Heights, Hot Baths, And Hidden Trauma: Reviewing ‘Nightwing’ #117

Nightwing’s current run began by leaping into the light. To survive the run’s end, he must learn to leap again. Not a tough task at all, except for the whole ‘poisoned to fear heights’ issue he’s dealing with.

It’s penultimate chapter time with Nightwing #117, as Tom Taylor, Bruno Redondo, Adriano Lucas, and Wes Abbott prepare to bring their three-year run to a close. They’re joined by Caio Filipe on some of the inks for this issue.

Three years is a long time for a team to be on any book, especially in the modern era of comics. It means a lot of ups and downs, issues that hit, and ones that miss (subjectively of course). This book has always been at its best when it had heart. Funny to say that when the ultimate villain is known as Heartless, but hey, it’s true.

This issue shows that off.

Dick Grayson is struggling with his fear of leaping while Bruce Wayne/Batman (playing Nightwing) and Barbara Gordon/Oracle fight to keep Blüdhaven safe. It doesn’t help that Grayson is believed to be the serial killer Heartless, who is impersonating him. Everything he built is being ruined.

Taylor does great work with Grayson in these realms. It really shows why he is who he is and what makes him such a great hero and person. We get another origin-shattering revelation here, much like his introduced half-sister, but it works. Deep down, somewhere, Dick always knew he was the one meant to die that night at the circus, and this revelation sets him free. It’s a bit cliché in a way but sometimes life is that way.

Gorgeous artwork really brings deep vivid life to spaces and characters. This is part of Redondo’s calling card. Again, the character stuff is key. There is a lightness and heaviness to every character, as they convincingly move through the panels with true motion. Their bodies and faces convey their every emotional beat so smoothly. Just a glance creates the feeling that these people and their world are real and true.

Filipe easily slips in on the handful of pages with inks, so much so that I didn’t even notice till a full glance at the credits page. That’s the way things should be sometimes, finding that way to harmoniously work together to create a unified thing. With all the right levels of extra weight and depth provided by solid ink work.

The other half of what makes the art so great is the color palette that Lucas employs. It brings plenty of more neutral, level, yet still bright, colors that really make the world feel tangible and real. Around them are the heavier darker and more vibrant colors (it is a superhero book after all) we expect. It’s so smooth and bright, hitting all the right energetic sparks for the moment.

I especially dug the moments with Nightwing One (Dick) and Nightwing Two (Bruce) respectively doing their shadowy vigilante stuff. They’re ominous, powerful, and badass at the same time. In all the books that I’ve come across Lucas’ colors, they always are a true delight to behold, morphing and shifting to fit the book or tone but never losing an ounce of power.

Various characters speak in a number of ways from in person to over coms to through dead person possession throughout this issue. A ton of dialogue conveys various things, which is the Taylor way. All along, Abbott has been able to make it flow delicately across the pages, never becoming overwhelming at any point. Each of the aforementioned types of speech have their own unique bubbles, colors, and fonts to set them apart.

Volume and tone are inherently clear just from the choices made to those bubbles and fonts. Heavy character emotional heart is the calling card of the series, as mentioned, and it’s dripping from every word time and time again.

We’re down to the wire here, with one issue to go, and right now I have a feeling this run will end as high as it began. Which is just the way it should be.

Nightwing #117 is now available from DC Comics.