Nightwing #34 Review and *SPOILERS*

Raptor's Reveal

Written By: Tim Seeley

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

Cover Price: $2.99

Release Date: December 6, 2017

*Non Spoilers and Score At The Bottom*

It's time to finish off Tim Seeley's run of Nightwing with the conclusion of Raptor's Revenge, where we saw the villain team up with DeFacer's former mentor Pigeon in a scheme to show the people of Bludhaven the monsters they actually are by turning them all into uncontrollable Blockbusters.  Now it's up to the Run-Offs to keep the city safe because Roland Desmond and Nightwing are trapped within the Marcus Casino.......... but from what we see here, that doesn't matter because the casino is apparently the place to be.  Let's jump into this issue and see how Bludhaven comes together to take care of itself.  Let's check it out.

Explain It!;

Our issue begins with DeFacer catching everyone up on what's been going on in this arc and once we move on from there we find that............ somehow Raptor and Pigeon are on top of the Marcus Casino.  Yeah, it really seemed that they were away at the docks in the previous issue and released the birds towards Nightwing, but that's not what's happening here and because our villains are now so close by, Nightwing and Roland Desmond take it upon themselves to get to the roof and start kicking a little ass.

On the street we find out that Orca has developed a permanent cure for the Blockbuster serum and the Run-Offs are going about saving as many people as they can before centering on the Casino itself.  While the rest of the Run-Offs go inside to try and send the cure through the sprinkler system, DeFacer heads to the roof to put a stomping on Pigeon.  Too bad it wasn't a little earlier because Pigeon got the best of Roland Desmond by giving him a double dose of the Blockbuster serum.

In the end, after Raptor sufficiently kicks the shit out of Nightwing and is about to release the serum all over the city, Roland transforms into Blockbuster and takes a swing and while at first it looks like he missed his target, we then see that it looks like Raptor went and had his skull shattered.  As our issue closes, Raptor lays dying, but before he goes off into that goodnight, he reveals to Nightwing that his real name is Richard and that he wishes he could have been there for Dick as a boy.  With that, the day is saved, DeFacer tells Dick that they're through in the nicest way possible and Roland is taken out of the picture because Nightwing stuck him with the permanent cure.  

That's it for this issue of Nightwing and while the beginning of this issue felt like it was lacking to me in both the dialog and art, by the end I actually felt myself caring about the story and even feeling sorry for Raptor......... which is bullshit because he's a terrible villain, but still I felt some feelings and that's enough for me.  All in all, the art in this issue isn't great, but the story does move pretty well and this is a really nice end to Tim Seeley's run on this book, which included tying things up, callbacks and the ability for Nightwing to stay in Bludhaven, which I'm all about.

Bits and Pieces:

Tim Seeley finishes up his run with the conclusion to the Raptor's Revenge arc and while it took a little bit to get going and even longer to understand what was going on with the art, in the end I found myself enjoying this issue and feel like it's a decent goodbye from Seeley. 

7/10