Quick thoughts on comics: Nightwing #1
I’m a big Nightwing fan, so while I really enjoyed Dick Grayson’s run as Batman - who had a string of great books like Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin, Scott Snyder’s Detective Comics, and the Snyder/Kyle Higgins Gates of Gotham mini - it’s great to see him back in the role that made him so popular.
Higgins writes him solo here, and I’m a little disappointed that most of the awesome writing in Gates of Gotham seems to have come from Snyder. Not that this issue is bad, by any means, it’s just that Nightwing was always a slightly above average comic, and this one is also. The story is good, there’s an interesting set up and there’s some thematic callbacks to both Snyder’s work and Gates of Gotham, but this first issue didn’t blow me away. But the least kind thing I can say about it is that it’s not as good as any of those books I mentioned above, and few books are.
Eddy Barrows is a solid artist, I guess, but again, feels kind of generic. I would have preferred someone with a bit more style, since the best Dick Grayson artists have stood out, going all the way back to Scott McDaniel, who has never been as good since leaving Nightwing.
I don’t mind the change to the red costume, I think it’s actually a nice callback to his Robin days, though it is dangerously close to the Chris O’Donnell suit from Batman & Robin the movie.
