Beating The Devil At His Own Game: Reviewing ‘Nightwing’ #104

What would you do with superpowers for a day? That’s a question tons have mulled over at least once before. Fly through the air, save kittens from trees, impress their friends, or do things far more frivolous or even selfish. There’s a catch though. What if these powers were the gift of a true underworld demon/devil?

Not so fun now, huh?

All of these questions and more aren’t for you or me to realistically have to wrestle with (at least not that I know of…). But for Dick Grayson/Nightwing they very much are things to ponder. Nightwing #104 closes out the Rise Of The Underworld storyline with a super-powered bang.

As the title character briefly becomes Superwing, demonically empowered with abilities similar to those of his good friend(s) Superman. While the powers are evil in the source, our boy finds the silver lining as he always does.

Tapping Travis Moore for this arc was a good call. There is a dynamicness to his artwork that just screams superheroes. Good thing this is an arc about a big superhero adventure, fighting back the forces of evil to do good. Every character just feels so powerful and clear, their emotions and their actions flow. Moore fills every bit of the pages with such energy.

It’s an energy that just screams fun. This is helped by the colors that Adriano Lucas employs, which are just so smooth and vibrant. Balancing out the big bold vibrant superhero colors are darker heavier colors. This is a story about souls and Hell after all, so the darkness plays into that quite a bit. Also, the heavier/darker bits give a great contrast to the more fantastical pieces to keep a more realistic feeling.

One thing, in my opinion at least, that can’t be disputed about this book is how much Tom Taylor gets Dick Grayson. This is a character that truly wears his heart on his sleeve, willing to do whatever it takes to do the right thing. Being powerless doesn’t define him or stand in the way. Even with powers, he doesn’t change and keeps his focus on how to use them to stop Neron and save Olivia.

We get a ton of great character beats like his meeting with Superman, the Titans as a team, and the way they save the day. This is a full superhero romp but one with a deep heart, and there are even threads laid for future stories here.

A visual sense of continuity is always welcome, especially when a series changes artists regularly. We get that continuity from Lucas’s colors as well as Wes Abbott’s letters. All that superhero energy referenced in the other artwork also pops in the letters. Colorful, dark, heavy, personality-filled tone-setting big bold letters of all types. Never tire of the little things that Abbott does to make all the lettering not only unique but fun, ready to burst off the page.

Wrapping up the issue, we get the final chapter of the circus-focused backup story with Nightwing and Superman. C.S. Pacat writes such a nice dynamic between these two heroes, who are mentor and mentee but also more like family in a sense. There is an overall plot going on that wraps up, but the interplay and development of the characters is what takes all the attention, in a good way.

There is an artistic change here from the previous chapters. Instead of Eduardo Pansica and Julio Ferreira on pencils and inks respectively, we have Daniel Hor and Jonas Trindade taking those roles. Their artwork isn’t all that dissimilar to what came before. Capturing a lot of the same roughness and grittiness as well as the lightness and hope. Lucas’s colors play once more in the realms of light and dark, enhancing that heavier but also hopeful tone.

Nightwing #104 is now available from DC Comics.