Nightwing #14 Preview/Discussion

[DrSimonHurt]

I really don't care for DC's interchangeable asian assassin women. They're just identical. You could have told me this was Jade/Cheshire and I wouldn't have known better. Or Shado from Green Arrow.

[Kizmet]

Do u know who would have been better than Shiva for the whole hired female assassin comes to Gotham bit, Lady Vic. While most of Nightwing old baddies kind of sucked, i always thought she had potential. Oh well. Who knows, maybe they're saving her for another time.

And didn't Lady Vic have a long braid already? The ridiculous knives-in-hair bit would have been a slightly smaller step down for her than for Shiva.

[Godlike13]

Yep, her long braid was pretty notable part of her look.

[Godlike13]

Do u know who would have been better than Shiva for the whole hired female assassin comes to Gotham bit, Lady Vic. While most of Nightwing old baddies kind of sucked, i always thought she had potential. Oh well. Who knows, maybe they're saving her for another time.

Do u know what, i change my thought. Do u know who should have been the character introduced into his origin, and the assassin who comes to Gotham. Deathstroke. That would have been a way to reintroduce them to each other, and have them be able to continue their previous dynamic. Damn, what a missed opportunity.

Still wouldn't mind seeing Lady Vic again, but ya. Deathstroke should have been the guy for this role IMO, but instead we get this weird version of Shiva, who previously never had much of anything to do with Nightwing before

[Retro315]

Do u know what, i change my thought. Do u know who should have been the character in his origin, and the assassin who comes to Gotham. Deathstroke. That would have been a way to reintroduce them to each other, and have them be able to continue their previous dynamic. Damn, what a missed opportunity.

Still wouldn't mind seeing Lady Vic again, but ya. Deathstroke should have been the guy for this role IMO.

Damn. You're right, too. It should've been that, and Higgins should've covered it, since he was writing both Nightwing and Deathstroke and had mentioned in an early interview the desire to bring the two together at some point. What a waste.

I realized today that I'd basically forgotten about Nightwing and let it slip by for a couple months. My attention slipped post-Owls, which is a shame because Grayson is my favorite Bat-character. I do like the Amusement Mile plot and the return of Sonia. But Paragon was dull, Lady Vic-Shiva was a poor choice. If I'm lucky the two-issue break for Higgins to really make something special out of the Joker appearances will get my attention back onto this title.

After that I'm really, REALLY hoping a stable artist makes it better for me. With Barrows going to Titans, Juan Jose Ryp is stepping in. I've seen some of Ryp's stuff for Warren Ellis on Google, I think he's capable of doing some great Nightwing - he's got a sort of "if it works, I'll use it" cartoonist's approach that's not dissimilar to Burnham. Paired with a colorist who isn't afraid to bathe Nightwing in eye-popping neons and shocking circus colors, and it could be pretty great and really bring some focus back into the title and get me back into it full swing.

[Godlike13]

After that I'm really, REALLY hoping a stable artist makes it better for me.

Oh man, me too. Im dying for a stable artist, and a stable artist that is right for it too. Even with Borrows, who when he did pages, while they were good and really impressed me, i not sure he was the best suited to this character. But ya, i think this book is in dire need for a stable artist. And i think the art issues, on top of the less then thriller villains so far, has deflated this series a bit for me. So im hoping too that DotF will give it a pick me up, and respark things a bit for me. I think there are good ideas introduced in this series like Amusement Mile, which i think that can be a great setting for him in Gotham, and im liking his supporting cast, though i wish Damian was a part of his supporting cast like Nightwing is in Batman, but they need to to stabilize the art and improve on the villains. In my opinion anyway.

Im not too familiar with Juan Jose Ryp to be honest, so im not sure how im gonna like it. Though im not sure if he's the new regular, or just filling in till the new regular.

[Dick_Wingnut]

Jock as the regular would be perfect for my tastes, and would help makeup for the serious downgrade Dick has taken in this shitty new universe.

ps, does anyone really care even a little about Raya? All of that 70+ year history to pull people out of for us to care about, and we get Joker approaching these shoe-horned in beta characters. :(

Betaman would actually be a great new identity for Dick after this silly Joker arc.

[Just Is]

Jock as the regular would be perfect for my tastes, and would help makeup for the serious downgrade Dick has taken in this shitty new universe.

ps, does anyone really care even a little about Raya? All of that 70+ year history to pull people out of for us to care about, and we get Joker approaching these shoe-horned in beta characters. :(

Betaman would actually be a great new identity for Dick after this silly Joker arc.

To be fair...most of the characters attached to Nightwing pre-FP...might not exist. A new character is the best he really can do (I think I've said it before, but no character lost more than Nightwing post-FP (others might not have shown up yet but, as a result, we can't really judge em)). I also found that part of #14 to have been the best (and one of the few good things I liked about this). Really hated that Nightwing was essentially curbstomped by Shiva in this issue (the ribs excuse may make it more of a case of "Worf had the flu" but given that there wasn't even a remote hint of there BEING a rib issue in #13...). I think Nightwing's line about Shiva being about the same age as him but SO much better, is what sealed it for me. Which is also why the rib issue wasn't an issue til it was revealed to be an issue.

Even taking that out of account, this was easily the worst Nightwing issue thus far. My bias towards Nightwing would give it a worse grade than it probably deserves but this was a bad issue. Its gonna take quite a strong showing from Higgins to make up for this to me. The only other highlight for me was the little circus girl, as I am really interested in where they go with her. I really wouldn't mind her possibly becoming Nightwing's "Robin."

They really need to get a solid artist on this book (especially considering that last time I checked, Nightwing was the highest selling non-Justice Leaguer solo). Shouldn't be that hard.

...Still don't know why they didn't go with Deathstroke (though I don't know whats going on over there since I dropped the book as soon as Higgins left).

[Godlike13]

Jock as the regular would be perfect for my tastes, and would help makeup for the serious downgrade Dick has taken in this shitty new universe.

ps, does anyone really care even a little about Raya? All of that 70+ year history to pull people out of for us to care about, and we get Joker approaching these shoe-horned in beta characters. :(

Betaman would actually be a great new identity for Dick after this silly Joker arc.

Im kind of interested to see what Joker has planned.

[Badou]

Yeah I don't know what happened with Deathstroke either. Like everyone else when I saw Higgins on both books I thought there would be some type of eventual confrontation between the two, it just made so much sense, but it seems like editorial didn't want to go that route and took Higgins off the book to cut any possible connection. Now it seems they are building up some connections between Deathstroke and Superboy because of Rose and everything. That's a little disappointing. And you know, pre-New 52 Rose would have been nice to see as a character in Nightwing's series. Not really a fan of what they did with the character in the reboot though.

And I hope we get an announcement on who the ongoing artist will be soon as well.

[colossus34]

night wing got curb stomped by shiva? no surprise, dick is back to his old jobbing ways and dc like always whenever they want to reintroduce a "badass" new character in this case. shiva back into continuity its "lets show them how cool she is by kicking night wing's butt around" he's second only to batman after all remember haha dc never changes

[Conway]

I was going to make a joke about Deathstroke fighting Tim or Jason, but it was just too exhausting. We all know that Dick's past was parted off to his "brothers" so now he gets what's leftover of their pasts. That and I'll be really surprised if Deathstroke doesn't show up in RHatO or TT before NW.

[Whip Whirlwind]

I was going to make a joke about Deathstroke fighting Tim or Jason, but it was just too exhausting. We all know that Dick's past was parted off to his "brothers" so now he gets what's leftover of their pasts. That and I'll be really surprised if Deathstroke doesn't show up in RHatO or TT before NW.

Of course, have Dick fighting Shiva and Tim fighting Deathstroke! Makes total sense....

But unfortunately I have to agree with you, it's likely that DC views deathstroke as a "titans" bad guy while completely ignoring the characters that made up the titans during that time.

[DrSimonHurt]

night wing got curb stomped by shiva? no surprise, dick is back to his old jobbing ways and dc like always whenever they want to reintroduce a "badass" new character in this case. shiva back into continuity its "lets show them how cool she is by kicking night wing's butt around" he's second only to batman after all remember haha dc never changes

Are you new to comics? The hero always loses or at least stalemates the first encounter(which he already did as Robin). There's no story to tell when the hero just wins automatically.

[Godlike13]

Are you new to comics? The hero always loses or at least stalemates the first encounter(which he already did as Robin). There's no story to tell when the hero just wins automatically.

Nightwing lost every encounter in these issues, and pretty much just got laughed at as "Batman-lite". Nightwing wasn't the hero, but the fool. He accomplished nothing and came out the chump. Nightwing got nothing out of these 2 issues.