Nightwing #26 Review and *SPOILERS*

What We Once Were

Written By: Tim Seeley

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

Cover Price: $2.99
Release Date: August 2, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

I actually liked the Blockbuster arc and wanted to get more into that, but like we do every other arc or so, it seems that Tim Seeley has to go back to the well and find something to tackle that he thinks he knows or something that he thinks is safe and that's what this Spyral bit feels like to me right off the bat and that scares me because whenever that happens, the stories in my mind begin to tank a bit.  Hopefully, that's not the case here and things will continue to seem fresh and fun as Dick goes on the hunt for Giz' murderer with a little help from Huntress.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!:

Our issue begins at Giz' funeral, where all the Run-Offs have shown up to pay respects to their friend and to also, secretly blame Nightwing for his murder because if it wasn't for Bludhaven's newest superhero getting Giz to look into the weapons supplied by the Second Hand, their friend may still be alive.  Yeah, Dick's taking the death pretty hard and is determined to make whoever did it pay.  Enter Huntress, who in a really forced way, wants to help Dick because the man who seems to be the killer is a mobster and Tim Seeley just throws Huntress' motives to avenge her family's death out there without much of an explanation because since we've seen Helena take on this persona, she's only really been the Batgirl and the Birds of Prey book and the whole killing mobsters thing has kind of been resolved and put away already.

Anyway, the two track the mobster to Sicily, where after a bit of fisticuffs, they get his address.  Too bad they're too late and it looks like somebody beat them to the punch and murdered him.  After finding a thumb drive that spells it out that this man was an undercover Spyral agent, it seems that our heroes have been set up and that the Second Hand is actually Spyral itself.

Yeah, we have all that going on, plus, Shawn Tsang seems to be going back to her old DeFacer ways now that Pigeon is in town and I don't think she's the only Run-Off to go back to old habits because it seems that Giz' girlfriend Mouse is all about doing what has to be done to get vengeance for her loss....... which sadly, I believe she'll go after Nightwing.

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while I hated Huntress' forced inclusion in this story, the thing I think I hate the most is making Spyral and Tiger the Second Hand because we already had a retcon from when this series started by making Tiger a good guy again and the head of Spyral because at the end of the Grayson series, he was a villain working for Checkmate....... and now he's just a bad guy again, even though we initially went against that.  I don't get it and I feel the only redeeming aspects of this story are the Run-Offs getting more panel play and  Dick being a mope over getting Giz killed and even with that........ we have Dick being a mope and no one really wants that, I just thought that it was done pretty well though.  Javier Fernandez is back on art this issue and his style is something that I'll never get behind so that too was a disappoint for me in this issue and all in all I'm just waiting to get back to the Blockbuster stuff because at least that was interesting and didn't go against continuity.  

Bits and Pieces:

After I finally thought that we were hitting a decent pace with this Nightwing series, Tim Seeley decided to go back to the well of his Grayson days and brought Spyral back for this story whether it made sense to the continuity or not.  On top of not really enjoying the story, I was not a fan of the art at all and even though the story just began, I can't wait for it to over already.  

5.1/10