Nightwing #47
Joe Bainbridge
Recap
As Nightwing discovers the terminals he quickly fights them off, while the Russian Sisterhood hold up Willem Cloke and everyone at the announcement. However, Cloke is not phased by this and activates the phantoms attached to the sisterhood, forcing them to see horrors. Nightwing has discovered that the terminals can regenerate and can change their form at will and makes a swift exit through the window. The woman in charge of the sisterhood shoots off her own hand in order to stop the hallucinations and tries to attack Cloke who runs away.
Now Nightwing and Barbara are together and head for the sewers where there is no connection, and Willem is attacked by Wyrm, telling him to run back to Nightwing and take his memories. Willem and Nightwing fight in the sewers but Cloke falls onto a train track yet is saved by Nightwing.
This affects Willem as he had to get his transplants due to him being pushed onto a track. Cloke tells Nightwing about Wyrms plans to steal his memories, but suddenly Wyrm appears out of Barbara's phone and sucks Willem inside!
Review
This issue of Nightwing had brought nothing new to the table and the story slugs on. It had shown some promise in the first few pages with the Russian Sisterhood, as that is what Bludhaven is really about and so is what Nightwing is about. But then Percy dived straight back into the tech world where it was so grey and dull. The terminals were literally faceless goons and showed no real threat to Nightwing, but Wyrm did have creepy moments being able to appear through any technological screen. Him pulling Willem into the phone will remain a creepy point in comics for me.
Dicks relationship with Cloke was a high point in the issue as it shows off how he is different to Batman and can empathize with the villains. Cloke did it all for a reason and Dick appealed to his humanity for him to stop and listen. Barbara, on the other hand, is just there as this is ultimately a tech story and who else to bring in but the tech wizard of the Bat-family. She can do random tech things out of the blue and it seems really Deus Ex at times.
The art is average in this issue with Wyrms movement through the digital being quite cool to see on the page but ultimately there’s nothing of great achievement here.
Final Thoughts
Nightwing has given us a new kind of story with the terminals, and though the story will be changing Bludhaven, only the end of the story can tell just how far the writers will go.
Nightwing #47: Enter the Terminals
- Writing - 4.8/104.8/10
- Storyline - 6.2/106.2/10
- Art - 5.7/105.7/10
- Color - 6/106/10
- Cover Art - 6.4/106.4/10