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NIGHTWING #65
"Bustout!"
Mildly Recommended (5/10)
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DC Comics
Writer: Chuck Dixon
Pencils: Trevor McCarthy
Inks: Rob Stull & Rodney Ramos
Colors: Patricia Mulvihill & Digital Chameleon
Letters: Willie Schubert
Editor: Michael Wright
Price: $2.25 US/$3.75 CAN |
Like Batgirl, Nightwing is a weak tie-in to "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" but a decent story for regular readers. The artwork is a bit weak, to be honest, but Dixon makes up for it to some degree with a nice examination of the relationship between Nightwing and Batman, a natural bit of exposition given Bruce Wayne's current circumstances. I'm of two minds on this issue, but as an overall part of the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" story it pales in comparison to Rucka's chapters, and compared to previous Nightwing
issues, it is lacking as well.
Dixon has created Nightwing on a foundation of Bludhaven, the fictional new city that he built from scratch. This issue is an example of him furthering that city, with a bit of action that details organized crime and how Nightwing deals with it in Bludhaven, stopping the symptoms rather than trying to eliminate them. In addition, the look at the prison is a vintage Dixon trick on Nightwing, building off characters introduced
earlier on in the series. The result is a story that has a nice payoff for
regular readers, but it will no doubt confuse or bore new readers coming on for
the crossover story.
As far as the crossover
story, it definitely interrupts the basic flow of the story, but Dixon writes it
in such a way that it interrupts Dick Grayson's life as well, and the
interruption feels like it's part of the story. I enjoyed seeing Nightwing bend
the rules in his cop identity to get to Bruce, and as always, Dixon has a handle
on how Nightwing, Oracle and Batman interact. Though the page count of story
where Nightwing and Oracle deal with the current murder rap is relatively low,
it has some excellent insight into the mindset of Batman, and how Barbara and
Dick, who have known him the longest, deal with his stubbornness.
The result is a story that is a bit of a mixed effort, unlikely to completely appeal to either of its main groups of readers. Where the book is not mixed, however, is in the artwork, which is pretty much universally poor. Though Nightwing was at its best with the distinct and unusual
style of Scott McDaniel, Trevor McCarthy has all of the unusual anatomy and
storytelling with none of the strong fundamentals McDaniel had. There's a
complete lack of consistency in the faces and bodies of the characters, and the
artwork seems too stretched and exaggerated for the tone of the book. McCarthy
is not a bad artist, but he's an exceptionally bad fit for the book.
Despite some strong characterization, this issue reads mostly as filler in the larger scope of the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" story, and I'm not a big enough fan of Nightwing's current storylines to enjoy it for the
continuations there. The book is being done by two solid creators, but one of
them isn't a good match for the book, and the other one has never done his best
work on crossover issues.
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