Betrayed by his underlings, under fire from Nightwing and his friends, and up against an incorruptible commissioner armed with a ledger detailing every one of his crimes, Blockbuster’s backed into a corner — but you know what they say about cornering a wild animal. Nightwing #95 is written by Tom Taylor, drawn by Bruno Redondo, inked by Caio Filipe, colored by Adriano Lucas and lettered by Wes Abbott.
It is with a heavy heart that I write this review of Nightwing #95. With the return of Bruno Redondo to the book, the fears that began to form in my last review have been confirmed: Redondo is not the best choice for this book — at least, not so long as Tom Taylor is writing it.
I don’t like saying that. Redondo’s work is awe-inspiring, and constantly makes my heart soar. It has consistently been the best part of the Nightwing reading experience. It is playful, inventive, gives the reader a clear sense of space and a strong sense of motion, and it’s funny. Very funny. Sometimes without meaning to be, and that’s a problem.
When it’s intentional, Taylor and Redondo often make comedy gold. Nightwing can be a very playful, grounded, and friendly comic. For something like this, though — a high-stakes takedown of one of the series’ main villains — you need art that balances out Taylor’s weaknesses as a writer, instead of exacerbating them.
Because this isn’t being written as a comedy. This is a tale of corruption and its pervasiveness. It’s about the lengths a man will go to to keep power that’s slipping out of his grasp — but Blockbuster doesn’t feel like like a serious threat, and more like a grumpy cartoon, flailing about in acts of trivial violence. An entire two pages are devoted to him using a rocket launcher to destroy the sign over Dick Grayson’s new park. Not any part the park itself, not the statue of great sentimental import — the sign above it.
The final panels illustrate my point the strongest. After Blockbuster lures Nightwing into a trap and lays him low with the help of hostages, he begins pulverizing our hero, unmasking him in no time. Which is when we get this:
Now, Redondo is a master of comedy with a simple reaction beat — but here, that undercuts the tension this cliffhanger needs with an inadvertently hilarious new meme format.
There’s a lot to this comic I did enjoy, however. The action is always a thrill, especially with Batwoman (the best dressed Gothamite, as far as I’m concerned) on page. She’s here to vouch for Nightwing to Maggie Sawyer. Seeing the two on page after their break up had me narrowing my eyes a bit — I’m not sure how much I trust Taylor’s ultra-optimistic, quick-fixes style of writing with a relationship this complicated, which is a bit of a sore spot — but it was a fun scene nonetheless.
The Teen Titans, the Flash, the Batfamily — everyone dropping in on this issue was a delight as they organize a coordinated attack on Blockbuster’s operations. See this week’s Superman: Son of Kal-El for a nearly identical story, and I mean that in a good way.
This comic is a tonal mess, undercutting its own intentions, but stylistically gorgeous. I think I might even enjoy it more if I didn’t have to write about it — it’s the kind of comic that forces you, repeatedly, to shut your brain off. It’s not the easiest comic to write about, but there’s fun, still, to be found here.
