DC Comics 2021
Written by Andrew Constant
Illustrated by Nicola Scott
Coloured by Ivan Plascencia
Lettered by Wes Abbott
Batman is gone! Now, Nightwing has taken on the mission of keeping the citizens of Gotham City safe from the Magistrate. But to do that, he’ll have stay one step ahead of the Magistrate! And you know things have gotten bad in Gotham when the safest place for Dick to hide out is the abandoned Arkham Asylum! When Nightwing gets a visit from a mask claiming to be the new Batman…does he fight like one?
I wasn’t really interested in all these books. I mean I’m not even sure what this is supposed to be about or if this is supposed to be in continuity, if that is even still a thing, or if it’s one of the many Earths in the Multiverse or what. I am, however, working with DC these days and I’ve always had a soft spot for Dick Grayson so here we are. So there are a number of things that intrigue me here, Paul is a little known writer and Ahoy Comics guy and he’s stepping into his own as a storyteller. Nicola is a wonder woman in her own right and to see her take on Dick, and the rear end that’d make Chris Evans jealous, is going to be a winning combination in my opinion.
I like the way that this is being told. The story & plot development that we see through how the sequence of events unfold as well as how the reader learns information is presented extremely well. The opening here is spectacular and while at first it seems it is going to go one way Paul isn’t content to let us think we know what’s going to happen here and if he can do this right out the gate I cannot wait to see what else he has in store for us. The character development starts off straight forward and we get these glimpses of how he’s changed through the unknown yet powerful events that led up to this. I like what I am seeing and while I am not ready to explore those events I am eagerly awaiting to see what’s next. The pacing is superb and as it takes us through the pages revealing this new world and the story at hand and it is pretty glorious.
I love Nicola and the work that she does. Her linework is impeccable and how she’s able to utilise the varying weights and techniques to bring out this gorgeous detail work is masterful. I do wish we’d see backgrounds utilised more but hey it’s okay because how we see the composition within the panels is marvellous regardless. I am slightly disappointed that the towel didn’t fall off but that’s personal preference. The utilisation of the page layouts and how we see the angles and perspective in the panels show this masterful eye for storytelling. The colour work that we see is utterly spectacular. How we see the various hues and tones within the colours being utilised to create the shading, highlights and shadow work is exemplary. The eye for colour that we see here is so gorgeous and so talented in how we see the mood, tone and feel is enabled to seep into the reader.
With how we see this book structured and how the layers within the story have appeared as if they just manage to continue from what we’ve not seen is a stupendous display of talent. How everything works together to create the story’s ebb & flow is extremely nice to see. Overall if this were just one of the Earth’s of the Multiverse and it can remain that Earth’s future then I would love to see this continue, kind of like an Elseworld’s story.