Nightwing #115: The Mirror Cracks Again

Nightwing #115 – written by Tom Taylor with art by Bruno Redondo, additional inking by Caio Filipe, colors from Adriano Lucas, and lettering by Wes Abbott – starts with a roaring flame, as the venue for Dick Grayson’s Alfred Pennyworth Foundation burns due to Heartless and his criminal gang. Grayson entrusts saving the civilians to Barbara and Damien, while he and Bruce stay behind to clear anyone left behind. When Shelton Lyle (the alter ego of Heartless) appears and asks Grayson for help to find his butler (a twisted reflection of Alfred), the vigilante splits off and is ambushed. 

The criminal duo discover Dick is Nightwing as they drug him and take him out of the building. Tony Zucco, the man responsible for the death of the Graysons, is now working for Zucco and also learns the secret as well. The three make a scheme for Dick, putting him into the Heartless costume and trapping him on a roof with a victim. It doesn’t take long for Blüdhaven PD to appear and attempt a takedown as Grayson flees. The escape doesn’t last long as his fear of leaping keeps him from leaving the dangerous rooftop. He ends his escape restrained, set to take the fall for the serial killer’s crimes. 

Taylor delivers a straightforward second installment that sheds the flashforward frame, placing all of the action in the fundraiser night. The only short exception is a flashback while Grayson is knocked out from the gas, but Taylor uses that as a clear narrative interlude. Sticking with the recent past timeline versus the present day or an extended dip in Grayson’s childhood allows for the scripting to dig into the twists of the story, anchoring into this version of Dick’s perspective. A flashforward may have undercut the identity reveal by explaining the twist via the dialogue framing, while a flashback unless constructed in a very specific way, would call out the reveal worse than a TV show’s spoiler-filled recap.

Taylor also takes the dark mirror structure of the larger run, in contrasting Grayson with Lyle, to a natural escalation point as the two finally move into direct conflict with one another. There is still one barrier before reaching total transparency between the two, in that Dick needs to learn that Shelton is Heartless, but Taylor leaves all the clues to Dick for the next issue. Instead, all the little plot beats that feed into the revelation of Grayson’s identity make complete sense at the moment. Nothing feels hacky or overwritten, and the reveal flows directly as an incidental result of Heartless’s dark plans for Grayson specifically. It’s a textbook case of dramatic irony playing out and is another reason why secret identities and long-running supporting casts are boons to superhero books. This type of twist would ring hollow in most six-issue arcs or miniseries. 

To give proper credit, Redondo’s ability to translate action, emotion, and internal stakes into clean design work and compositions remains one of the book’s biggest strengths. The artist can ensure that even in an issue with Dick, Bruce, and Damian all occupying varying roles in the narrative, they remain three distinct people in the artist’s stripped-down style. That little detail ripples outward across the pages, indicating just how easy every piece of the comic is to follow. That is not to diminish the quality, but speaks to the level of thought placed into the craft for creating a compelling page-turner. 

Redondo makes the flashback’s linework feel more dated, while the last act’s action in the present day screams out with a sense of dread and confusion. The blocking is laser-focused even as Dick is disoriented, struggling to realize where he is physically and emotionally. Redondo does excellent eye work in the issue, a specific panel popping when Dick looks at the ledge of the building he’s stuck on, eyes in close-up and drowning in fear. Redondo’s work never shies away from blending the graphic cartooning style with bold, exaggerated detail when needed. It’s an approach that works perfectly for a grounded vigilante dealing with the wider elements of a superpower-filled shared universe. 

Along with that artwork, Lucas’s coloring continues to match that visual approach with a heavy use of stylized, one-color backgrounds. Lucas can draw more emotion or create a richer atmosphere with one color than most artists using the whole crayon box. The first stretch of the issue oscillates between the bright red and oranges of the building on fire with the cool blues of computer monitors in Zucco’s command center, creating two distinct spaces in a manner of panels. One speaks to the organized chaos of the scene, while the other is in direct opposition with a direct emphasis on the calm control at that moment.

The book transitions and Lucas gets to play with uses of yellow and purple as Dick is drugged. The other striking moment of the issue is a scene living in muted pinks created by ambulance lights illuminating an alleyway as a murder occurs. It’s a harsh action that gets diffused through the coloring, making clear the murder is not a crime of passion but a calculated move. Lucas emphasizing the coloring choices in these moments adds to the efficiency of the story unfolding, as the colorwork feeds into the narrative’s overall direction. A tone or hue is enough to heighten a sense of emotion, propel a plot twist, or even deepen the understanding of a core theme like in this issue.