Broken Frontier

Dick Grayson’s life hasn’t been good for a while now thanks to Devin Grayson’s deconstruction of the character. Things don’t look to get better any time soon.

While many readers have been split on the direction the book is going, I have found myself very engrossed with Nightwing’s descent to a darker path. Since his days with the Teen Titans, Dick Grayson has been a leader type due to his upbringing at the heels of Batman. He has always been the natural general and has always been considered as the rock of any team he joins. It seemed that Robin/Nightwing was indestructible and infallible.

What Grayson (Devin, that is) has done the past two years is destroy the myth of Dick’s invincibility and shown the human side of the character. I do admit that I had doubts in the beginning with regard to where Nightwing was being brought, but Grayson has slowly made a believer out of me.

With the Blockbuster/Tarantula/ War Games saga that ran for a good portion of last year, Grayson has put Nightwing’s life into the dumpster, only to put it through the grinder afterwards. It’s gotten to the point where he has suffered multiple injuries one after the other and was even raped by Tarantula. Yes, it’s been that bad for the ex-Boy Wonder.

But why?

At times, I questioned the book’s direction and why Dick has suddenly become such a wuss. After seeing the whole canvass, I think I finally see what Devin Grayson has been trying to do. In order for a character to become stronger, he has to go through a lot of suffering. As the old adage goes, what won’t kill you will make you stronger. Eventually, I see Nightwing as a much more seasoned and formidable character after all is said and done. (And as recently announced in the Wizard World Philadelphia Infinite Crisis panel, Nightwing will play a significant role in DC’s universe-shaking event.)

The newest arc after the immensely readable Year One storyline finds Dick Grayson working as a thug for the mob as he tries to infiltrate crime from the inside. While I question the methodology of what he’s trying to accomplish, it is interesting to see how it all ends up as I see an inevitable confrontation with a certain Dark Knight after all this. How this all plays out will surely alter the status quo between the former Dynamic Duo.

The new arc also features the new artistic team of former Green Arrow stalwarts Phil Hester and Andy Parks. Having grown accustomed to their work on the Emerald Archer, I was looking forward to see how it would translate to Nightwing.

“I think Nightwing actually fits my style a little better than Green Arrow did. GA should have been brighter and cleaner than I made him,” says Hester. “Nightwing is sleek and dark and sometimes brutal. That fits my natural penciling style.”

With his work on Green Arrow, Hester has proven he’s got the goods in terms of tackling super-heroes artistically. The frenetic energy he endowed that book with is taken up a notch with the more physical and acrobatic requirements drawing Nightwing has.

The artist adds “I like the aforementioned darkness, but he's also a lively and physical character. I like balancing that light and dark. I'll try to cast everything in my half-ass attempt at Alex Toth melded with Joe Staton style.”

Asked what he likes about drawing Nightwing, Hester states that, “I love drawing a full-on Jackie Chan-style physical character. I get to bust out my Frank Miller kung-fu fights. I guess the only thing I chafe against is the last minute contortions the plot has to go through to line-up with all the company wide crossovers, but I can live with it.”

After his lengthy and admirable run on Green Arrow, it certainly is a question as to how long he plans to stay on this series considering how some artists can’t seem to draw two consecutive issues without a fill-in. As Hester says, “I'd like a healthy run of more than a year, but everything is open ended.”

Guiding Line: After being somewhere in the middle of the Bat-family pack of books, Nightwing is poised to be catapulted to somewhere near the top with the recent developments on the title. Devin Grayson’s story has been, at times, overwhelming and very depressing. Yet after making the pieces fit, there was a method to the seeming madness. Grayson has matured Nightwing and has made him into a human being after being perceived as above it all. Coupled with new artist Phil Hester’s noirish yet dynamic style, this book bears some watching and could surprise some people in a few months. Get on the ground floor before this compelling book leaves you behind.