Review: Nightwing #100

Overview: In Nightwing #100, Heartless blows the Blüdhaven Prison wide open, and it’s up to Nightwing to do his best to save the city once again. Is he alone, or will his history of friendship come to help in time?

Synopsis (spoilers ahead): As Nightwing #100 begins, the villain Heartless breaks into the Blüdhaven Prison with an army of armed goons and seeks to release not only every processed prisoner in the building but also KGBeast, the metahuman Elephant Man, and Tony Zucco, whom he’s a big fan of.

Nightwing arrives on the scene and appeals to the fact that many imprisoned are not intrinsically bad people. He manages to win over some prisoners into helping before the Titans arrive to assist him. Together, Cyborg, Donna Troy, and Beast Boy take on Elephant Man while Raven, Starfire, and Flash tend to the remaining prisoners. Nightwing chases after Heartless, who is with Zucco, before being tackled mid-air by KGBeast. Falling three stories and slamming into a car, Dick’s shoulder is dislocated as he battles the man responsible for taking away his memories a year ago. Nightwing holds his own before the Titans come back to help him, and although the day is seemingly saved, Heartless has escaped with Zucco – leaving behind a mask that reads, “Dick Grayson has more to lose.”

Superman and Wonder Woman arrive to offer a helping hand before asking Nightwing to travel toward the ruins of the Hall of Justice for a discussion. Due to how Nightwing handled himself and the young heroes when the JLA was presumed dead, Clark and Diana offer Dick total global leadership over the entire Justice League while the founding members re-evaluate their place in the world. Knowing that the fight for Blüdhaven is still not over, Dick asks for more time to think.

Weeks later, Nightwing and Batman meet at the grave of Alfred Pennyworth. Batman reassures the League’s confidence in Dick’s leadership potential, but Dick points out that this is the first time they’ve visited Alfred’s gravesite together. Bruce unmasks and thinks of everything Alfred did for them, providing a bridge of communication between the two when one or the other (or neither) could say what needed to be said. With Alfred gone, Bruce apologizes for failing to let Dick know how much of a better man he made him and for allowing him to think Bruce thought anything less than the absolute highest of him. Dick hugs him and says that Bruce never failed Dick, says he loves him and calls him “Dad.”

Later, Dick, Melinda, and Barbara consider the site of the ruined prison and how best to use it. Melinda talks about reevaluating the prison system in Blüdhaven and waiving all of the prison fees that would’ve been required for proper bail. One month later, Nightwing publicly presents the restoration of the prison building as the new site of Titans Tower, pledging that the Titans will be based in Blüdhaven to help better protect the city.

Analysis: Nightwing #100 is much more celebratory and comparatively momentous than the last time Nightwing had a one-hundredth issue. Not to start the review with a negative comparison or anything, but re-reading that story by Devin Grayson and Mike Lily, this one is less dour, far more optimistic, and is free of the baggage of that whole Tarantula/Blockbuster fallout.

Tom Taylor has free reign to make this issue like a celebration of not just the Nightwing character but the era of Nightwing by bringing on past artists ever since Dick had his first solo title. Scott McDaniel, Rick Leonardi, Eddy Barrows, Javier Fernandez, and Mikel Janin are brought back alongside Bruno Redondo to illustrate action sequences throughout the battle against Heartless and the Blüdhaven prisoners. To my mind, the only three major artists missing are Greg Land (from the second half of Chuck Dixon’s run), Don Kramer (from Peter Tomasi’s run before the new 52), and Patrick Zircher (from the infamous issues of Devin Grayson’s era). This isn’t a loud complaint, as all three are tremendously talented artists in their own right. For an issue like this, however, you needed Scott McDaniel back as the iconic 90s Nightwing penciller. Rick Leonardi is a classic artist, with Nightwing simply one of his many comic book runs. The others have done Nightwing in the past ten years since the new 52, so they’ll be more familiar to younger readers than Don Kramer might. I enjoyed how they were used, with McDaniel bringing in some of his classic tropes, like the bats surrounding Nightwing while traveling to the prison. Eddy Barrows was used to great effect when Beast Boy went up against The Beast, and the weight of KGBeast when tackling Nightwing was an awesomely rendered action moment.

I like Nightwing #100, but more on the second read. It’s straightforward, optimistic, and nary has a worrying moment of conflict to leave within true Taylor fashion, but it makes more sense for that in an anniversary issue. Nightwing doesn’t have a lot of luck in these issues; if you’ve ever read New Titans #100 with his disastrous wedding to Starfire and the aforementioned #100 from 2005. What I like about this is that having read Taylor’s run issue-to-issue up until now, I was expecting a prolonged flashback sequence. He plays with time here, but it’s all in the present. No cliche’d “Back when I was Robin, and so-and-so said this exact thing that resonates with the events of this issue today!” His teamwork with the Titans, appealing to the good nature of some of the prisoners and taking down KGBeast while injured all led to the very logical and much-earned invitation to lead the Justice League at the end. It was well-organized, exciting, and fun.

The big scene for me is at the end with Bruce and Dick and Alfred’s grave. I’m not too fond of the idea that Alfred’s going out as he did near the end of Tom King’s Batman run at the hands of Bane (see Batman #77). Knowing that King planned to bring him back, but Dan Didio at the time suggested that he keep him dead, I’ve always felt that the end for him was beneath the character. That’s not how Alfred should go out. I also was frustrated by the Wake special, which was polluted by Dick being “Ric” at the time and everyone just yelling at Bruce. It made me think that Alfred’s death was a disastrously wasteful opportunity. But the scene of Bruce telling Dick that without Alfred, he no longer has the one person to rely on to communicate what he can’t to Dick was revealing and emotional. As a friend of mine said, it’s a veritable apology for how Bruce has treated Dick throughout the 90s and 2000s. In this current DC age, we seem to be past the Bat-Jerk era for the character, as nobody loves that, but here it’s a kind of forthright admission of guilt akin to what I wrote about in my Tim Drake article in Robin #13 (1993).

The idea of the Titans operating in Blüdhaven feels like a great, smart, well-intentioned plan doomed to fail somehow. I’d be down for Dick’s costumed friends to become more regularly supporting players in the book, as we’ve had Barbara being the one constant for a while. Seeing more of Kory (I’d love for an issue centering on those two), Donna, and the others could be fun. Whether this blows up in Nightwing’s face or not, it’s a cool concept that does seem like it would solve all of the crime in the city. We’ll see how it goes.

Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with a copy of this comic for review purposes. You can find this comic and help support TBU in the process by purchasing this issue digitally on Comixology through Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.