Nightwing #122 - DC Comics

NIGHTWING No. 122, March 2025

There’s certainly a lot to enjoy when it comes to Dan Watters’ writing on Issue One Hundred And Twenty Two of “Nightwing”, including his well-penned flashback to a time when the titular character was just a youngster and learning the ropes alongside the World’s Greatest Detective. However, perhaps the biggest ‘hook’ to “Little Circus Boy” doesn’t lie with its nostalgic trip back into the past with the original Caped Crusaders, but in the present as Dick Grayson’s Bludhaven collapses about his ears into a full-on crime war despite the young man’s desperate protestations that Spheric Solutions are actually the ones behind all the bombs and damage.

Indeed, the surprise on the Teen Titan’s face when he discovers that a direct attack upon Bludhaven Police Headquarters was unexpectedly perpetrated by a green-skinned flyboi, and not some nefarious agent of Olivia Pearce’s company is perfectly palpable. This shock is genuinely upsetting for both super-hero and reader alike, and makes the subsequent weight shown sitting upon the former acrobat’s shoulders as he gloomily surveys his conurbation from the abandoned Titan Tower all the more impactive and foreboding; “I thought I could do things different, Babs. The violence stalled for a bit. But… The bloodshed continues. Maybe everything’s just going to keep getting worse.”

Of course, the highlight of this twenty-two-page comic is its aforementioned return to the days when Grayson was the Boy Wonder, and together with Batman he tackled Colombina and the Cirque Du Sin. This skirmish is perhaps understandably brief and inconclusive, yet still manages to take the audience back to an arguably simpler (and perhaps better) time when the Dark Knight did far more punching than thinking, and Robin was perhaps something of an adolescent liability.

Also at the very top of his game is Dexter Soy, who along with colorist Veronica Gandini absolutely nails the grimy, old school feel of Dick’s world working alongside the Gotham City's protector. Possibly therefore this book’s sole disappointment comes in just how physically alike Commissioner Sawyer and Pearce appear, as for a long while it may seem to some bibliophiles that Nightwing is accusing Olivia straight to her face atop a high-rise building, as opposed to him merely discussing his theories with the head of Bludhaven’s police force.

The regular cover art of "NIGHTWING" #122 by Dexter Soy with Veronica Gandini