Andy Owens (1)

Access a version of the below that includes illustrations on my blog.

Nightwing: Year One is the last of the Beatty/Dixon-written "Year One" collaborations, both in my reading order and in terms of publication. This one expands on events only briefly chronicled in Batman: Second Chances to show how Dick Grayson decided to become Nightwing. It opens with Dick coming to Batman's aid in a battle with Clayface, but later than Batman would like, owing to Dick's duties with the Teen Titans.

They argue, and Batman ends up firing Dick-- this doesn't replace the firing depicted in Second Chances, though, as Dick declares he's been fired before, and the timeline of Dick's life in the front of the book includes the Second Chances firing in its events. So apparently much of Nightwing: Year One takes place during the single issue in Second Chances where Dick is fired and Batman first meets Jason Todd; the book as a whole overlaps with Second Chances a lot, as we don't see how Batman meets Jason or selects him as the new Robin, but we do see some of his training. In the meantime, Dick goes back to his old circus and gets a job there and meets Deadman, but the call of crimefighting pulls him, and building on a conversation he had with Superman, he decides to go into action again as his own man: Nightwing.

This book isn't terrible by any means, but it didn't really work for me. There are three main reasons, I think. The first is that Bruce Wayne is just an absolute asshole here. In Second Chances, he "fired" Dick because he was worried for Dick's safety. Here, he does it because Dick can't live up to the impossible standards he imposes on him, refusing to allow Dick defeating criminals with the Teen Titans to excuse him from working with Batman. I feel like you could write these two men drifting apart as they both grow older without making one of them as an arbitrary jerk, but I suppose no one ever hired Chuck Dixon to write a comic book with subtlety in its characterization.

The second issue I have is the book's last few chapters, which do retcon some of Second Chances out of existence specifically, the "ONE YEAR AGO" issue where Dick first meets Jason. Here, Bruce manipulates Dick into participating in Jason's "Gauntlet," his final test to be a full-time Robin, where the two of them are meant to team up to save Alfred from Two-Face (although Two-Face is actually Alfred in disguise). Things go awry, but the two succeed in saving the day without the help of a sedated Batman. It's a fun adventure on its own merits, but it's a weirdly Batman-centric choice for the climax of a volume about Dick Grayson becoming his own man. I'd rather have seen him fighting his own villain(s), far away from the whole Batman clan.

Lastly, there's the art. I've never liked the team of Scott McDaniel and Andy Owens, not since they were Judd Winick's artists on Green Arrow, and I don't like them here. I think it's their way with faces, which just look weird and indistinct to me.

This is a likable book. Dixon is always good at writing action. The appearance of Deadman is fun (if a little pointless), and I liked Dick's talk with Superman. Alfred's final gift to Dick is pretty nice, and makes perfect sense. I wanted to like the flirting between Dick and Barbara more, but I don't think McDaniel and Owens made their body language work, and Barbara felt weirdly subordinate to Batman in his secret plans-- she's usually much more off on her own in my experience. Overall, Nightwing: Year One is fun, but kind of misjudged.

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On paper, this seems like it could be a good book: the heroes of various worlds in the multiverse are gathered together to fight it out. Like, Communist Superman from Red Son battles two other alternate Supermen to find out which one is best. But Monarch is in this, and he is terrible, and so is the whole book. Poorly characterized nonentities hit each other and "banter" in the trademark detail-free, ugly drawing style of Scott McDaniel. Save your money, save yourself, never read this book, it has literally no redeeming value. I can't think of a single thing I enjoyed about it; it's pointless and stupid. Thankfully time seems to be dulling my memories of it.

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After six years, the revived Green Arrow series that began with Quiver came to an end with the comics collected here. They have three distinct chunks. The first is a flashback to what Team Arrow got up to in the year between Heading into the Light and Crawling through the Wreckage, which is train on a tropical island with Buddhists and assassins. This is pretty good, especially for what it shows us of Oliver's new drive and determination. The second part of the book has Green Arrow and Batman teaming up to take down the Red Hood. I guess this guy actually used to be Robin, which would explain why Batman is even more ticked off than usual, but the book never actually bothers to mention that-- thanks Wikipedia. Mostly this story is a lot of Winick's usual dramatic punching and hitting. There's a part where the Red Hood works on Mia psychologically, but the effect of this is half-hearted at best and never convinces.

The last part of the book brings everything from Winick's run together by pitting Green Arrow against Brick, Merlyn, Deathstroke the Terminator, and Constantine Drakon. This could be great, right? G.A. finally getting to beat up the villains that have bedeviled him for years, even if two of them are lame? Connor and Mia at his back, not to mention that Black Canary is finally back? Unfortunately, it's not great, as the Justice League randomly shows up and defeats them. And then tears down the wall in the Star City ghetto, even though Oliver didn't want them to do that a book back. That's the ending? Consider me underwhelmed. The political storyline ends up getting much less play than I'd've liked-- I think Ollie as mayor is a great idea-- but the way it's capped off is quite nice. And the book's very last moment speaks well for Oliver's development as a character (though I'd wish we'd seen more of it) and for the Green Arrow and Black Canary series that span off from this one. This series might be finished, but the journey's not over yet.

Though Scott McDaniel continues to not be out-and-out bad like some of the post-Hester/Parks artists on the series, I still can't say that I'm in love with his art. It's usually passable, but all his black characters pretty much look the same, and I hate his interpretation of Constantine Drakon. The man's short, but he shouldn't look like a dwarf.

Green Arrow: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »… (meer)