Double Cross Apple Sauce
Written By: Tim Seeley
Art By: Minkyu Jung, Chris Sotomayor, Carlos M. Mangual
Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: June 21, 2017
*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*
Where I was originally wary of this Blockbuster arc because of how close it seemed to Chuck Dixon's original run of Nightwing, when he first went to The Blud, I have to say that after reading last issue I was all on board because it seemed that Tim Seeley was all about telling his own story with familiar names and faces thrown at us that we'd be excited for, but we'd see enough of a new story to keep us interested. In our previous issue, we saw Roland Desmond come to town and start working for Tiger Shark at one of the Casinos and where it seemed that Roland was all happy to start working a legit job, it didn't last long because Tiger Shark wanted to use the Blockbuster inside of him to kill of the city's new vigilante. That's where the story twisted though because instead of going and beating our hero to a bloody pulp, he asked for Nightwing's assistance in taking down Tiger Shark instead. Let's jump into this issue and see if Tim Seeley can continue keeping us guessing and on the edge of our seat as we move forward with this Blockbuster arc. Let's check it out.
Explain It!:
Our issue begins with a little rundown on who Blockbuster is and the differences between Roland and his brother Mark's iterations of the villain, but ultimately the story is all about how Roland wants to use the monster inside of him to do some good for his hometown and with his spotty track record, he needs Nightwing's help to take down Tiger Shark's operation of bringing alien tech weapons into Bludhaven from an organization called "The Second Hand". This leads us to one such weapon at the local mall running amuck, which you will recognize as Algorithm from the second Teen Titans series of the New 52, but it doesn't really matter because Nightwing quickly takes her down with a forklift and we realize that all of this filler was to simply show us how bad the city is getting with the weapons coming in and also so we can be reminded of Dick's (not) Jim Gordon, Detective Svoboda, who still doesn't like vigilantes in her city........ until they're useful.
Dick's luck doesn't get any better when he goes to visit his girlfriend Shawn Tsang at the rec center the next day and the two argue about Dick blowing off his job interview, which then turns into a discussion about whether or not Dick wanted the baby that they thought Shawn was pregnant with and then into Dick not wanting his baby to have anger issues like Shawn does............ Yeah, it was a fucked up conversation, which Dick should have really kept to himself, but when you're in the heat of the moment during an argument, sometimes you let shit fly and you don't know how bad it is until it's out there.
In the end, Dick figures that maybe some superhero-ing is just what the doctor ordered to get his head right and he follows a couple of cops that Roland Desmond told him might not be on the up and up and who are actually helping Tiger Shark smuggle in those high-tech weapons and when he gets to their destination, which is a half sunk ship off of Bludhaven............. he finds Skyhook........ Which is odd as hell because he's causing a bunch of trouble in Superwoman's book right now and when Nightwing is thrown through the roof of the ship, he finds that Skyhook isn't the only odd villain there. Yeah, it turns out that everyone wants a piece of Tiger Shark's toys and we see multiple villains ranging from Count Vertigo, Magog, The Burned and a slew of others....... but most importantly Roland Desmond, who seems to have lured Nightwing here as a double cross.
That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while this story took some detours to make sure that everyone was on the trolley with who the characters of this book are, this was still an enjoyable issue that kept me on my toes about what's going on and even gave me a twist ending that I may be a dummy for, but I actually didn't see coming. Yeah, this could all be a ruse and Blockbuster may still be a hero, but for where we are in the story now, I actually found it to be a fun cliffhanger that gets me excited for the next issue. The art was decent too and while I do miss Miguel Mendonca's art from the previous issue, I'm not about to scoff at Minkyu Jung's art because it's right up there with being some of the best art in this series.
Bits and Pieces:
While our hero had to do a bunch of side stuff that simply caught new readers up with who everyone is in this book, I still found this story enjoyable and look forward to continuing this Blockbuster romp. We had ourselves a great cliffhanger that really makes me impatient for the next issue and some great art that I hope continues in this book.
7.8/10
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