Nightwing #17 Review and *SPOILERS*

Double Trouble

Written By: Tim Seeley

Art By: Javier Fernandez, Chris Sotomayor, Carlos M. Mangual

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: March 15, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Nightwing's got a lot on his plate as of late.  Not only does he have a brand new city to contend with, but he's got a new job and a new girlfriend, who may or may not be pregnant with our hero's child.  Yeah, Nightwing might be a daddy, but that may never come to pass if Damian and him don't track down the person who kidnapped his baby mama and from what I saw of that kidnapper, they want to act fast because he's some kind of monster looking version of our hero, calling himself Deathwing.  Let's jump into this issue and see how well our former Batman and Robin team work together and hopefully see them bring Shawn Tsang home so we can find out more about this baby mama drama.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with our heroes arguing about whether or not Dick Grayson intends on taking the mantel of the Bat away from Damian or the possibility that he's starting a franchise by getting Shawn pregnant.  Yeah, all of this is a bit of nonsense, but it gets us to our destination and that's Paris, France, where the coordinates pointed our heroes to in the previous issue.......... and I'm instantly confused because we saw Dick and Damian start their journey oversees at the end of the previous issue and we also saw Deathwing standing there watching them leave as he killed off some cops and thieves, but here he's laid out of trap for our heroes and he's waiting for them.  Yeah, it's a bit of a nitpick, but I just found it odd.

So the fight is on and man do things get weird as hell from then on out because Deathwing locks Damian in a tomb so that Dick and him could have some one on one time and during that part of the fight, Deathwing slashes our hero across the forehead with a knife and as soon as the first drop of blood falls, Dick starts seeing all the versions of him throughout the Multiverse and I don't know if Deathwing would have taken this time to end his double, but before he could have the chance, a double of Robin shows up and starts fighting him.

Eventually, Damian breaks his way free of the tomb and goes and helps Dick, who at first sees all the versions of Damian in the Multiverse, but eventually snaps out of it, where we learn that this Deathwing, who Dick and Damian totally knocked out after our hero got his wits back and the double of Robin are actually Dollotrons created by Professor Pyg and from the information that the Robin double gives, it seems that Pyg likes Shawn's artwork so much that he's going to try to take whatever it is that she has inside of her for himself so he can duplicate what she does............ Yeah, I just imagine him cutting her open and taking her insides............ You know, cause Pyg is gross as hell.

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while I'm all about finding out more of what's going on with this story and how Professor Pyg is making such complex Dollotrons, I have to say that I found this issue padded out beyond belief and throwing some huge things at us like a knife that will show you the Multiverse, without really talking about what was going on or how the hell such a thing is possible.  There were some inconsistencies with this issue as well, like Deathwing showing up in Paris before our heroes and setting up a trap, but mostly we had a big mystery on our hands that still seems pretty huge, while our heroes kind of throw all that stuff on the back burner because Shawn is still missing.  Yeah, I understand their frame of mind at the time, but this issue seemed to throw so much at us without any explanations.  On top of that, I continue to hate the art in this book and is the biggest problem with this title.  Hopefully next issue will enlighten us to everything that was just thrown out here all willy nilly, but even if that's the case, this isn't that great of an issue..

Bits and Pieces:

While we do find out the true mastermind of everything in this issue, we also have a shit ton of things thrown at us without any explanation about what the hell is going on and if that wasn't bad enough, the art is really a hindrance to this title.  Ultimately, I still care about where this story is going and found somethings to enjoy here, but overall this issue was a bit of a letdown.

5.8/10