Nightwing #19 Review – Kill Her or Don’t Already

Now that Nightwing has rescued his damsel in distress, he’s out to find the man behind the real plan. Professor Pyg was acting on orders, and he defied them when he refused to make Shawn Tsang one of his Dollotrons. So the mastermind settled for someone else to help push Nightwing toward his full potential: Damian Wayne. Despite his urging, Shawn is accompanying him to Egypt to rescue Robin from Dr. Simon Hurt.

Dr. Hurt was always obsessed with Batman and his psychological traumas, so it is rather odd that he is suddenly targeting Nightwing. A “Great Beast” seems to have ordered him to do so, to make Nightwing realize his full potential and range of possibilities from across the multiverse. Ten bucks says this Great Beast is either the Blue Donger or is tied to him in some way.

The ending to this portion of Nightwing’s journey in Egypt was shocking, although it left me asking, “Again?” No spoilers for that, because it’s rather huge and at the same time cannot be true. However, that’s not the only “are they dead this time?” question you will ask while reading.

Ever since Shawn’s kidnapping, the reader has been teased with Shawn possibly being dead. It happens once more in this issue, and I’m fairly certain it will happen next issue as well. One thing I can say about Deathwing dropping a statue on Shawn is that at the very least, it got her to stop talking about whether Dick will be a good Dad and she will be a good Mom. Slow your roll until after you take the pregnancy test, girly. That is, if she ever gets a chance to take the test. She told Nightwing to leave her alone with Deathwing to counsel him as the Dollotron starts to remember his former life. You know what happened the last time someone stayed alone with Deathwing when he had flashes of who he was? He killed Dollotron Robin. This seems like such a good idea for Shawn.

Seriously, kill her or don’t. Stop looming on the edge of will she or won’t she?

That said, the following panel illustrates everything wrong with this merging of timelines or universes going on in Rebirth.

Other side of the Universe, such as one of the many universes he saw himself in with that vision. As Dr. Hurt explains later, Deathwing cut him on the forehead to open his third eye and see these possibilities.

If Rebirth is combining timelines/universes/whatever, then why does Nightwing need to see all these possibilities? Is he going to pick one? Is he going to defy them and thus tell readers that this is the one and only Nightwing from here on out (until the publisher gets other ideas)? Or are we on yet another soul-searching tour for Dick Grayson? That’s one thing I’ll say about Damian Wayne; at least he knows exactly who he is.

Nightwing, the comic not the protagonist, needs to sit or get off the pot with a lot of these ideas floating around about Dick Grayson. All I can do, because I certainly won’t unsubscribe, is hope that all of this leads to something amazing. I’m keeping my faith in Tim Seeley.

Our Rating: meh

Author: Tim Seeley
Artists: Javier Fernandez, Minkyu Jung, and Chris Sotomayor
Publisher: DC Comics
Publish Date: 04/19/2017
Acquired via Purchase