Nightwing #12 Review and *SPOILERS*

A Whale of A Tale

Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Marcus To, Chris Sotomayor, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date January 4, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

What up Nightwing?  You can't even show up in a new town without getting yourself involved in a murder mystery?  So much for all that "Me" time you were looking forward to.  That's right, we've got two dead bodies and two members of a support group of former Gotham villains called "The Run-Offs" being blamed for them and since it looked like Nightwing was getting a little sweet on the member known as DeFacer, who also happens to be his new boss during his volunteering day job....... Well, I'm guessing he's not going to go and let her rot in some prison cell for something that he doesn't believe she did.  Let's jump into this issue and see what answers Nightwing finds from the rest of The Run-Offs and from the streets of Bludhaven itself.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Nightwing checking out the latest crime scene and also getting a little friendly with the local P.D. and I don't normally play matchmaker, but I think that I have the perfect girl for you Harvey Bullock, Detective Svoboda.  The way she checks out a crime scene and chews on that cigar, I think she'd be right up your crime alley.  Really though, there's not a lot to this opening scene besides for seeing that the crime scene was meant to look like DeFacer was there, what with all the tags and all, but Nightwing doesn't buy it and contacts Jim Nice so that he can set up a meeting between The Run-Offs and our hero.

Even though this group seemed pissed/scared of our hero previously, thankfully with the trust that Nightwing offered them and the promise that he would help get their friends out of jail, the Run-Offs start opening up to our hero and give him the lowdown of what's been going on in Bludhaven.  As it turns out, a group was trying to smuggle some guns through the Blud using the first victim Paterno's  shipping business.  Anyway, Paterno was working with his lawyer Chapman and the real estate magnate Forsyth and they were trying to get the bigger members of the Run-Offs to act as their muscle because apparently their silent partner was pissed about some missing shipments.  Now, it seems whoever is killing the members of this gun running group are trying to cover all their bases for anyone who might have known about the deal because they're winding up dead, while the Run-Offs are being framed for it.  The last person on the list who isn't dead yet is Carter Forsyth so our hero and his new friends go and pay him a visit because they believe he wanted everything for himself......... Yeah, they aren't that lucky.

In the end, Nightwing and company show up and try to get answers out of Forsyth, but it's to no avail because Orca and The Whale's Enders gang show up and start beating the holy hell out of our hero, but thankfully with the help of the Run-Offs he's able to beat them back and subdue Orca in the process. It's here though that we learn that there are worse monsters than her out there in the Blud and as we leave this issue we see Forsyth run down by someone who could be the real "Thrill Devil" for all I know because he has Thrill Devil's bike and an actual devil mask.  

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while I've been enjoying this story arc and still am for the most part, this issue felt a bit disjointed from what we've been dealing with lately because on top of throwing all this exposition at us all at once, we also had to investigate the crime scene, get introduced to Detective Svobado, see Dick during his day job, remind us about the tourist department, show us the Whale Ender's gang on top of Orca and even have a meeting with Jim Nice.  There was just too much going on in this book without a lot of payoff.  Thankfully the art by Marcus To remained awesome and I hope to have him back on this book soon because I credit him with being a big part in turning this series around to something that's enjoyable.  Even though there are a shit ton of things going on here, bogging the story down, it's still enjoyable enough, I just hope that now that all that exposition is out there that we can just go forward with the story like we had been previously.

Bits and Pieces:

While I'm still happy with the way that this series has turned itself around, this issue just lost its step with throwing everything and the kitchen sink at us all at once and because of this the issue became a pain to read and came off really disjointed.  Thankfully the art remained strong though and even though this issue was a bit off, I'm still excited for the series overall.

6.5/10