In Nightwing #111, when Batman encounters what he believes is Heartless attacking Gotham City, Nightwing returns to his hometown to investigate!
Title: Nightwing #111
Written by: Tom Taylor
Art by: Sami Basri
Backup written by: Michael W. Conrad
Backup art by: Francesco Francavilla
Cover by: Bruno Redondo
Variant covers by: Dan Mora, Serg Acuna, Stephanie Pepper & Nick Robles
Release Date: February 20, 2024
This comic book review contains spoilers.
Batman arrives at the scene of a murder where the victim had his heart removed and left behind an orphaned son. Too familiar with the kind of scene before him, Batman reminisces back to his own parents’ murder, as well as Dick Grayson’s.
In present time, Batman calls for Nightwing’s assistance in the investigation. The Dynamic Duo arrive at GCPD Headquarters, where Nightwing is allowed to talk to the young boy – Iko Wahid. He describes his father’s murder happening with silence from the killer. Suspicious, Batman and Nightwing examine the victim’s body, noting that the heart-wound is jagged, unlike the clean, cauterized wounds Heartless leaves behind. Both men conclude that they may be dealing with a copycat and want to ask Iko more questions. Iko, who has been adopted by his uncle, is now on the run, as his uncle is panicked that Nightwing is on the case, implicating himself in his brother’s murder.
In the backup story by Michael Conrad and Francisco Francavilla, in 14th-Century Normandy the Son of Gray is awakened by his murdered manservant to alert him of his family’s attack and killing. Too late to save anyone, he buries his dead, masks the top half of his face in mud and goes right for the killers, attacking everyone with vengeful fury before being greeted by a jester posing as an archbishop.
Nightwing #111 variant cover (Image courtesy of DC Comics)
This was a decent return into the Heartless story, which had been put on the backburner for far too long. Of all the arcs that Tom Taylor had pitted Dick against throughout his run, the Heartless saga has been the most engaging and was too long ignored for a Titans fill-in arc and an ultimately irritating pirate story. If this does turn out to be a copycat, at least we’ve got a Batman and Nightwing team-up to enjoy throughout.
I will add, however, that the issue was a bit too sentimental for me. So many moments of reassuring feelings and putting people at ease in ways which I felt were a touch warmer than the situation needed. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t dislike how Taylor writes Bruce and Dick together, but I think better writing wouldn’t have made certain moments stand out as a bit much. For instance, it’s nice that Bruce wants to give Bea condolences for her father’s death, but I don’t recall exactly how well he knew her. Okay, Bruce takes familial murder seriously, so that’s closer to in-character than not. But then he’s asking Dick if he’ll see her soon. That felt more of a question from one of the Titans than Bruce, who either wouldn’t concern himself with that or wouldn’t think it’s his business. There’s also the thought captions about how he and Alfred raised Dick and how he’s their boy. None of this is bad, but it reads as a bit too emotional, and tells more than it shows.
That kind of writing is all throughout the issue, with Iko happening to be a big Nightwing fan, giving him a big hug, which results in Batman and Renee Montoya smiling from outside the window. I understand that this issue is still a murder mystery and there’s a child victim involved, but I’d like for there to be more sublime ways of inputting sentiment into this story without those moments feeling like huge punctuated beats. I don’t need the story to be grim and/or gritty, but it reads like Taylor is holding the reader’s hand, reassuring us that everything will be okay from page to page. I don’t feel that level of warmness is necessary, and it overplays the hand of establishing characters.
The one major detail that stopped me cold for the rest of the issue was the transition dialogue from Batman and Nightwing driving to GCPD to their conversation with Commissioner Montoya. Nightwing calls as Dick Grayson (introducing himself as such), but the two arrive in costume. Now I haven’t been reading every Bat-book on the stands (I haven’t been current with Detective Comics since Tynion was on the book), but is this meant to be the case that Montoya knows the identities of the Bat-Family? If so, when was this established? If that is the case, without reading the story and its context I’ve got a big problem with that conflict of interest that the Batman status quo has maintained for decades. The police cannot know about Batman and his partners, otherwise their collusion becomes all the more implicit. The case is especially egregious since Montoya has been characterized as a far harsher chief of police than Jim Gordon was. So I really hope this isn’t simply another case of Taylor writing how everybody likes Dick Grayson and trusts him, because it’s a totally false note that picks at the foundation of the Batman/Gotham status quo. Perhaps this part of the review will date badly, and I misinterpreted the scene, or lack proper context. Otherwise, that’s two issues in the past three months that have greatly worried me about how Taylor is depicting these characters and the overall story.
The backup story by Michael Conrad and Francisco Francavilla didn’t offer too much, but I am curious if it will involve the upcoming Fall of Grayson arc that’s just been announced to begin in Nightwing #114.
Editor’s Note: DC Comics provided TBU with an advanced 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 Amazon or a physical copy of the title through Things From Another World.
