My Nightwing troubles all started here:
For some reason, this issue sold out before I could make it to the comic shop. Perhaps the extra issue length attracted more buyers that week. Or maybe folks heard that it was one of those turning-point issues which often make good jumping-on points. (I can be certain, though, that it wasn’t the Nightwing-Tarantula storyline that was bringing folks in, because I remember that being a real stinker.)
So, for whatever reason, the issue was sold out at the shop and I couldn’t find a copy elsewhere. So, rather than abandon Nightwing, I kept buying it with the anticipation that I could pick up any issues that I missed. But, as soon as an issue 100 popped up, I discovered I had missed a different, later issue. But, finally, 3-and-a-half years later, all of the missing issues have been filled in, and I’ve had a chance to sit down with 49 issues of Nightwing. And here’s the results.
THE DIXON/BEATTY/MCDANIEL/OWENS NIGHTWING YEAR ONE STORYLINE
Issues 101 – 106
This Year One story was pretty much like every other Year One story: a nice overview of the character’s past without much investment in new material. It serves as a starting point for new readers while also resetting the comic for a new direction. Dixon wrote competently enough, providing exactly what a Year One should give readers. Nothing new, nothing groundbreaking, but fun enough to sit back and read. And I wasn’t disappointed in the three year wait.
THE GRAYSON/HESTER/PARKS ISSUES
Issues 107 – 117
When I mentioned the marathon Nightwing at my local comic shop, someone said that reading that many issues would mean reading the awful Devin Grayson storyline. And while I started this run with a sense of dread, I found that it was misplaced. Devin Grayson offered up a Dick Grayson who quit his police officer job, threw off the Nightwing mantel, and joined up with some mobsters. He works with the criminals, increasing their power and influence, all with the goal of getting to the other bosses in the hierarchy. Despite how other people may have disliked it, this story really works. It has Nightwing right where his character is convincing and interesting: in the world of real, everyday criminals. It’s too bad that Grayson’s work is dismissed, because the Grayson-Hester-Parks run worked out the best out of everything from my marathon read.
At least, it worked until it was forced into the Villains United crossover. Then so much of it felt forced and uninteresting. And that’s something I can’t blame on Devin Grayson too much, as she was stuck in what became an ever worsening cycle of DC crossovers. She, and the rest of the other Nightwing writers, too.
Which brings us to:
THE BRUCE JONES ISSUES
Issues 118 – 124
Bruce Jones catches hell for his writing, and it’s too bad. I’ve met him at comic shows in Kansas City. He always seems like such a nice guy that it’s tough reading the Internet vitriol thrown at him. With that said, these weren’t issues that I found particularly good. But I can’t blame this one on him. Jones had the misfortune of starting the One Year Later crossover stories in Nightwing.
Remember One Year Later? Remember that huge crossover would change the DC universe as we knew it? Of course you don’t. Because it was a stupid idea, it was poorly executed across all the DC titles, and at the end it amounted to the same nothing as every other crossover. It would be unfair to be rough on Jones for being unable to polish this horrible turd of a universe.
Anyway, Jones’ writing wasn’t the worst in the run. That honor goes to:
THE WOLFMAN ISSUES
Issues 125 – 137
I realize that Marv Wolfman’s work has a history with a lot of comic book readers, enough so that he made the top 20 in the CSBG Top 100 Comic Book Runs. But, I don’t have that history with his work, so I’m reading it as a regular reader who merely wants a good story. And I have to say, nothing about his Nightwing work impressed me.
First, the dialogue ranged from disappointing to awful to non-sequitur:
Umm, what? The girl makes some innocent conversation about your past and you turn it into some kind of emo moment? Where is that coming from?
Second, he has some ridiculous story settings, like the cemetery on the cliff:
When I saw that in the issue, I wondered who would build a cemetery on a cliff? It seemed so out of place. Then, when Nightwing is knocked out, thrown into an empty grave, and buried, I was able to recognize the important contrivance plot point of the cemetery on a cliff. Wolfman gets his buried alive issues, and Nightwing get his potential escape.
And worst of all is Wolfman’s treatment of the colonial witch trials. You know how we all thought that religious hysteria created that Salem nightmare? How the old and the poor, especially old and poor women, were set upon as scapegoats for the irrational fears of the overzealous? How greed exacerbated the problem, as land and other wealth were removed from the “wicked” and handed over to the “righteous” (who also just happened to the the powerful)? Remember that awful time in American history, where we look back and clearly see the value of law and fair trials over corruption and spectral evidence?
You can forget all that, because Wolfman wrote a character who happened to be the child of Tituba, and who had the power to suck out people’s life forces. And Tituba’s confession that she was witch? It wasn’t beaten out of her, as we used to suspect. She offered it proudly, knowing that her daughter would go on to kill innocents! All of the witchcraft was real, which turns the witch hunters from monsters into righteous warriors.
The thoughtless way that Wolfman treats the real evil of history is disgusting and has soured me on reading anything from him in the future. He dismissed the fear, greed, out-of-control-religiosity, irrational beliefs, and violence of a shameful period in American history. His cavalier attitude towards evil is reprehensible and disgusting, and I hope I don’t see anything like it again in comics.
Wolfman’s entire 18 issue run had no company-wide crossovers interfere with the story, had only one title crossover (with the also stupid Vigilante comic), and it was still the worst of the bunch. So much opportunity, so little of worth accomplished. Sad.
THE NICIEZA FILL-IN ISSUES:
Issues 138, 139
Fabian Nicieza takes care of Nightwing’s Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul crossover, which really amounts to some fill-in issues for Nightwing. I didn’t understand them because I won’t waste my time researching crossover garbage, and I didn’t pick up the rest of the crossover garbage. Someone on the internet somewhere has probably explained it in all its dullness glory. I can’t be bothered.
THE TOMASI ISSUES
Issues 140 – 148
Evidently Peter Tomasi was an editor for Nightwing before he became a writer for Nightwing. I guess that when it came time to find a new writer, Tomasi looked high and low and the only one fit for the job was …. himself! (That’s a bit snarky. It’s probably not how the process went, but it just seems like a funny transition.)
These issues are better than the last few big runs, but odd at their best. Dick Grayson has some kind of new extreme-sport hard-on for skydiving from 20,000+ feet. And he’s a museum curator. And we’re long done with fighting regular street crime. It’s supervillains exclusively from here on! And besides that, we have to get Nightwing into the Batman: RIP crossover nonsense! Stat!
There’s nothing particularly bad about Tomasi’s stories, but there’s nothing compelling either. When DC puts a writer on the book who places Dick Grayson back where he’s best, fighting mob bosses and drug dealers, I’ll be excited about the title again. Until then, I may need to consider dropping it.
1 response so far ↓
1 Steve // Oct 9, 2008 at 11:13 am
I have to say that I liked Bruce Jones’s run too. It really wasn’t all that bad but I actually really enjoyed One Year Later – I don’t quite get why people see it as a failure.
I do remember disliking Grayson’s run though.