Nightwing #109 - DC Comics

NIGHTWING No. 109, February 2024

It’s probably a safe bet that few of this comic’s readers actually agreed with “DC Comics” claim that Issue One Hundred And Nine of “Nightwing” would provide the ongoing series with a “dramatic conclusion” to its current, multi-part storyline. In fact, if anything, Tom Taylor’s unconvincingly swift end to Beatrice Blud’s battle against her nefarious adoptive brother Dirk, is so strikingly sudden that it will doubtless seem to some that the Australian author simply wanted to get the swashbuckling story over with so he could quickly start penning his “tie-in to Beast World” instead; “Turn out the light, Commissioner Montoya. Batman’s not coming. He’s in Bludhaven… Also, he’s a wolf.”

Much of this sense of abandonment comes during the twenty-two page periodical’s opening, when Dick Grayson miraculously manages to overcome his increasing fear of heights so as to save his former lover from a watery grave. This terrifying dive into the ocean's depths isn’t arguably all that remarkable in itself. But it suddenly leads straight into a scene where the super-hero has somehow dragged the woman back to safety, competently stitched up her potentially lethal stab-wound, and so tightly bandaged the captain together that she is able to immediately shrug off the injury in order to fly an aeroplane.

To make matters worse though, rather than then allow any more time to pass, the Melbourne-born writer has Batman’s original Boy Wonder single-handedly beat the living daylights out of Dirk and his small army of heavily-armed thugs with a pair of batons. Admittedly, this action sequence provides artist Stephen Byrne with a cracking opportunity to show off just how well he can pencil the costumed crime-fighter’s famous acrobatics. But it surely also raises the question as to just how much of a threat Ruben Blud’s biological son really was, and just why any pirates actually followed the arrogant thug in the first place.?

Much more exciting and engrossing than this comic’s central feature is Taylor’s fascinating prologue to “Beast World”. This “thrilling new event of the season” gives Damian Wayne some highly enjoyable ‘screentime’ as Robin intuitively investigating just where all the citizens-turned-animals have disappeared to in Gotham City, as well as allowing Sami Basri a chance to sketch the mysterious big game hunter Apex Ava.

The regular cover art of "NIGHTWING" #109 by Bruno Redondo