Monday, October 20, 2008

Nightwing 51

Story- This comic dealt solely with Nite-Wing, as he wrote down his life story on some paper from his cell in prison. Most of the comic consisted of flashbacks, detailing the early aspects of Nite-Wing's(Tad) life. Tad came from a home where his father sold stolen merchandise for a local crime boss, and his mother did nothing but smoke and talk on the phone.
Tad was addicted to comic books and didn't understand how the justice in comics was so straight forward, where as his reality was that there seemed to be no justice. Tad soon learned that his Dad was working for both the local crime boss, selling the stolen goods, as well as dirty cops, who had Tad's dad give them a supply of free goods in order to avoid jail time.
Young Tad decided to act, and sent a message to the crime boss that his dad was a rat. The crime boss killed Tad's dad, and the cops took his mother to prison as an accessory to the murder. Tad then bounced from foster home to foster home, never sticking in one place because of his increasingly violent behavior.
Eventually, when he was old enough, he left foster care, and began his own crusade against crime and injustice. Unfortunately, Tad could not distinguish who was good or evil, and he would often attack and beat people he assumed were evil, even if they weren't. In order to support his "crime fighting", he would steal money from his victims, regardless if they were really bad guys, or just innocent people in the wrong place at the wrong time. Tad continues this behavior, until he is finally busted by Nightwing, and sent to the clink. He closes out his writings by stating that not only were villains on his list, but heroes like Nightwing, who didn't go far enough to punish the evildoers would also have to pay the price.

Overall- I can't say I liked this issue at all, because the character of Nite-Wing/Tad, was never really a favorite of mine. I can understand what Chuck Dixon(the series writer) was trying to do, humanize Tad and make him a multi-dimensional character, but it just didn't work for me, because Tad never really tried to become a hero, he was just a delusional petty criminal who fancied himself like the characters in the comics he read. Well, I can honestly say, after 50 good to great issues in this series, Dixon finally turned out one i didn't enjoy. Oh well, there's always next issue.

No comments:

Post a Comment