Nightwing #11 Review and *SPOILERS*

How To Get A Gorilla Off.......... of Murder Charges

Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Marcus To, Chris Sotomayor, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: December 21, 2016

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Nightwing has been a weird Rebirth title for me because while I love the character and want to read anything he's in, this series just hasn't really felt right to me and even the art has felt off.  Luckily, we had last issue come about and smack me in the face with Bludhaven, some fun and in my mind a promise that I could finally get back on the Nightwing trolley and start enjoying myself with the character again.  Yeah, there were a few references that made me fear that we were going to get a revamped rehash of when Nightwing originally went to Bludhaven, but I'll put those fears on the back burner for now with the hope that all of my worries are for not and just take the the stories as they come.  Previously, we saw our hero wrapped up in a murder investigation that seemed to be perpetrated by Gorilla Grim, but after talking to the big ape, Dick believes he was set up and is now on the case and going to one of Grim's friends for some answers.  Too bad that friend also happens ot be Dick's new boss and also happens to be a villain from Gotham named Defacer.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with our hero getting more than he bargained for and that's a lot to say since he already found out that his new boss is an old villain of his from his days as Robin, but that's nothing to him when walking into a former super villain support group known as the Run-Offs, who left Gotham to try and start a new life in Bludhaven so that they wouldn't have to be afraid of Bat vigilantes always coming around and kicking the shit out of them.  Really though, they're looking for a new start and hopefully putting their days of crime behind them.  The trauma of seeing Nightwing though gets these Run-Offs to clam up and forces our hero to leave and go find some leads somewhere else, which takes him to the actual black market of Bludhaven, known as Meadowsdale Mall.  It's in this alleyway den of scum and villainy, where Dick greases enough palms to get the location of Gorilla Grim's home, which turns out to just be a hanging cargo container, but this lead doesn't really pan out.

Even with security cameras around the shipping businesses in this area, Nightwing comes up short because it seems that someone has actually come and removed the footage and while that doesn't point to a suspect, it does begin to look like Gorilla Grim was in fact set up.  This leads our hero to go down a path internally, where he starts questioning whether or not he wants to begin working with these Run-Offs because of the experience he had with Raptor previously and this just irks the shit out of me because we have a chance for Dick to show off his superpower of just being a decent guy and while we do eventually get that, I hate that we have to dip our toes back into the previous arc because of how dark and depressing and really, how so unlike Nightwing it was.  This is a clean break so hopefully it's treated as such in the future.

In the end, Nightwing goes back to Defacer in the hopes of actually getting some answers after her fellow support groupers have taken off and surprisingly, it seems that Dick and Defacer have themselves some sort of love at first sight thing going on after they both remember when they first met when they were kids........... Either that or they're both really horny, but either way, they're about to kiss when the Bludhaven police show up and arrest her as a suspect to another murder.  So yeah, it looks like we have ourselves some sort of conspiracy going on, but before we leave this issue we have to have ourselves another red herring in the form of another support group member who relapsed into crime and that's The Orca.......... which is just bad ass to see.

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and I'm happy as hell to report that it seems this title has been infused with a full dose of fun.  Yeah, I had an issue with Nightwing having to feel sorry for himself for trusting Raptor previously, but that's only a small section of this book and really doesn't take too much away from the new feel that this title has now that we're in Bludhaven.  We have fun characters, a side story that Dick will have to deal with in the form of him being the mascot for Bludhaven and an interesting murder mystery going on that will hopefully stay as far away from the original Nightwing continuity from when he first went to Bludhaven.  From what we get here, I have to say that I'm a bit afraid that Mr. Oz will come out of nowhere and snatch our hero up because for the first time since Rebirth started, it feels like Nightwing is inspiring hope in me that this title may be worthwhile and a good time to read after all and that feeling is doubled by Marcus To being on art here because I love his style and think it fits this title perfectly.

Bits and Pieces:

This title continues to impress me now that we have our hero in Bludhaven because not only does it take a lighter tone, even with a murder mystery going on, but it finally feels like we're getting Nightwing here and with the bonus of having some excellent art to accompany that feeling, I look forward to as much Nightwing as I can get at this point.

8/10