Nightwing #145 Review

NIGHTWING #145
Written by Peter J. Tomasi
Art by Rags Morales and Michael Baer

Nightwing was another enjoyable read from Tomasi. Can't recommend this title enough. It's hasn't been a perfect run, but when the characters are written so well, it's easy to overlook the rather comical and cheesy plot the villains are employing with zombie-like grafting and the current baby factory army they're using.

The story is, unfortunately, still going in circles. Talia is in league with Dr. Kendall, the mad scientist digging up graves and whom Robin and Nightwing fought several issues ago. Talia thinks he is working for her, but he's secretly creating an army from the fast growing, super powered babies of the Great Ten's Niang Guan Jun.

There's a breif fight between Nightwing and a group of the super powered children, all grown up and with wings grafted onto them by Dr. Kendall, that ends quite badly for Kendall's men.

Nightwing assumes this is an attack by Talia, who threatened him last issue, and takes his frustrations out on her, sending a similar ultimatum, along with a picture of her sleeping, to "persuade" her to leave his loved ones alone. The issue ended with Nightwing tracking the flying soldier's back to their base and, hopefully, next issue will end this plot so we can focus more on the great characterization Tomasi has been doing. Speaking of which, the scenes with Batman, Robin and Alfred were excellent and the best part of this issue.

The last major development to talk about has to do with Ra's al Ghul. He was captured by Batman and hidden away in Arkham under an assumed name and kept heavily sedated. Through a series of events, he manages to acquire a guard's fountain pen, stab himself in the wrist and nearly bleed out, forcing the guards and doctors to give him a blood transfusion. I assume this was to bleed the drugs out of his system as he is fully awake at the end of the transfusion and escapes Arkham, killing anyone that got in his way, prompting the question, why bother resurrecting him, putting him in a new body, locking him away in Arkham and then simply breaking him out again, all in the span of about six months?

Batman opts to go after Ra's and leaves Talia and Kendall to Nightwing. I'm not sure if this will play into Nightwing's book and some kind of war between Talia and Ra's, if it will factor into Batman RIP or something else entirely.

Verdict - Check It. Great characters, great dialogue, but a plot that goes in circles and is less than spectacular. I'm loving the book with Tomasi at the helm, but I think he needs to just kill this story already and move onto something better.

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