Nightwing #105 // Review
A biological weapon has been stolen. It’s somewhere in Blüdhaven. Dick Grayson is called immediately. Turns out that the guys who had stolen it are a team known as Double Dare. Grayson is familiar with them. Stealing biological weapons isn’t really their thing. Neither is hijacking the M Train. Grayson and his girlfriend have their hands full in Nightwing #105. Writer Tom Taylor finds a really appealing way of telling a classic-style superhero story with jaw-droppingly impressive art by Bruno Redondo. Color plays across the page courtesy of Adriano Lucas. What could have been a gimmick provides a whole new insight into a beloved character in another brilliant Taylor/Redondo collaboration.
Grayson is waking up next to Babs. The reader can’t see Grayson, though. The entire issue is taken from the perspective of Nightwing as he starts his day. He’s waking up a bit later than usual. He’s used to being up all night. He’s looking to try to do a little day heroing, though. So, he’s going to be a little out of it for a conflict involving a bio weapon. It’s okay: he’s been doing this for a long time, and his girlfriend is one of the best crime fighters in history. They’ve got this.
Taylor could have let the first-person perspective be the entirety of the story. The artist he’s working with is brilliant. The idea of having him draw an issue entirely from the title character’s perspective is clever enough. It might have been done for accent on occasion, but it’s never been done like this. So it would be understandable for him to let the format be the issue. Thankfully, Taylor finds a fascinating story at the heart of the superhero genre that works well with the format. There’s a tremendous amount of personality in the script that fits the format quite well.
There are a lot of artists for whom the first-person perspective might not necessarily add a whole lot to the narrative experience. Redondo isn’t one of them. His meticulous perspectives, clean lines, and clever details add immeasurably to every single panel. The angelic face of Babs in the morning is a fairly iconic opening. (Lucas does some pretty impressive work with her for the issue.) Grayson’s tumble out of bed is initially kind of disorienting. Then there’s an establishing shot of Grayson in the mirror brushing his teeth that locks it all into place. The rest is one of the more pleasant one-shot superhero rides in recent memory.
Redondo’s level of detail is its own character in this issue. One gets the impression that he knows the history of every building and street corner in Blüdhaven. Grayson has a Funko Pop of Robin on his shelf. He’s got a Batman bookend and an array of Nightwing masks as decoration. It’s SO fun to look around the edges of any panel and see the personality of Blüdhaven through the eyes of Redondo. There are scars visible all over Grayson’s shirtless torso. There’s so much story in every panel. It’s one of those rare issues that feels like it’s fundamentally integrated with the whole of the continuity in every little, tiny detail.
