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Woo hoo!

I am so excited for this issue! Since they announced quite a few months ago that Dick was going to play a BIG role in this Court of Owls story 'finale' (purposely avoiding the use of 'event'), I've been anxiously awaiting its release. Can't wait to download it tomorrow!!

First off, welcome back sir! it's good to see you again.

Second, Eddie Barrows is killing it on this book. I wish he could do a full issue, but the back up artists seem to have a similar style, so it's working. However, those pages really jump out at me and bring the book to life.

I also cannot wait to see Dick's role in this cross over, or to see the fall out between Dick and Bruce about the circus and Dick's ancestor being a Talon!

Well, my expectations were met and exceeded! I'm completely absorbed in the telling of this Owl's story, and how Dick has such a big connection to it all. I love seeing his history; its such a cool plot point to start exploring his ancestry, and weaving him into the fabric of Gotham. The writing was very good, not a single complaint on my end. And as you say Will, Barrows is just outstanding on the book too! I love his work. There's a few little twists here too that took me by surprise...I can't wait to hear what others have to say about this one. I really feel like if you're not enjoying this book, you're trying too hard.

Wow! Best issue of the run, by far. I'm super excited about the murder mystery that STARTS the book, and it just gets even more exciting from there. The story effortlessly joins the overall Court of the Owls cross-over. So many times a book feels clunky when heading into a crossover, but with all the groundwork laid up until now the story just flows right into the main event nicely.


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I thought Dick did an outstanding job here, and was very capable. Considering Bruce spent most of Batman 8 running away, brought the cave temperature down, and then upgraded his uniform to fight the Owls, Nightwing's fight in the dark, in his usual gear, ending in a win was awesome. But now he has to face his ancestor bloody and bruised! How will that go down?

Barrows got to draw the whole issue, and it was great. just wonderful storytelling and flow. I could feel Dick's pain when the sword hit him. I think this book really found its groove.

I'm gonna quote myself from last month, "I'm excited where the book is headed and I think Higgins' is trying really hard, but just doesn't have the skills yet to deliver. Maybe he can get his engine running and really blow me away in the future, but right now Snyder's Batman book is on another level."

Wow, Higgins did it with this issue. He wrote a perfect book and completely blew me away. I was even better than Snyder's Batman 8. If Higgins can keep this up this book is gonna go far.

I'm can't wait to see what JW has to say about this issue.

I loved it!


SPOILERS BELOW!











We're FINALLY getting to see Dick come into his own; he made good decisions the entire way through, learned on the go, and played his strengths against the Talon's weaknesses. I'm so excited to see how he handles the next issue; being stabbed through the chest can't be a good thing!

This was the first time I was okay with Dick being caught by surprise like that; it was perfectly justified and written in-character. This is a brand-new adversary who knows Dick a lot better than Dick knows him. What a great match!

My feelings haven't changed. The underlying plot is Snyder's, so all that leaves Higgins is choosing Dick's place in it and scripting the story.

I like the choices he made in setting up the story, and the two perspectives were a great device for providing backstory without being ham-fisted about it.

Where Higgins' work suffers in this issue (and everything he writes) is the dialogue. He crams needless exposition into it, making it come off stilted and unimaginative ("He's an assassin for The Court of Owls, here to KILL you!").

Then there's the bad action movie dialogue...

"I've been trained by the best fighters on the PLANET."

"Good. So have I."

"You're good. But not NEARLY good enough!"

Having said that, it IS the best issue of the bunch so far. For the first time, Higgins displayed some elegance in storytelling mechanics, employing a little style for a change.

Still, it still pales in comparison to the top writers out there, and definitely falls off in quality if you read Snyder's Batman #8 first.

So Higgins still comes off as a novice writer here, but it's great to see him making some progress. The whole series to date has benefited greatly from its reliance on Scott Snyder's work, so I'm very interested to see what happens when they take the training wheels off and Higgins has to fend for himself.

Solid issue overall. 7/10

Actually, I personally think this issue flowed much better than Batman #8 and was more fun to read. The best one of the Bat-books this week.

I have to agree with this. This issue made me actually come back to this site and figure out my login and password. (If anyone remembers me, I look forward to getting to know you all again and if you dont remember me I look forward to getting to know you for the first time.) Scott Snyder is probably my favorite new writer ever since his detective run. I believe his and Grant's potrayal of Dick Grayson were the best the character has ever seen.

So every month I read Scott's Batman right after Kyle's Nightwing and I just sigh thinking of what it would be like to have Scott and Jock back. This week however I read Scott's Batman and then Kyle's Nightwing and didn't sigh. Nightwing blew Batman out of the water this month. I loved seeing Kyle laid seeds for the next storyline in the beginning of the book as it will only make the book feel more natural. The flashback to William Cobb was very interesting (noticed he fell for a red head...must be in the genes), but Nightwing absolutely kicked a** this week. He got vicious with the Talon and took him down fair and square.

The story was really awesome this week, but what really elevated this issue was the art. Eddy killed it this issue. Everyone take their nightwing issues out again and go back to the double page spread of Nightwing crashing through the window. Not only is that retardedly awesome, but take notice that the panels on the side of the second page is actually shards of the window Nightwing crashed through. SO AWESOME. The fight scene was just so great too. Nightwing running across walls, sword fighting, and taking some serious bumps but fighting through them. Just such awesome stuff.

Kyle has said for months that the series really hits it stride with this issue and that every issue keeps getting better and if thats true I'm completely on board now. Nightwing #9 feels like its going to just be pure epic. He posted a picture from that issue on twitter and it looks amazing. He says that Nightwing #9 puts #8 to shame and damn guys if thats true I need to see it to believe it because this issue of Nightwing is definitely one of the best the characters seen inside his own series (including Vol 1). Definitely the best issue featuring Dick Grayson as the lead character since Detective Comics.

Long story short, this issue was amazing and I'm so hyped for the future of this book.[B]

I don't know. Some of the criticism of Higgins just doesn't ring true to me, and feels too forced. When I'm reading Higgins words, I'm not thinking of bad action movies at all. I thinking comic book writing, pure and simple. He's not doing anything differently than other "established" writers are doing. Here's just two examples from Snyder in Batman #8 alone:

Owl: "Ha, Ha! Seems you have some moves, Mr. Wayne! Well so do I!"

Bruce: "Maybe so, but yours went out of style two hundred years ago!"

Or later...

Bruce: "Get the hell out of my house!"

Is that not cliche dialogue too? So why does Snyder get a pass, and Higgins is "inexperienced"?


And I think it's wholly unfair to say that Higgins is riding on Snyder's coattails. The two are VERY close friends. I'm admittedly a fan of both, and have seen a lot of evidence to indicate that they often collaborate on ideas, plots, etc. So, is it not possible that some of Snyder's story was improved by his collaboration with Higgins? Why does it all have to be one-sided? A rising tide lifts all boats, so I prefer to believe that the two working together has produced a fantastic story on both writer's parts. To say that all Higgins has contributed is a plot thread and dialogue seems to not only be denigrating to Higgins, but also an assumption that, to my knowledge, has no basis in fact. We don't know to what extent the two have collaborated on this story, and therefore, the assumption shouldn't necessarily be so negative.

Lastly, I've obviously read both books, and I can't definitively say that it lacks the quality that Batman #8 does. In fact, I found myself much more pleased with Nightwing #8, than Batman #8. I thought some of the plotlines in Batman were quite silly. For instance...

- Are we to believe that Bruce, who has literally planned for every possible outcome for EVERYTHING, doesn't have a security system that announces an intruder, until he's already on the roof of the mansion? Seems like he might be SLIGHTLY more sophisticated!
- The Owl (world-class assassin, mind you) chases Alfred into the Batcave...sees him standing at the computer...but then apparently loses track of him, and doesn't see him hide behind the giant penny?
- Alfred goes through the litany of issues that Bruce is having with his eyes and eyesight at the moment (tissue inflammation, "conjunctival hemorrhage"), only to find out a few panels later, that he's wearing contacts?? Seems like that might be more bothersome for him than the light being turned on!

I don't know...these things don't bother me; I write them off as being silly things that should be overlooked. But if you're going to point to it as being so well-crafted & so much better written than another person's work, then I think you have to take those fine points into consideration.

My bottom line is, I like all of the work on Nightwing that I've seen from Higgins so far, and I've seen nothing from him to indicate that he is in a class below the rest of the writers at DC. But it's all personal preference...if you don't like the writer, than that probably won't change...not because he's a bad writer, but because you don't like his style. It just seems a bit to me like not liking Thai food, then going to a Thai restaurant, over and over, and writing bad reviews of the food there each time.

So, moving beyond the usual Higgins-good vs Higgins-bad discussion....

Was anyone else as shocked as I was, when Dick used his stick to "kill" the Owl? My heart almost stopped for a second, as I contemplated the fact that perhaps, in this new DCU, Dick wasn't afraid to use deadly force to subdue a criminal! Then, almost as if Higgins knew that there were a million people out there, wondering the same thing as me, he immediately explains the loophole...these Owls are already dead! LOL Now perhaps, many aren't as "simple-minded" as I am, and immediately picked out the fact that he was already dead, so he could be killed. But for me, it was a great little moment in the story. I could be wrong, but it showed me that Higgins knows his Nightwing fans, and their 'hot buttons', and was maybe 'messing' with them a little bit. I like that in a writer, personally!

I agree with you Grayson-ite. Although overall Snyder's Batman run has been better than Higgin's Nightwing run, Nightwing 8 was much better than Batman 8. I remember rolling my eyes at a lot of Bruce's quips especially the 200 years ago line. Really lame.

Also, the dialogue in Nightwing 8 was spot on for me. Jags brings up the line up court of owls here to kill you, but the way I read it was Grayson was just sprouting out whatever he could as quickly as he could as he tried to get the mayor to safety. I also really digged the "Good. So have I." line honestly. The talon was really trying to belittle Nightwing and he shot back pretty much "**** you ive been trained by better"

As for the "killing" the talon so to speak the idea of him killing him didnt really cross my mind. I got really hyped when he stabbed him, "Regenerate around that" just such an awesome moment. By the time I realized what he did Higgins already had Nightwing explaining the loophole.

It's hard to imagine anyone is in a position where they can't wait to see what I have to say about a Nightwing issue lol. My opinion is worthless.

And yet, here it is...

I said it in the "Dream Team" thread, that I haven't seen NW throw down like this in 15 years. Even with how it ended up, that was quite an impressive win for Nightwing, and without the help of Batman, Robin, Tarantula, Vigilante, Jason Todd or any other Mary Sue.

It was an impressive feat. He really rose to the occasion and performed better as a fighter than he has in well over a decade.

Even with how it ended up, with those projectiles sticking out of NW, this current win is almost enough to give one faith that he will fight back and get a win even though he's injured (Because, let's face it, "Injured Nightwing loses a battle" is practically a meme at this point. There's no way DC can let that happen again without becoming a laughing stock.).

I was impressed with his throw down. I was fully expecting him to lose or be rescued or be bonked on the back of the head. This is his first solo, unqualified win against a serious opponent in ages.

It's about bloody time and I hope it continues.

That Vigilante story really broke my spirit back in the day. Marv's and Igle's run was really picking up steam when it got into the 321 Days arc. That really could've went down as a definitive Nightwing story, but that final issue where Vigilante totally punks our boy and Nightwing fails outright really took everything out of me.

Right now I have that same type of feeling in me. Higgins is finally hitting his stride and really is putting himself in position to tell a definitive story about Dick Grayson as NIGHTWING (not Batman). Like you said John, let's hope it continues man. This time around though I don't see us NW fans getting dissed by the writer. #9 sounds awesome and it could really propel NW into his next story which sounds really interesting to me.

I agree. After Dixon made NW incompetent and Devin Grayson made him unrecognisable and Jason Todd was clearly meant to take over as NW, it was hoped Wolfman would return us to the glory days. Instead, Vigilante was just another soon to disappear character DC intended to use Nightwing as a stepladder to solo stardom. It was more than I could bear, as well. I still haven't regained my interest in Nightwing after his decade of incompetency. DC did that to me. I didn't just lose interest in the character, DC beat me over the head with a crappy version of the character I used to know until I finally found myself not caring about Dick Grayson for the first time since I began reading comics.

I hope this turns it all around for him. God knows he deserves it.