Nightwing #149 Review

Creative Team
Writer: Peter Tomasi
Artist: Don Kramer
Inker: Jay Leisten
Colorist: Hi-Fi

Issue Rating
Story: 9/10
Art: 9/10
Overall: 9/10

Issue Summary
Nightwing enters the safe house were he left Carol and is surrounded by all of Batman’s Rogue Gallery or so he thinks. In actuality Nightwing is being affected by the Scarecrow fear toxin in his system which has caused him think he is in a room covered in blood and all the Rogues ready to attack him. Because all the Rogues are all hallucinations caused by the Scarecrow toxin Nightwing does not hold back and brutally takes down all of the Rogues until only Two-Face is left. Two-Face informs Nightwing that he is the real one and the one that shot Nightwing with the bullet filled with the Scarecrow toxin with the help of Deathstorkes training from a year ago he received/paid for.

Still under the influence of the toxin Two-Face throw’s one of his coins at Nightwing which he thinks is the size similar to the one Bruce has in the batcave. Two-Face uses this distraction to grabs Carol, and even though she pleads for Harvey not to do this but unluckly for her only the Two-Face persona is present, and she is shot by Two-Face. During this time Nightwing falls out the window and pictures when his parents fell to their death. Even though he knows they are not really their he still saves himself and his parents. By the time Nightwing gets to Carol, who he first thinks is Barbara, she is already dead.

Nightwing and Harvey/Two-Face go to Carol’s funeral, hiding in the shadows, thinking to themselves quietly. Later Harvey meets with the man who hired his Two-Face persona to kill Carol. Harvey blames this man for Carol’s death and kills him stating “Nightwing was suppose to save her(Carol)”

Review
Nightwing #149 was another great issue in Tomasi’s current run. Between Tomasi’s work on Nightwing and Green Lantern Corps he is quickly proving to be one of my favorite comic writers. It just feels that Tomasi was born to write this title and hopefully, depending on what happens in “Batman RIP,” Tomasi is on Nightwing for a long time.

Tomasi understands that Dick Grayson/Nightwing is half Batman and half James Bond. I have always seen Dick as being the man Bruce would have turned out to be if be was able to put all his demon’s to rest and moved on from his parents death. The scene were Dick saves his parents even is a perfect example of the difference of how Bruce and Dick feel about there parents deaths. Bruce has always used his parents deaths as one of the prime motivation for being Batman and has never really moved on from their deaths. Dick on the other has been able to move on from his parents deaths and his motivation for being Nightwing is to save people from evil which means that he does not always have to be dark and brooding all the time like Bruce is when Batman.

It was also great to see Dick cut loose on all of Batman’s Rogue Galley even though they were all hallucination. All Batman related characters have always had to hold back in order not to land a killing blow to the villains and thugs they fight on a daily basis which they can easily do if they want to. But by knowing that all the Rogues aren’t real we get to see how dangerous Dick, and the rest of the Batfamily, can be if they didn’t hold back. When Dick takes down Joker with the crowbar and the images of Batman and Jason’s Robin in the background was just another awesome scene involving the Joker (check out Batman #680 for more Joker awesomeness).

The other great thing about this story is how Tomasi has been portraying how insane Harvey is with his two distinct personas: Harvey Dent attorney and Two Face the evil mastermind. It is great how Tomasi is portraying both personas as being seperate from one another and that whenever Harvey is in a scene you never know which persona your talking to. With the skills Harvey has learned from Deathstroke I can’t waith to see the Nightwing vs Two-Face showdown we are sure to get in the next issue.

Don Krammer’s art in this issue was flatout brilliant. The blood filled room were Nightwing was fighting all the Rogues was just a great visual that help portray what the effects of the Scarecrow toxin look like. Krammer also draws a great Two-Face and the scene were he is yelling and firing the two guns at the guy perfectly portrays the insane state of mind he is in with the death of Carol.