Nightwing 34 Preview/Discussion

[nightbird]

Raptor and Pigeon actually look kind of cute together. Too bad Raptor is still hung up on Mary.

Man, Mary was completely oblivious when it came to Raptor, wasn't she?

Well, she wasn't.
And named her child after him...

[Ivy_b]

Did Seeley really hint at what I think he did? And did he really take those two guys off the board completely? Cripes. Well it was gutsy that's for sure.

Yeah, I don't know how I feel about that implication. Maybe he's just named after him, but still. I probably would have preferred nothing to have actually happened between Raptor/Mary.

Also I wish they would have let Raptor live, I really liked him as Nightwing's rogue, even though I know he's so Dick obsessed (heh) he had to have an expiration date, otherwise it would have been too repetitive. I dunno.

[TheCape]

Eh,decent tied up for the whole run, never was a fan of Raptor, wasn't expecting that implication about Mary and him, althougth i doubt that is going to be follow in any level.

[Godlike13]

Satisfying end. Kind of hate the Blockbuster was the one who got Raptor. Raptor is just the far superior arch. His name was a nice touch. No I don't think it means he's Dick's father (Dicks mom can't be that horrible of a person). I'm choosing to see his fate as ambiguous, because quite frankly I want to see him again.

[Badou]

Yeah, I wasn't a fan of the revelation about Raptor and Dick's mom. It basically implied that Dick's mom named him after Raptor. Which further implies that she might have been cheating on Dick's father with Raptor and even further implication that Dick might be Raptor's son? I don't know if Seeley meant for it to come across that way, but I wasn't a fan of it. Even if Dick is just named after him it is a bit strange for Dick's mom to name their son after a former boyfriend of her's. That is really weird. Also I doubt Raptor is dead, but after this arc I'm a bit uninterested in seeing Raptor again. I don't think he is a great arch nemesis.

Anyway, overall I've really enjoyed Seeley's run on the character going all the way back to Grayson. His Nightwing run sort of became a little frustrating, but I still have a massive amount of respect for everything he's done and tried to do for Dick's character. I wish him well on his future titles and his upcoming Green Lantern run.

[Rakzo]

Appropriate conclusion overall. Seeley pretty much closed the door on all of the ideas he created for this run satisfactorily and demonstrated a strong bond between Dick and Raptor at the end.

Fernandez' art was good as usual. Don't think I'm going to continue with this series considering who is coming though.

[K. Jones]

This was satisfactory. But similar to Grayson, I don't think Seeley stuck the landing (although in that regard, he and King ghostwrote a plot and it was other writers failing to stick the landing, which is more understanding). There are a lot of elements in this issue I do like a lot, so it's not a total write-off. In fact, on the whole I quite liked the Raptor's Revenge arc and thought it was a good marriage of Seeley's initial run concepts as well as some much more 90s Dixony Bludhaven concepts. Elements like a blockbuster-sized Tiger Shark, Defacer using spray cans full of anti-buster antidote made by Orca with her whaley tie-in to Bludhaven's whaling history, Pigeon going whackadoo and revealing strange either insanity or real magical god knows what about herself as a basically footnote in the story, Dick working with redemptive villains, and so forth, all worked rather well. The casino stuff worked rather well.

But I still don't think this final issue stuck the landing, and the wrap-up vignettes were nice, but weren't the close-out this title deserves. I think we deserved one more issue, of the "capstone to the run"/"one shot send-off" variety to close out a lot more things.

Another thing I realized this go around was that, although I like the conceptualization of the Run-Offs, I don't like their costume design, and frankly I don't really dig on much of the "design", costume-wise, of this run. Some, not all, but Grayson was so stylish and a lot of the early stuff came from Seeley's own concept art, and this book felt a little more basic - but the general themes, the international double agent stuff, the secret organizations, even the "ex-villains in a casino town" aspects, could have used much slicker, more fashion heavy design-work.

Anyway, I hope Seeley works with Dick Grayson again some time, somewhere, but I think this series peaked or climaxed with the SPYRAL arc, not with this final Raptor/Blockbuster showdown. This one felt more like closing up the last few remaining plot points before moving on.

[The Whovian]

Well, that was pretty good ending. I liked it. About the last few words Raptor said...

spoilers:

He said his name was Richard. What do you guys make of that? Why did he feel it was so important to tell Dick his name?

end of spoilers

[nightbird]

I don’t think “name reveal” implies that Mary cheated on her husband or that Dick is not John Grayson’s son. Just first love, respect, his illness and friendship between them made her honor Richard by naming Dick after him. For Raptor, because he couldn’t be with Mary, Richard something like the son he never had. So he hates him and loves him in equal (or not so much) parts. Seeley probably tried to connect Raptor and Nightwing even more or show the difference between two Richards with that reveal.

[Badou]

I don’t think “name reveal” implies that Mary cheated on her husband or that Dick is not John Grayson’s son. Just first love, respect, his illness and friendship between them made her honor Richard by naming Dick after him. For Raptor, because he couldn’t be with Mary, Richard something like the son he never had. So he hates him and loves him in equal (or not so much) parts. Seeley probably tried to connect Raptor and Nightwing even more or show the difference between two Richards with that reveal.

The kiss between them right before the name reveal made it seem like it was something more. Maybe if Mary only ever saw him as a friend that would work, but the kiss seemed like she didn't.

[nightbird]

The kiss between them right before the name reveal made it seem like it was something more. Maybe if Mary only ever saw him as a friend that would work, but the kiss seemed like she didn't.

That looked like just Raptor’s memories to me though. I still don’t think he and Mary had anything going on romantically after he got ill and she met John Grayson.

[Drako]

Why people always think the worse? Nothing suggest that Raptor is Dick's Father.

Mary and Raptor had a thing when they were younger, it's pretty simple and straightforward. She moved on, he did not. Although, Raptor still was someone special in her life, so she choose his name for her son. It's not like Mary couldn't had any relationships before John.

[Badou]

Why people always think the worse? Nothing suggest that Raptor is Dick's Father.

Mary and Raptor had a thing when they were younger, it's pretty simple and straightforward. She moved on, he did not. Although, Raptor still was someone special in her life, so she choose his name for her son. It's not like Mary couldn't had any relationships before John.

If my wife wanted to name our son after one of her former boyfriends I'd think that would be really weird. Before we thought that only Raptor was romantically interested in Mary, but the kiss seemed to imply that the romance was mutual, which changed how I looked at their relationship. It is just the way the two reveals in the issue were done, with Mary/Raptor being romantically involved and Dick being named after Raptor, made it all come across that way I think is all.

[Godlike13]

Its super weird. I can only think the only way John would be ok with it is if he was confident that Dick was his son. Otherwise im pretty sure he'd be making the same assumption. Plus it would just be super messed up on Mary's part to have a kid with someone else behind John's back, name him after that guy, then have John raise that kid thinking it was his. Also there's William Cobb and that lineage.

[Alycat]

If my wife wanted to name our son after one of her former boyfriends I'd think that would be really weird. Before we thought that only Raptor was romantically interested in Mary, but the kiss seemed to imply that the romance was mutual, which changed how I looked at their relationship. It is just the way the two reveals in the issue were done, with Mary/Raptor being romantically involved and Dick being named after Raptor, made it all come across that way I think is all.

Agreed. That is really strange. It actually makes more sense if they didn't have a relationship because then it would just be really close friends or honoring someone who was like a brother.