If every issue about Nightwing showed our hero slugging it out with some costumed lowlife, the series would get dull pretty fast. So A Darker Shade of Justice, the fourth collection in the series, includes a few major benchmarks in Dick Grayson's career.

In Bat-chronology, the book begins shortly after a cataclysmic earthquake devastated Gotham, the federal government closed the city down and a flood of refugees swamped Bludhaven, where Nightwing hangs his mask. The first chapter of this adventure features a surprise visit by Superman who, rebuffed by Batman at assisting in Gotham, offers to lend a quick hand here. This one-shot issue is a throwaway, entirely unnecessary in continuity, and yet it's a fun issue nonetheless.

The story from there develops rapidly, as Grayson joins the police academy (so he can fight crime by night and day), a pair of traveling French acrobats makes Bludhaven their personal playground, and a misguided hero wannabe dubbed Nite-Wing begins making his move on the city. If that wasn't enough, Batman summons Dick back home to Gotham to deal with a crisis at Blackgate Prison, where both the inmates and the guards are equally to fear.

And then, just to get things even juicier, a sick and injured Nightwing comes calling at Barbara Gordon's door and, amidst their fumbling steps toward romance, a cadre of ex-cop gangsters try to storm her fortress.

Chuck Dixon has always been the perfect writer for current and former Robins, and in A Darker Shade of Justice he gives us a character who is comfortable standing alone, no longer in the shadow of his Bat-mentor. Scott McDaniel isn't my favorite artist, but I must say his jumbled, chaotically detailed art here expresses a kinetic energy perfect for Dixon's script.

by Tom Knapp
Rambles.NET
3 February 2007