Nightwing #1 Review

Writer: Tim Seely / Artist: Javier Fernandez / DC Comics After the official Rebirth issue, Nightwing is fully introduced back into Gotham and the Bat-Family. Sort of. Part of Grayson’s struggle is his yearning for independence and doing things his way while still falling back on the family he’s cultivated under Batman and Batman’s resources and teachings. This is present in a lot of Nightwing stories, but that’s because it makes complete sense for that kind of tension to exist in Grayson and Seely does a good job of fleshing that out. Nightwing may be back in Gotham, but he’s globetrotting again as a double agent of sorts for the Parliament of Owls. Basically the international branch of the Court of Owls. Those charmers. The conflict for him is doing their dirty work without actually getting dirty (like, ya know, killing), so they’ve brought in someone for him to intern under. What works here is that we are getting a story that is not only very Nightwing, but a story that couldn’t possibly be Batman Lite, and that’s a very good thing.

The art from Fernandez mostly works as he juggles between mostly chatty scenes and small bursts of action. There’s a good use of shadow in many of the panels which helps with the duality of Dick Grayson, even when the writing doesn’t do all the heavy lifting on that front. There are some moments where the facial expressions and character position isn’t at its greatest, but overall the book looks pretty good.

Nightwing starts a new adventure in…