2.12.2017

024 Nightwing Vol. 1: Better Than Batman


I read some back to back Grayson this weekend.  The last volume of Grayson followed by the first volume of Nightwing.  It's part of the DC Rebirth extravaganza.  The non-event where DC is trying desperately to fix the disaster they created called the New 52.  If you ask me, Dick Grayson wasn't broken, so they didn't really need to fix him.  I really enjoyed the Grayson series.  A lot.  But this puts him back into costume, back into the DC Universe proper where he belongs.  He's back in the black and blue version of the costume, which makes me happy.  The black and red one was a stupid move on DC's part to differentiate the New 52 version from the previous one.  Made no sense.  

This book was fun, but it was a little off.  It felt like DC mandated Dick Grayson back into costume before Tim Seeley was ready to do it because he still had Grayson stories loosely plotted out.  This felt like a rejiggered Grayson story, with some plot points changed to reflect that it's now a Nightwing story.  But it felt more like wrapping up loose ends than the end of Grayson did.  I can appreciate that.  What I was fearing is the story that took place in this volume was just the beginning of a long, drawn out 36 issue arc.  That would have bored me to tears.  Wrapping it up in six issues was perfect.

The Nightwing Rebirth issue is also represented here (as well as in the Grayson trade.)  That one issue did more in it's 20 pages than the whole previous trade paperback did.  It closed most of the loose ends from Grayson while laying out the groundwork for Nightwing.  I miss single issue stories that can fit so much in to 20 pages without ever feeling cramped.  I want more of those.

All in all, it's a good read and I'm looking forward to more.

Nightwing Vol. 1: Better Than Batman
Writer: Tim Seeley
Artist: Javier Fernandez, Yanick Paquette
DC Comics

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