Nightwing #7 Review and *SPOILERS*

Raptor Problems

Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Javier Fernandez, Chris Sotomayor, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: October 19, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Okay boys and girls, we've got all that Monster Men nonsense behind us and it's finally time to get back to Raptor and his secret origins that somehow seem to tie to Dick Grayson's own.  It's kind of funny because the last time we saw Raptor he was alluding to the fact that he knew Dick's parents and all I kept thinking about was the New 52 Nightwing series because it seemed that every story had something to do with Haley's Circus and it became a bit annoying and with Rebirth coming out I thought we were well beyond all that............ Shows what I know.  Let's jump into this issue and see what the ramifications of Raptor selling the names of the Parliament of the Owls to Kobra are and what will happen once Nightwing finds out.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Nightwing teaming up with Spyral so that he can pass the time by seeing all of his hard work pay off with the capture of these no-goodnik Parliament of The Owls members, but what our hero didn't count on was Kobra getting to them first, snaking out and ripping them all a new one.  Yeah, a bunch of dead bodies doesn't really equal justice in Nightwing's eyes and since Raptor and Dr. Leviticus were the only ones who knew about the Book of Wisdom that held all of the names of the Parliament, this leads our hero to go and ask Raptor some fist questions.  

While Raptor just wants to hang out and swap some stories and some brews with his recent partner, Nightwing's all business........ which he conducts with his fists and while I'd like to tell you that business is good, Nightwing goes and gets his ass kicked, but before Raptor drugs our hero, putting him out for the rest of the issue, their fight leads Dick to a room, where he sees that Raptor has set up a serial killer wall with all of the events of Dick's life.  Yeah, Raptor's been watching our hero closely and while he was on the verge of accepting Nightwing as ready to learn the truth, our hero's outburst here has led Raptor to what he originally believed, that Nightwing has forgotten his past and is simply a rich kid following Batman's ideals and nothing else. 

In the end, with Nightwing knocked out, Raptor plans on getting some one on one time with Bruce Wayne and kidnaps him at a press conference about Wayne Enterprises rebuilding the city after the Monster Men incident and since Raptor knows Bruce's secret and is willing to let the press know about it, Bruce lets himself be taken.  Once Nightwing finally awakens, he has Damian shouting in his communicator about what went down and even though Damian seems steamed that someone had the balls to kidnap his father, Dick tells him to stand down because he needs to take Raptor on alone because he needs to get to the bottom of what his connection is to his parents, but especially his mother.

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and even though I was initially put off by us continuing to deal with the Parliament of the Owls, the book quickly shifted into something interesting with Raptor's connection to Haley's Circus and the Grayson family.  Yeah, I'm tired of Haley's Circus stories and I'm not really a fan of Raptor's "Man of the people, street justice" monologue either, but there was just something to this that kept my attention and made me look forward to what's coming next........ Yeah, it was probably the abduction of Bruce Wayne and the ass kicking that I hope to see next issue, but it was enough to keep me somewhat interested in what's going on here.  While I say that though, it's really iffy because I'm still not a fan of the art in this book and I'm still waiting for some kind of explanation about why Tiger is the head of Spyral and what happened to this Checkmate connection at the end of the Grayson series. 

Bits and Pieces:

While I can't say that this issue will blow anyone away, it is a welcome addition after all that Monster Men nonsense that we've been dealing with and actually leads to some interesting things.  It's just too bad that I'm still not a fan of the art in this book because even if the story becomes something that I'm all about, I won't like looking at it.

6.5/10