The Revolution has always liked Dick Grayson. I started following his character back when he was Robin with the Teen Titans back in the 1980’s. Unfortunately, DC has done very little with Dick Grayson’s character. They certainly have done nothing to try and help Nightwing’s title. They have continually saddles Nightwing with weak writers who have done nothing to make this a comic book that I would recommend to anyone other than a hardcore Dick Grayson fan. Well, we only have to suffer through one more issue penned by Bruce Jones. I suspect that Nightwing #123 is going to be another pedestrian read. Let’s go to the review.
Creative Team
Writer: Bruce Jones
Penciler: Robert Teranishi
Inker: Bit
Art Rating: 6 Night Girls out of 10
Story Rating: 4 Night Girls out of 10
Overall Rating: 5 Night Girls out of 10
Synopsis: This issue starts with Dick watching a bad late night movie. Dick ponders about why so many people watch late night television. His conclusion is that there are a lot of people who lead lonely lives and it is comforting knowing that there are other lonely people out there watching the same crappy movie you are watching. Dick gets into his Nightwing uniform and begins his patrol. He says he can relate to being along in a city of millions. (Oookay. Now Dick is being incredibly maudlin. Great.)
We then see a metahuman called Fireball shoot flames from his hands and catch a room in Cheyenne’s office on fire. Cheyenne is down the hall talking to her bookkeeper. Cheyenne’s business is in ruins. All of her investors have pulled out. The Pierce brothers relinquished their shares in Cheyenne’s company. Suddenly, the sprinkler system goes off. Cheyenne smells the fire down the hall.
We then see Nightwing hearing the sirens of fire trucks. Nightwing makes his way to the scene of the fire at Cheyenne’s building. Cheyenne can’t exit through the door since the fire has blocked that entrance. She can’t break open the window to escape since the oxygen would feed the fire. Cheyenne uses her powers to blast a hole in the side of the building and escapes the fire. Nightwing makes sure she is ok and then spies the Fireball. Nightwing chases Fireball, but eventually loses him. The New York Police then arrive on the scene and draw their guns on Nightwing. Nightwing makes a dramatic escape.
We then cut to the next day where the Dick is working out in his apartment. Cheyenne shows up at his place telling him that the Pierce brothers revoked her apartment lease. Cheyenne says that she is going to have to stay with Dick.
We then cut to that night. Fireball calls Barry Pierce and tells him to pay him the money for burning down Cheyenne’s business or else.
We then shift to Nightwing paying a visit to Clancy for a little therapy session. Nightwing mentions how Cheyenne has moved in with him. He says that he isn’t in “love” with her. Nightwing mentions how he has only really had one close relationship. Barbara Gordon. (Whaaaaaat? How about Starfire? Didn’t they get engaged? And didn’t Starfire have to call of the wedding because she had to go back to her home planet? Only ONE?) Nightwing says that they outgrew each other. That she didn’t change. He did. Nightwing continues that last year he almost died. (Yeah, thank Paul Levitz, Dickie-boy!) That Nightwing saw things for what they were, rather than what he wanted them to be. For what he really is.
We then see the Pierce brothers at a construction site. Fireball shows up and threatens Buddy Pierce if he doesn’t pay him immediately. The two men start brawling. Nightwing suddenly shows up and helps Buddy beat up Fireball. After Nightwing finished beating up Fireball, he notices that he is totally surrounded by a S.W.A.T. team. End of issue.
Comments
The Good: Curse the Revolution’s rule that I must always say at least one positive thing about every issue. These past several Nightwing issues have really put this rule to the test! Let’s see, well, Dick is still alive and is Nightwing instead of Jason Todd. That is a positive. I didn’t get a paper cut while reading this issue. Does that count as a positive?
Ok, I’ll say that the ending was a positive. We have Dick surrounded by the S.W.A.T. team with no obvious escape available to him. That does make me at least somewhat interested to read the next issue to see how he gets out of this jam.
The Bad: Honestly, did we expect a good issue with Nightwing #123? Jones served up another unimpressive issue. The story wanders around with little direction or purpose. The dialogue was generic and uninteresting. This is nothing more than filler which could be used to describe Jones’ run on Nightwing. Pure filler. Now, I know that Jones was put behind the 8 ball when DC suddenly decided to keep Dick Grayson and kill him off and replace him with Jason Todd. Jones had to scramble like a madman and try and quickly re-write his stories to work with Dick Grayson as Nightwing instead of Jason Todd.
I put most of the blame on DC and not on Jones. Once DC decided to scrap the plans to kill Dick and replace him with Jason, they should have simply cancelled Nightwing just like they did with Flash, Wonder Woman, Justice League of America and Justice Society of America. Then they could have brought in a talented writer to craft a re-launch of the Nightwing title with a fresh and new direction. Instead, they put Jones in a terrible situation where he was doomed to fail.
Now, Jones didn’t help any by writing one of the worse versions of Dick Grayson. Jones simply has no feel for Dick’s character. Jones’ Dick Grayson comes off as whiney, wimpy and maudlin. Jones’ Dick Grayson has very little appeal.
This issue was generic filler until Marv Wolfman assumes control of this title with issue #125. And it painfully read like filler. I could care less about any of the plotlines or any of the characters. I have no interest in Corky or Clancy. These supporting characters should be dumped. I have no interest in Cheyenne. Nightwing already battles an inferiority complex in the DCU since he is basically just a poor man’s Batman. He doesn’t have Batman’s gadgets, weapons and vehicles. He doesn’t have Batman’s wicked cool Batcave. He isn’t as good a fighter or a detective. That has hampered Nightwing’s character for a good long time. Now, Cheyenne overshadows Nightwing in his own title. Her powers made Nightwing appear rather weak and useless. So, with Cheyenne as a supporting character, Nightwing looks inferior in his own title. Cheyenne serves no purpose on this title and should be dumped. The Pierce brothers are two of the most generic and uninteresting villains around. Nothing about them intrigues me and I hope we see the last of them with the next issue.
The story in Nightwing #123 was totally dull. I fell asleep several times trying to slog my way through this issue. Cheyenne loses her business and apartment at the hands of the Pierce brothers. *yawn* Dick has a generic fight with Fireball. *yawn* Cheyenne moves in with Dick. *yawn* and Dick has another therapy session with Clancy. Yay. And that scene was particularly annoying with the way that Jones just conveniently forgets that Dick was engaged to get married to Starfire! According to Jones, Dick has only had one real serious relationship and that was with Barbara_Gordon. That was just ridiculous. Yeah, Jones definitely knows how to write Dick Grayson.
Teranishi’s artwork was terribly average. I don’t particularly enjoy his sketchy style. Plus, many of his action scenes were oddly drawn and rather confusing.
Overall: Nightwing #123 continues the tradition of lousy stories that we have been getting during Jones’ run on this title. All we can hope for his that Wolfman can resurrect this title when he takes over with issue #125. I mean, it can’t get any worse, right? Right? I hope so.