In this review of Nightwing #137, the hauntings of Blüdhaven continue with a horrifying sniper attack.
Nightwing #137 main cover by Jorge Fornes (DC Comics)
NIGHTWING #137
Written by DAN WATTERS
Art by DENYS COWAN
Main Cover: JORGE FORNES
Variant Covers: DAVID NAKAYAMA, MARTIN SIMMONDS, DENYS COWAN
Page Count: 32 pages
Release Date: 4/15/26
This review contains spoilers
Nightwing #137 begins as Dick dreams of the witch who drove him to cause a fatal accident in his car. As construction workers dig up a skeleton near Bludhaven’s massive suspension bridge, a lawyer jumps out of her cab, trying to run to the courthouse faster than stopped traffic, but gets her head blown off by a sniper instead. Commissioner Maggie Sawyer calls Nightwing and tells him that there are two snipers, one on each side of the bridge. Batman arrives at the bridge at the same time as Nightwing, telling his former partner there’s no pattern to the four murdered people so far.
Two cars try to exit the bridge, and Batman’s sniper slaughters them. Nightwing intuits that his sniper is a woman and she is reluctant, and exposes himself to fire. His sniper grazes him, but misses on purpose. He chases her into a building, and they trade exposition about the Romanian who designed the Bludhaven bridge, revealing that the two snipers are brother and sister, descendants of the architect, and they feel they have to sacrifice again since the original sacrifice was just dug up. When arrested, Nightwing sees the sister’s fiance, the intended victim, trying to save her. Batman tries to tell Nightwing that the car crash last issue wasn’t his fault, but Dick deflects Bruce’s concern, and Batman has to leave to help with an explosion in Gotham. Dick is left dreaming once again of the witch and the dead.
Analysis
Once again, our main crime in Nightwing echoes a recent comic – the crash in Batman Eternal for last issue, the final arc of Batgirls (issues 17-19) for Nightwing #137, a deadly sniper trap on a huge suspension bridge. While the action and framing visuals are gorgeously rendered and designed by new main artist and DC comics legend Denys Cowan and equally legendary inker Norm Rapmund (with beautiful, primarily blue, red, and black hued colors by Francesco Segala), the writing descends into magic detective cliche. Like the ludicrous powers of Will Graham in the television show Hannibal, Nightwing magically intuits the sex and emotional state of his sniper based on no evidence. This really weakens the plausibility of the story (at least as a detective story – as a horror story where vibes and psychic connections between people are perhaps more expected, maybe this is the norm).
Nightwing #137 also struggles from thematic incoherence. While in the past 24 years, sniper attacks have been pretty prominent and motivated by a horrifying combination of ideology and mental illness, ancient superstition motivates our killers in today’s issue. It’s almost quaint – the kind of thing you might expect in a 1980s or 1990s comic, where immigrant communities like Romanians might be seen as a threat to America’s slowly adapting demographics. But in a 2026 comic? It feels ludicrous and somewhat insulting. Batman and Nightwing both appear to believe that human sacrifice is silly and tragic, rather than a VERY common element of demon worship, which would be a LOT more interesting with the horror and witch angle that Watters seems interested in pursuing. The clunky exposition of the sniper attack revealing the bridge’s instability, saving lives by allowing the bridge to be rebuilt instead of collapsing, doesn’t seem to fit with any other element of the story so far. All in all, a frustrating mess of a thematic exploration.
Jorge Fornes’s design heavy main cover features a tiny Nightwing atop a suspension bridge, in the crosshairs of a sniper. David Nakayama’s simple figure variant features a slightly smiling Nightwing leaping across a vivid blue background. Martin Simmonds depicts our hero glowing as he crouches in the rain – a very striking image! Lastly, new main artist Denys Cowan adds to the Things to Come series of variants showing Dick, a pile of cars, the witch of the highway, a sniper rifle, a grinning theater mask, and arms reaching from the water across a ghostly face – hopefully fans will look back at this cover and see how it lays down clues for future storylines!
Final Thoughts
Some serious leaps in logic and thematic weakness hold Nightwing #137 back from success, despite powerful work once again by new main artist Denys Cowan.
