Review: Nightwing Vol. 2: Get Grayson hardcover/paperback (DC Comics)

Knowing as I do where Tom Taylor is going with at least some of this, I’m beginning to wonder if he didn’t have more issues for Nightwing ahead of Dark Crisis than he did story to fill it.

Don’t get me wrong, this is a well-written Nightwing, head and shoulders above the Ric Grayson days. But in Nightwing Vol. 2: Get Grayson, not unlike the Superman: Son of Kal-El Vol. 2: The Rising that it crosses over with, there’s not much sense of danger or challenge to Nightwing. This is really the third volume of Taylor’s run (Nightwing: Fear State being the second) but the overarching plot has only moved ahead by inches. Even the one-22-page-panel issue that starts the book off is more style than substance (stylish though it is), giving the overall sense of Taylor marking time until certain other elements line up.

Nightwing is in good hands with Taylor, and given the alternative, I’d rather Nightwing be in good hands. But just as I worried while reading Nightwing Vol. 1: Leaping Into the Light that Taylor has put the Nightwing character’s life in such a good place that the subsequent fall would be exceptionally tragic, the alternative is that Taylor keeps Nightwing bopping along without any real challenges whatsoever. I’m not saying this particular character doesn’t deserve a break, but I’m not sure how interesting or consequential that might turn out to be in the long run.

[Review contains spoilers]

Big-time Bludhaven criminal Blockbuster wants Dick Grayson dead for vowing to clean up the city. Despite that we’ve seen Blockbuster crush Bludhaven’s former mayor’s head with his own two hands when the mayor disobeyed him, Blockbuster is almost comically unable to complete his goal here. Henchmen shoot at Dick in broad daylight and can’t hit him, and then kidnap his dog for reasons inexplicable (though Nightwing recovers her). Another attempt by masked vigilantes and assassins Gunhawk and Gunbunny is foiled by the Titans; notably, and again inexplicably, the villains are careful not to kill anyone in the crowd except Dick, even at points just standing around looking for him.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

In the crossover with Superman: Son of Kal-El, Nightwing is thrown from a building but just casually glides to the ground; he then engages in fisticuffs with a metahuman. His apartment building is blown up, though no one seems to be injured; girlfriend Barbara Gordon is also kidnapped, though the unusually kindly criminals assure her she won’t be hurt and, of course, Babs has freed herself before she even calls for assistance. KGBeast, he who shot Nightwing in the head, gets taken down with relative ease, as does the head of La Agente Funebre, a mythical caste of assassins that Batman doesn’t even believe exists. That’s the extent to which, in Get Grayson, Nightwing is virtually untouchable.

As, again, there’s essentially no real danger here, Taylor’s focus turns mainly to reestablishing Nightwing’s relationships. The Wolfman-era Titans cameo a bit more heavily than they did in Leaping Into the Light, as if to foreshadow something — though this seems more for the benefit of just-Nightwing readers than those who just finished Teen Titans Academy and might wonder how Beast Boy and Cyborg got unjoined or whether Nightwing and Starfire have made their apologies. There is the aforementioned crossover, where Dick shines both as a mentor to Jon Kent and in partnership with Lois Lane.

Flash Wally West also guest-stars in the final two-parter (where, with the book’s trademark anticlimax, he takes out a deadly bomb between panels). It’s been a while, so Dick and Wally as “best friends” doesn’t feel quite as it might have back in the early 1990s (picturing the animated Young Justice’s Dick Grayson and Wally West’s relationship helped). I did think it was notable that we have a Wally West-and-family guest appearance here that’s all about helping Nightwing with his problems and nothing about Dick and Wally being reunited or Wally getting his family back or the events of Heroes in Crisis. The time was going to come eventually and it seems to be finally here where Wally is not defined by DC Rebirth nor Heroes in Crisis, but rather all of that seems to be said and done.

Among obscure characters I’ve got a soft spot for are Dan Jurgens' H’San Natall Titans, and I’d be remiss if I didn’t chide Taylor for killing off Cody “Risk” Driscoll. Hero, villain, butt of jokes, having had each of his arms ripped off by Superboy-Prime in separate incidents, Risk seemingly meets an inglorious end, drowned by Henry Bendix’s super-creations. I wouldn’t have preferred it be Damage Grant Emerson, but surely the Yazz was equally available? (Among Easter eggs, see also that trouble seems to be brewing in the DCU regarding a certain G. Simone and a bear.)

But, again, in the sum total of Nightwing Vol. 2: Get Grayson, the weird Heartless only appears briefly; Dick’s recently revealed, long-lost sister Melinda Zucco is mainly behind the scenes; and Tom Taylor even seems to elide when exactly Dick and Barbara began cohabitating. It’s a good book — and, with art by Bruno Redondo and an assist from Geraldo Borges, a good-looking book, too — but with the next one being the last before Dark Crisis, I hope Taylor sees fit to test Nightwing a little more.

[Includes original and variant covers, layout sketches]

Rating 2.25