Nightwing #118 - DC Comics

NIGHTWING No. 118, December 2024

Despite this twenty-four page periodical certainly living up to its promise of taking its audience “on an exhilarating journey through the streets of Blüdhaven as we bid a heartfelt farewell to the dynamic duo of Tom Taylor and Bruno Redondo”, the fact that the Australian author swiftly summarises the rest of the Bat-family tracking down the city’s kidnapped children could well still be seen by some as something of a missed opportunity. Indeed, the notion of the titular character teaming up with the likes of Tim Drake’s Robin, Cassandra Cain’s Batgirl or even the Dark Knight himself for a lengthy, possibly even issue-long, infiltration of Shelton Lyle’s covert organisation to discover the incarcerated kids' secret whereabouts would surely have provided some additional sense-shattering shenanigans for the original Boy Wonder to navigate.

Such a minor quibble aside however, there’s debatably not much else to complain about when it comes to this “epic conclusion” of the creative team’s “award-winning run”, as Dick Grayson embarks upon an almost entirely successful campaign to publicly clear his name of any criminal wrongdoing, ensure that Heartless’ reign of terror is brought to a swift end, and reconcile with the ghosts of the former circus performer’s deceased parents. True, the body of Gerald Chamberlain is never shown being recovered from the river into which he fell – which strongly suggests the deranged butler may well return to revive his supposedly dead master in the future, and Nightwing’s poor, three-legged dog takes a bullet meant for her owner. But overall, the book ends on a surprisingly neat shot of Bruce Wayne’s heir canoodling up to the love of his life watching the night stars.

Just as enjoyable as this comic’s script though are also its layouts, with Redondo giving the super-villain’s flight from Blüdhaven some breath-taking pace, as well as an awed “How?” moment when the mass-murderer’s colourfully-costumed pursuer plummets from a bridge to strike him straight in the face with a well-placed foot. This incredibly engrossing sense of speed then continues, with the “double Eisner Award winner” prodigiously pencilling Haley quite literally coming out of no-where to bite Chamberlain’s gun-toting forearm and Grayson providing his arch-nemesis with a truly memorable lesson in unarmed combat; “You thought you could buy strength. But you didn’t put in the work. You bought brute force. But that doesn’t make you powerful.”

The regular cover art of "NIGHTWING" #118 by Bruno Redondo