Nightwing #6

Ugh... It's one of my least favorite comic books, starring one of my favorite comic book characters... Yes, it's once again for me to read Nightwing, this week's Runt of the Litter. Now, I usually write these introductions BEFORE I read the comic book, but in this case I read the comic first since I wasn't sure if I'd be using Brightest Day Rules here. As it is, after reading this one, I decided to go with a regular review... For this month at least...

Nightwing #6:

What Happened: We find out the Saiko, Raya and Mr. Haly's son Bryan were all plotting to eliminate Dick Grayson because Saiko blamed Dick for his death, Bryan was jealous of how close Dick was to his father, and Raya... Well, she really has no reason to go along with this nefarious plot, other than the fact that she seems to be mindlessly following Saiko. To kill Dick in the most flamboyant way possible, the trio plans a Grayson family tribute show to be held in Gotham City the very week the Flying Graysons were murdered. Not being able to come up with a good enough reason to call off the tribute show(besides the fact that Dick is the owner...), the tribute show goes on as planned, and Dick is pushed out to center stage to give an impromptu speech. While Dick is pontificating, Saiko sneaks into the building and sets off some silent alarms Dick had placed there. Dick rushes backstage and changes to his Nightwing attire and faces off with Saiko. For no reason at all, Saiko unmasks to Dick during the battle, revealing that he was the thought to be dead Raymond(who is... um, I've got nothin'...). While Dick is shocked by this revelation(and is probably trying to remember who the hell “Raymond” was), Saiko sets off a bomb under the big top

Thoughts: The best thing I can say about this comic was that it moved along quickly enough. There is just SO much wrong with this story... First and foremost is Saiko... Yeah, I know he's named Raymond, and I think he was involved with Haly's Circus in some way before his “death”, but that's it! I even googled “Saiko Nightwing” and STILL couldn't find out more info on Saiko! That's on Kyle Higgins, who, as the writer of this mess, should have done more to show WHY Raymond was important in the grand scheme of things... Besides that is Raya... Now, I get why Saiko is acting villainously here(he blames Dick Grayson for his “death”) and I get why Bryan Haly has sided with Saiko(he wants what Dick has, namely the Circus), but why the HELL is Raya working with those two?! She had nothing but good things to say about the Graysons! All I can piece together is that she felt somehow abandoned by Dick as a child... Which doesn't make any sense at all considering Dick was a minor when his folks died, and as such had to go wherever the courts put him(with Bats)... I'd say that maybe she was jealous of Dick and Batgirl's relationship, but she was already working with Saiko before she ever saw Dick and Batgirl together, so that shoots down that theory... So yeah, I'm totally blanking on why Raya would want to screw Dick over and allow dozens/hundreds of people to die at the tribute show... I guess I'll just chalk it up to bad storytelling and move on.

Score: 6 out of 10.

Yeah sure, why not reveal your identity to Nightwing for no good reason... Makes as much sense as anything else going on in this series.