Nightwing #44 Review

Writer: Benjamin Percy

Artist: Chris Mooneyham

Colourist: Nick Filardi

Letterer: Carlos M. Mangual

Benjamin Percy, fresh off of his Green Arrow run, jumps on to this series to start a new run on the character. I was excited to read this issue because of the inclusion of Chris Mooneyham on art. I haven't read anything Mooneyham has done but I was immediately struck by how beautiful his art looked when Percy previewed it a few months back.

And this issue does look gorgeous. Percy has a knack for working with incredible artists and the tradition continues. Mooneyham injects a grit into Bludhaven that no other artist of the past few years has been able to achieve. His Bludhaven really feels alive and I'm so excited to see what else Mooneyham has up his sleeve. We get a hint of action in the first few pages and it was handled very well. Nick Filardi's colours contribute greatly to the grit of the city.

And this is mostly where my praise ends. Percy isn't a favourite of mine since he doesn't necessarily tell interesting stories and always manages to find a theme that he latches onto that he forces into a book. This arc's theme, as you can tell from the cover by Declan Shalvey, is about technology. There are some online terrorists or some such nonsense that are now plaguing the city, blowing up people's phones remotely. What bothers me about this is that Percy attempts to provide such a stark difference between Dick and his enemies; they rely on technology and Dick still has a landline. It's not a bad concept, but Dick is a young person who has been shown previously to be affluent with technology. Percy's version of the character is seemingly completely anti-technology. The world that Percy depicts is one where literally everyone has their faces stuck to their phones in a very comical way. It's extremely contrived and there are better ways to explain a rift between two forces. Percy says Dick is anti-technology but a page late in the issue depicts him fiddling with some advanced piece of technology with no problem. He even gets it to work! Pick a lane, man.

I was disappointed by the story but was gripped by the sublime artwork by Mooneyham and Filardi. I'll have to wait and see if the story intrigues me but Percy has been known to simply disappoint me.