I haven't been paying much attention to DC lately, yet I wasn't surprised when I picked up Nightwing #153 in my hold box, last week, and saw the tagline: "FINAL ISSUE" on it. The book's been a downhill train without direction for the last 100 issues or so. I was always amazed that "Azrael" got to 100 and I'm disappointed that in 153 issues, "Nightwing" actually out-sucked "Azrael".
What started out as a satellite Bat-title soon became a completely unnecessary title, period. The first 24 issues or so set up Nightwing's Bludhaven as a Triple A Gotham City, yet not without it's own unique appeal. Writer Chuck Dixon established a quirky little corner for Nightwing; a character who had mooched off of others for almost 60 years (namely, Batman and the Teen Titans), finally had his own mythology and realm.
Nightwing was originally sent to Bludhaven to pursue remnants of Black Mask's "False Face Society", but soon ran into Electrocutioner, Two-Face, Scarecrow, Brutale, Lady Vic, Stallion and others. All capped off by the obligatory "master villain": Roland Desmond the Blockbuster. After being enhanced by DC's 1995 crossover "Underworld: Unleashed", Blockbuster had become a super-powered Kingpin of sorts. And it worked. Mix in the corrupt Bludhaven PD, including Dudley Soames and things got really interesting.
Soames soon became one of the most gruesome villains in comics history: "Torque"...basically a guy who had had his head twisted around 180 degrees...and survived! With his head screwed around, Torque was in the vein of guys like Two-Face. Soames eventually ran into "Nite-Wing", a violent, overzealous dorkbag who wanted to become a superhero.
That got us to issue 25 or so. It was around that time that Dixon ran out of ideas. Soames and Nite-Wing seemed to almost take over the title, with their constant inclusion. A short interlude involving the retconned villain Shrike (hey, now THERE'S a character DC seriously needs to work with) was the only reprieve. For well over 100 issues, "Nightwing" lingered.
Around issue 120 or so, DC wanted to kill off the character of Nightwing. But fans revolted and the execution was passed over. DC re-launched Nightwing two or three times since with new directions for the book. All of which stunk and made Archie Superhero Comics seem like works of art.
The latest was a hack named Peter Tomasi who included lame dialogue that seemed to be copied from Wikipedia. Such as a master villain explaining how a woman's uterus produces a baby (really). He also worked in some of the shittest one-liners since a Lorenzo Lamas movie. Example: a water tower ruptured, sending water spewing below. Nightwing's "witty" remark was: "I guess the Beach Boys are in town". Ugh. In a later issue, when Nightwing was fighting some of Ra's Al Ghul's flunkies, he drove over them with a Batmobile and said: "welcome to Bowling for Ninjas".
Beach Boys and Bowling for Dollars references. Pretty sure those haven't been relevant since the early 70's. Not to mention that they weren't funny then, either.
So now Nightwing (the title) is being axed. Frustrating because the character of Master Dick/Nightwing has been extremely popular among fans for decades. Yet nothing of substance occurred in 153 issues of his long-awaited title. Now the character is being shuffled off DC's current "Battle for the Cowl of Batman" stuff.
He's right back to where he started: mooching off of others.
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