Like Flies And Honey — Reviewing ‘Nightwing’ #123

Capitalism has a habit of festering and bringing as much ruin as success; specifically targeting some of the most vulnerable. Tearing up whole neighborhoods, communities, and cities all in the name of the bottom line.

Blüdhaven’s gang war has kicked up multiple notches as the evil behind Spheric Solutions digs their claws into the city deeper, causing all the chaos in order to sell more of their deadly technology and weapons to an embattled mayor and police force. Their actions threaten to undo all of the good that Nightwing previously brought back to the corrupt city.

Dan Watters, Dexter Soy, Veronica Gandini, and Wes Abbott continue their fantastic run with a series of tough situations facing the Grayson siblings and all of Blüdhaven.

Thematically, this has been a very dark opening arc to this creative team’s run. Visually, it has matched that beat-for-beat. This issue might be one of the darkest in both categories as Nightwing explores under the city and steps into its painful past.

I appreciate that Watters has not made this situation easy for anyone involved. There is no moment where Grayson can just swoop in, kick the butts of Spheric leadership, and call it a day. Despite finding out the CEO is a former villain, her grip on the city continues as the Spheric-backed violence keeps hitting Blüdhaven.

Introducing all of these various gangs has been quite illuminating. It gives the hard aspect of Blüdhaven far more depth and room to grow beyond just Blockbuster. We see the toll of the drug addicted, gene-modified Flyboiz gang. Their bodies mutated monstrously thanks to a dark tragic part of the city’s past. Tip of the cap to Watters for recalling and deepening the Infinite Crisis-era destruction of Blüdhaven at the hands of the semi-sentient toxic mass creature Chemo.

Of course, the toxic bodies were buried secretly under the city and forgotten. Such is the way with cities and corrupt officials looking to bury the past … especially any past that is inconvenient or deemed “not worth” remembering.

These spaces are dark, terrifying, and full of horrifying elements. Soy brings all of that to rough but vivid life. Tapping him to do the artwork for this series, and these stories in particular, was a stroke of genius. Inherently, his style matches this feeling while also having a lightness to it, which is perfect for hero books.

Each panel is rife with details and a sense of scale. It lets the characters feel authentic in their movement within and without of the spaces, choosing paneling layouts which benefit this and also help the overall kinetic energy burst off the page. Nightwing is a graceful character in his movements and we can feel that here.

Heavy darker tones seep their way into the color palette. In numerous spot that overwhelming darkness of the tunnels — only Nightwing’s logo and some errant lights offer illumination — feels precisely oppressive. Gandini does wonders with creating such accurate-feeling lighting effects. It’s not just those actually dark spaces that are heavy with shadows and darkness though.

Naturally, the scenes between Olivia Pearce and Mayor Melinda Grayson-Lin are just as dark. Thematically pointing to the fact that a dark pact is being made and the Mayor facing a corrupt opponent that is close to booting her from office. Plenty of flashy lights are around, piercing in the scenes and keeping Melinda mostly in darkness until the climactic moment where she makes a fateful choice in the matter. An expertly-crafted mood birthed through the choices made color wise to really speak to the scenes.

There are a number of different speech patterns at play here thanks to the various Flyboiz featured. Abbott gives them their own unique flair alongside the more standard lettering accompanying other characters. It gives it all the right spark and energy to really allow character’s voices to form and resonate through the pages, finding the right spots to drop it all and never overwhelm the overall scenes.

Abbott provides the right directional flow to keep the reader engaged with all things on the page.

Nightwing #123 is now available from DC Comics.