Nightwing #19 Review and *SPOILERS*

Darkest Before The Dawn

Written By: Tim Seeley

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

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: April 19, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

Our Nightwing Must Die story continues in this issue and as we saw at the end of the previous issue, it seems that Robin might also have to die as well because Dr. Hurt was revealed to be the mastermind behind kidnapping Shawn, the Deathwing dollotron and everything else that led to him walking up behind our Boy Wonder and appearing to shoot him in the back of the head.  Yeah, it was a crazy cliffhanger, but now that Nightwing is on the trolley to this being a Dr. Hurt story, hopefully he can get to his former sidekick in time to save him.......... or maybe put some gauze or something in his gaping head wound......... gross.  Let's jump into this issue and see what Dr. Hurt's plot is all about and what our hero can do to stop him.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins with Nightwing and Shawn walking through an Egyptian desert, where they're in disguise as blogger hipsters, but even though their bad guy tour guide doesn't know who they are and that our heroes have no idea that their tour guide is indeed a bad guy tour guide, things work out and our heroes are attacked, giving them the opportunity to find out where Dr. Hurt is and where he's keeping Damian.  Yeah, it seems that Dr. Hurt plans on sacrificing the Boy Wonder at dawn, after he was told through some blood magic that led up to this arc that he needed to turn Nightwing into a weapon.

So yeah, it initially looks like Shawn is killed by a falling statue once they enter the underground temple, but all that was a ruse to get your feelers going because Dick saves his lady love and then beats the holy hell out of the person who caused that almost death........ Deathwing.  Yup, we get two fights right away and while this one made more sense with Deathwing protecting his master Dr. Hurt, it all became nonsense when they tried to explain that strange knife that Deathwing cut our hero with a couple of issues ago, that made him see all these different versions of himself.  Where I thought it showed him versions of himself in the Multiverse, here we find out that these were possible future versions of himself and out of nowhere we're told that they were all dark versions, which I never go the idea of previously and once Nightwing cuts Deathwing with it, the villain cowers and apologizes for his actions........... leaving the whole discussion over and never brought up again.

In the end, Shawn stays with Deathwing to make sure he's okay.......... because it worked out so well with the dollotron Robin in the previous issue and Nightwing confronts Dr. Hurt........ who has apparently already sacrificed Robin and then our hero falls through the floor into hell......... Yup.

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while I still enjoyed the Minkyu Jung art and hated the Javier Fernandez bits........... the rest of this issue really did nothing for me except make me shake my head at what was going on.  The opening scene was complete nonsense because our heroes simply walk out into the desert hoping that they're attacked and shown the way to Dr. Hurt and then the special knife that seemed really interesting is just thrown away after it's explained that it shows dark futures, which we never got the idea before from what we saw and then our hero just falls into hell.  All I kept thinking was when the hell are we getting back to Bludhaven because at least there the stories seemed to make sense and weren't just ideas thrown out and about whether they made sense or not.  This is a series that I've been liking less and less as this arc has progressed and I can only hope that it rights itself when this little Grant Morrison wanna-be jaunt is over.  

Bits and Pieces:

Things just happen in this issue and they're frustrating as hell because they have no real rhyme or reason.  I had a sense of hope when Nightwing first went to Bludhaven that this series could be something that I would enjoy, but ever since this arc began I've been liking each issue less and less and this issue is no exception.  

5.5/10