Nightwing #68 Review

Back To Ric

Written By: Dan Jurgens
Art By: Travis Moore, Ronan Cliquet, Nick Filardi, Andworld Design
Cover Price: $3.99
Release Date: January 15, 2020

With the Year of the Villain we saw William Cobb come to Bludhaven, where Lex Luthor gave him an offer....... what that offer was, I have no idea, but it began a story where we saw that all of Dick's memory loss was a plot by the Court of Owls to finally sway their Gray Son into their ranks and have the Talon they should have had all along.  In our previous issue we saw that Talon realized as Ric went and fought his fellow Nightwings and almost killed Condor Red, but at the last moment Ric spared Condor Red's life and looked like he wasn't about killing anymore.  Let's jump into this issue and see what's going on with our former Boy Wonder.

In this issue we see Ric Grayson come to his senses, but it's really never spelled out what that means because at the beginning we see Dick's memories of being Robin, Nightwing and a member of the Teen Titans, but as the issue progresses it seems he has no idea what his memories are and even seems to possibly believe that some of his implanted Court of Owls memories may be valid as well, but none of this really shows from the issue and by the end all we get is back to amnesia normal Ric Grayson who doesn't act any different than he did before William Cobb placed his brainwashing goggles on him.

Really, everything comes off so lackluster in this issue because it really felt like we were building to something with this Court of Owls reveal of them being the masterminds behind the selective amnesia and then bringing Ric into their fold for everything just to fall flat here with Ric's memory wall cracking and then just being as he's been for the past bunch of issues, with no real ramifications to the Court's plot or even his actions while he was being controlled.  

All in all, I did enjoy the art in this issue a lot, but for all my excitement that was building from this arc, this issue just fell completely flat with reverting right back to the status quo that people don't like by the end of the story and the most we got out of this is the idea that Ric doesn't have to be a killer to beat William Cobb and that he loves his girlfriend.  Yeah, that's not enough for me and everything just came crashing down to a big nothing by the end and I can only hope that bigger and better things are on the horizon for Ric because I need more out of this series than what we are currently getting, even with me not minding Ric Grayson as opposed to Dick.

Bits and Pieces:

While I was really into this story arc as it was progressing, this ending just kind of killed any momentum that this series had with its lackluster conclusion.  I did enjoy the art a lot here, but the story just fell completely flat for me and by the end it feels like it wouldn't have mattered if it was included in this series at all for how little it did.  Hopefully there are some interesting ramifications that will come from this arc and even this ending, but as is, I wanted more.

5.5/10