Nightwing #116 – Tom Taylor, Writer; Bruno Redondo, Artist; Adriano Lucas, Colorist
Ray – 9.5/10
Ray: Tom Taylor is getting ready to wrap this run up, and he’s pulling out all the stops. Heartless has been setting Dick up for months, poisoning him to make him afraid to fly, and then framing him to look like the terrorist mastermind himself. As the opening segment of the issue makes clear, as Maggie Sawyer is interrogated by journalists, this frame-up is deep and everything Dick has done is being twisted against him. As the Bat-family and the Titans scheme to rescue him, he takes matters into his own hands and escapes from police custody with a bullet in his shoulder. But he’s bit staying – he’s a wanted man, and knows he can’t fight with this weakness in his mind. So he heads on the road, traveling by boat and train until he gets to his final destination – Nanda Parbat. The home of Deadman, who is now deader than dead since Knight Terrors – or so we thought.
There’s always been a link between Dick and Boston, as they were both trapeze artists at Haly’s Circus, but this issue deepens that connection and shows how Boston helped Dick get over his fear of flying last time. Now he’ll need that help again, and it just so happens that Boston’s spirit has returned, although he can no longer freely leave Nanda Parbat. This is going to be an interesting journey of the soul for Dick, but what’s happening in Bludhaven is just as compelling. Heartless is tearing down Dick’s legacy piece by piece, turning his name into one of fear and Bludhaven into his private fiefdom. The city needs Nightwing – and the twist at the end of the issue is one I definitely never saw coming. This is the kind of final arc that books have to earn, with Taylor having years of buildup to get to this point. It just might be the best run this character has ever had.
To find reviews of all the DC issues, visit DC This Week.
GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
