basri/Vicente Cifuentes, Artists; Adriano Lucas, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: It’s an oversized main story this month, as Nightwing does a done-in-one Beast World tie-in—which makes sense, as the event architect is writing this book. All the regular subplots go on hold as we follow up from last month’s back-up, which saw Damian encounter a mysterious green-skinned woman with control over the spores, who turned him into a Cat-beast. When Damian’s regular heartbeat drops off the map, Jon notices immediately and contacts Nightwing—and the two spring into action, tracing Damian to the Iceberg Lounge. After a very funny segment involving the two of them handling the Penguin Twins’ guards, they get the information they need—Damian is being held in an underground fight ring where transformed Beast-people are used as gladiators, and Damian is currently scheduled to fight a hairdresser-turned-bear, under the menacing codename of… Mister Mittens.
This is all very funny, of course, but Taylor has created a particularly compelling new villain in Apex Ava as well. This mysterious woman is given a backstory of a sadistic big game hunter who was dying from a rare disease until she turned the tables on one of the spores and turned the crisis to her advantage. While she’s only making her debut here, I feel like she could be one of the big legacies of the whole event. However, what really made this issue rock to me—besides the spectacle of Damian as a martial-arts kittycat—is the fantastic dialogue towards the end of the issue as Damian confronts his legacy and fear of hurting people again. Taylor’s always been really good at having compassion for difficult characters, and I feel like he’s always had a good handle on Damian. This might have been a break from the main story, but it’s a really good piece of the Beast World puzzle.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
