Nightwing Annual #2: Holy Plot Twists Batman!

Dan Jurgens has already earned plenty of praise for turning this Ric ship around, taking an angsty mope and slowly working him towards something resembling the awesome sauce known as Nightwing. Frankly just continuing to work the path he was on would have been more than sufficient to make Nightwing’s monthly title enjoyable again but instead Jurgens brought back the charmingly skeevy William Cobb and his masters the Court of Owls. Imagine you’re eating a mash potato white bread sandwich and then you bite into a ghost pepper outta nowhere. That’s basically the difference between pre-Court of Owls and what just exploded out of the last few issues and definitely from Nightwing Annual #2.

After a bit of backtracking and some interesting insight on Grayson’s childhood, we get one sick ending revealing the truth behind Nightwing’s amnesia! You’re probably wondering, well how could they take this daytime soap opera trope into the kinda thing we read Nightwing for? Well what if I told you the Court of Owls was behind it and did it to mind wipe the memories of being a hero away in order to create the perfect blank slate for a premiere Talon assassin to make the Court more deadly than ever. Yeah that’s what I thought, all aboard the HYPE TRAIN!!!

It’s been quite sometime since the Court of Owls was still on the same level of ferocity as they were when they were first introduced. In one issue the Court went from “Oh cool finally something interesting going on in Nightwing again” to “Bruh!!! This is straight up slapping!” A sinister plot that will no doubt shake Nightwing to his core, cause some earthquakes among the Bat-fam and probably end up with bodies stacked up among the people Grayson’s amnesiac self has grown fond of. I can’t say it enough but I am absolutely ready to see “Ric” broken down to his basic components and rebuilt as the Nightwing we all love but better than ever. One thing that sets him apart from the other Bats is Dick always comes out of tragedy stronger, more determined and somehow still his bright cheery self so seeing how nuts this is gonna have to get before it gets better…..so much yes.