Nightwing Vol. 2: Rough Justice

I hate to keep harping on about this, but the 90's were not kind to comics. I'm remembering very clearly why I stopped reading them in this decade. I'm also shallow enough that the art has to be pretty for me to truly enjoy a series. Young(er?) Dick is kind of hard to love at times. I'm having a hard time understanding why he's so grumpy about Bruce (maybe because I didn't read the Batman comics that came before this? or is it a dude thing?), though the need to prove himself is a good(ish) tool for character development. Another disadvantage of not having a good grounding in Batman and Boy Wonder history is that I wasn't sure who the other characters showing up were. There was some background given, but for the most part, I just floated along with the "truse me, this is a Bad Guy" feeling. Also Soames: Ew.

Rough Justice is the second volume in the Nightwing series from the mid-90s, and this book picks up right where Nightwing: Bludhaven left off, though with a surprise beginning that leaves readers in immediate suspense. We’re thrown right into the action with the first issue in the book, #9, and any Batman fan would be just as excited as I was to realize the twist of this issue, the reason behind all the suspense and confusion. And just when one thinks they’re beginning to understand, the story continues to have twists that keep the pages turning. Though this book started with a bang, there were points where the excitement didn’t ride out - in some ways, it feels as if this Nightwing series lacks a certain amount of depth that one might find in Batman comics or in later Nightwing comics. Though the stories are very engaging and keep you wanting more, they also leave something to be desired as far as Dick’s character development. Though we certainly get sprinkles of Dick growing and maturing throughout the story, I would have liked a story with a few more layers to it, as Rough Justice felt a little bit like it didn’t want to confuse the audience with complexities. One of the strengths of this Nightwing series, which ran for over ten years, is that these early issues are mostly told through the internal monologues of Dick, which I think gives a great insight into his character and his struggle with his identity, though again I wish this could have been fleshed out a little further. We see Dick’s thought as he tries to become his own man and his own vigilante, and we see the ways in which he’s both similar and dissimilar to Batman/Bruce Wayne. The last issue in this collection isn’t a part of the Nightwing Series Two run like the rest of the book, but rather it’s a Nightwing annual, with a different writer, artist, and plot all together. And in this story readers get a taste of that depth and maturity that the rest of Rough Justice only teases at. As a standalone story, Nightwing Annual #1 is a great crime adventure that also has a number of awesome character building moments for Dick as both himself and as his alter ego Nightwing. The greatest weakness of this entire book, however, is the artwork. Admittedly, McDaniel and Story’s style is one that I dislike quite a bit, and it took me a long time to move past the overly-cartoonish style and focus completely on the story being told. It doesn’t help that the art itself is a little confusing - there’s too much going on in most of the panels, and the colorists of the series don’t do the art any favors. If the art and colorings were more refined, I think it would have really elevated Rough Justice, but instead the comics come off too cartoony and, for myself, that severely detracted from the story being told.