Nightwing #123 – Dan Watters, Writer; Dexter Soy, Artist; Veronica Gandini, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: Nightwing has spent this entire run mired in an increasingly complicated gang war, and it’s not getting any better. The shady Spheric Tech – overseen by a mysterious villain with ties to the circus life that Dick came from – is digging its claws deeper and deeper into the city, and now tries to cut a deal with Mayor Grayson-Lin as she faces a political challenge from a corrupt opponent with ties to Blockbuster. Dick, meanwhile, has tried to position himself between the gangs and has firmly aligned himself with the Teddies, mostly composed of teen runaways. But now the Flyboiz, a strange gang of mutants, is making moves on their territory and the young gang members are getting ready to go to war. After convincing them to hold off for now, Nightwing decides to head into enemy territory himself – and finds that things have deteriorated in a big way for the gang of mutants.
The headquarters of the Flyboiz isn’t so much a gang base as it is a horror show, with the bunker guarded by mysterious hulking mutants who seem to have drifted further and further away from humanity. So Dick descends into a darkened underground bunker that turns out to have ties to one of the darkest days in DC history. This is another great example of how all the writers now are leaning into comic history in a way we rarely see. This is also the first issue of the run that feels like Dan Watters is allowed to bring back his taste for deeply unsettling horror, instead of the more straight-forward superhero run he’s been doing until now. Mutant fly gangsters is one of those things that could be either ridiculous or creepy, and this issue takes it a long way towards the latter. This run is still overall very strong, but I feel like it needed this issue to really show the darker directions it’s going.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
