In this review of Nightwing #120, Nightwing struggles to untangle the mess of Spheric’s megacorporation manipulations and gang warfare on the streets of Bludhaven.
Nightwing #120 main cover by Dexter Soy
Nightwing #120
Writer: Dan Watters
Art and Main Cover: Dexter Soy
Colors: Veronica Gandini
Variant Covers: Dan Panosian, Francesco Francavilla, McFarlane Toys, Gleb Melnikov
Release Date: November 27, 2024
Nightwing #120 begins in Spheric’s secret technology center, as Nightwing fights a massive dome with legs and laser cannons, cutting into it with his escrima stick gadgets to find a rabbit controlling the weapon, just as the Spheric controllers blow it up. Nightwing and Oracle chat on comms as he heads home, evading the police, theorizing that sinister forces still want Bludhaven ripped apart by war.
At home, Dick tries to keep his dog Haley from eating the new rabbit. Next morning, Dick’s half-sister Melinda, Mayor of Bludhaven, calls and lets him know Spheric wants the rabbit back, backed up by a news broadcast from the Spheric lady, who blames the Teddies gang for the attack. She also announces the Helios jetpack police team to stop the gang war.
A pair of Helios officers find a Teddie trying to escape and immediately try to kill him. Nightwing intervenes, trying to de-escalate, but the Teddie shoots at the police, and they vaporize half the building in retaliation. Dick finds the Teddie, dead, and learns he was 14, the other two members just cubs, not full soldiers yet. The dark clown narrates over Dick’s grief that classic circus narrative makes the audience care through tragedy, and Nightwing vows to burn Spheric as Nightwing #120 comes to an end.
Analysis
Recently I read the first Nightwing: A Knight in Bludhaven compendium, and was struck by just how much writer Chuck Dixon and penciller Scott McDaniel layered into each issue. Generally at least three or four different layers of story were happening at any one time. Compared to that, November’s issue of Nightwing shows the way today’s comic audience has been streamlined and simplified into just one or two narrative strands at a time. I really like the potential complexity of the four gangs of Bludhaven that writer Dan Watters has created – each with their own gimmick that is both amusing and a bit repellant or scary.
I hope that Watters spends the time to make at least some of the gang members more than just replaceable pieces on the chessboard he’s having Nightwing play against the dark clown and Spheric. The handling of the police forces in this issue doesn’t give much hope, however. Even during the cop-show dominated 90s, Dixon and McDaniel had no interest in glorifying the police department of Bludhaven.
Characters like Soames, the various cops who passed through the bar Dick worked at, and of course his co-workers when he joined the force in later years, were varying levels of corrupt, ranging from psychopathic murderers to grimy, lazy bullies – but there was a personality behind it, not the lazy stereotypes of fascist murderers happy to slaughter kids that we get in Watters’s Helios force. Hopefully as the series progresses we’ll see some more complexity enter the picture.
Artist Dexter Soy continues to put in solid work in Nightwing #120. While nothing stands out as particularly flashy, Dick’s acrobatics feel fluid and natural, the emotions of the characters come through very nicely, and the dark clown’s creepiness is extremely effective. Colors by Veronica Gandini put in solid work – warm, rich, and textured without feeling over-rendered.
Dexter Soy’s main cover for Nightwing #120 is a nice development on the first cover’s white background, shading to gray as Nightwing stands on a smokestack over the city surveying it – a nicely stark and dramatic design. Dan Panosian’s variant highlights the ziplines from Nightwing’s escrima sticks as he swings through the alleyways of a pink-skyed city. Franco Francavilla’s cover depicts Nightwing hiding behind a skull mask – perhaps a reflection of the dark clown and the death of the Teddie in this issue.
The MacFarlane Toys variant shows the Batman The Animated Series (new designs) action figures fighting the Joker and Bane. Lastly, Gleb Melnikov’s 1 in 25 incentive variant features a black, white, and light blue color scheme as Dick jumps from skyscrapers at a very canted angle, creating a powerful and beautiful image of his body in flight.
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Final Thoughts:
Though several pieces of Nightwing #120 are nicely handled, the deployment of lazy stereotypes, cheap emotional manipulation, and oversimplified narrative structure brings it down. Dexter Soy’s artwork continues to provide a strong appeal, however.
