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Review: Nightwing Rebirth #1

By Zak Edwards
July 25, 2016 - 13:28

Nightwing Rebirth #1 is my very first Nightwing/Dick Grayson comic outside of Grant Morrison’s Batman & Robin where Grayson took over the Batman mantle. For me, he’s been Batman's sounding board when Alfred's not available. Picking up the issue, I was excited to see how Grayson worked on his own. I was hoping for a bit of Batman/Gotham schtick before Nightwing headed off to do his own thing. This hope was unfulfilled. In its stead, I got something that blurs the lines between sales catalogue and comic book.

Nathan Fairburn's colouring in Nightwing Rebirth #1 is the most consistent and best part of the book.

Basically, this first issue is boring right down to its format, which essentially goes like this:

1. Damian and Dick at an arcade.
2. Flashback to a conversation between Dick and someone else. Remain unsure if its an ad for another series or if the conversation has any merit or purpose.
3. Back to Dick and Damian.
4. Wash, rinse, repeat. Multiple times over.

For connective tissue, writer Tim Seeley even uses pseudo-clever narrations taken from the Watchmen playbook. And like most things borrowed from Watchmen, it’s tiresome at this point some thirty years later. It’s a lot of talk and not a lot of anything happening. In fact, the story only starts moving about seven pages from the end, which left me wondering why I’d even read the previous two thirds of the book.

I understand that Rebirth needs to catch people up on the new status quo, give some new readers a bit of history, and start a new chapter. I also understand that’s a lot to jam into a single issue. This comic, however, is a text-heavy history lesson where I don’t know what’s important and what’s just cross-promotion, because it mostly feels like cross-promotion. And there isn’t even a decent shot of Nightwing’s famous butt.

On the subject of butts, or lack thereof, it’s surprising to me how such a gifted artist as Yannick Paquette can so easily slip into DC’s house style. His art is usually gorgeous, especially when you look at work like Wonder Woman: Earth One, but here, it’s almost as drab as the script. It certainly picks up at the end when the action happens, mostly because Paquette’s action sequences are almost always incredible. But for the conversations, the work is quick and utilitarian, lacking his usual flourishes.

As usual, Yannick Paquette's action sequences are captivating.

Nathan Fairbairn’s colouring is the most perfect thing in this issue, balancing different colour schemes for each flashback. Fairbairn’s colouring is mostly stripped down, which gives Paquette’s art plenty of space to show off, which is does occasionally. I only wish the rest of the issue was as consistent as the colouring.

tl;dr review: A book of conversations within conversations and few butts.

Last Updated: August 31, 2023 - 08:12