Nightwing #59 Review

I'm Burning For You

Written By: Dan Jurgens

Art By: Chris Mooneyham, Nick Filardi, Andworld Design

Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: April 17, 2019

Back to Bludhaven we go to check in our Nightwing Crew, where last we saw them they battling Joker's Daughter and her plans to show the 1% that maybe........ just maybe, they weren't treating the homeless of the city as well as they should.  Don't worry about that though because that was a month and another writer ago.  Now, we have Dan Jurgens jumping into Nightwing and it's off to a whole new villain, who goes by the name of Burnback.  Let's jump into this issue and check it out.

With the Joker's Daughter story put aside, it's back to basics........ or at least the basics as we know them since Dick Grayson became Ric Grayson and with that we discuss Ric's memory loss, like we're forced to do every issue, but we do go one step beyond the usual here and actually discuss Hutch's past and why he was railroaded out of the police academy.  The specifics of everything aren't revealed here, but even if they are never discussed further, I think that we get enough out of this issue to really get an idea about the chip on Hutch's shoulder and why he isn't a police officer like his other friends, but feels completely at home at the fire department.  

Speaking of fire department, Bludhaven has itself a little arsonist problem going on at the moment and while I would love to see all the Nightwings come together to take on this threat, because it's fire related, it seems that we're only going to get Hutch teamed up with Ric for this...... or at least this issue.  It also seems that Hutch is Ric's mentor at the moment so that he can train the new recruit up....... not knowing Ric's past and Ric not letting anyone in on it either.

All in all, there is fun to be had in this issue, but even with that fun, this issue suffers from being a bit clunky because it really goes out of its way to catch everyone up on what's going on, while trying to get to the new part of the story........ which takes way too long to get to, while not really getting to the threat until the cliffhanger..... leaving the majority of the story kind of dull, even though we start getting some of Hutch's background.  I enjoyed the art in this issue, but that's primarily because I think the gritty look works for Bludhaven and this story, but could totally see not everyone embracing it.  With all that being said, I'm still enjoying this new status quo for our hero, but need a writer to come on and really make it their own thing, where we can finally push past the tropes that have been going on nonstop since Dick Grayson got shot.

Bits and Pieces:

You get a bit of background on one of our Nightwings this issue, which is pretty appreciated since it's been teased every issue the character shows up and you get our main hero acting heroic on his own so with those two things, not to mention a new villain for Bludhaven you get a pretty decent book, but this also suffers from the same problems that came in previous issues and previous writers.

7/10