Nightwing Vol. 3: Death of the Family (#13-#18 & Batman #17)

3/5

Great first volume, remarkable second volume, and... Well, no one said writing comics was easy.

So Scott Snyder, the writer of the Batman for the whole New 52 era, wanted to write another huge Batman story that required tie-ins from other Batman-related series (after all, it mostly worked for City of Owls). In this event, the Joker has returned to Gotham City after gone missing for five years, putting the Bat-Family on high alert. Dick Grayson is busy with assassin Lady Shiva coming into town on top of trying to restore Gotham's old theme park Amusement Mile, but that doesn't stop the Joker from getting his attention.

Death of the Family is a bit of a disappointment in my eyes, both in the Batman and Nightwing series. However, Kyle Higgins does his best at making the story feel as natural as possible and this series seems to have a bigger seems to be impacted more than the Batman series where the core of the story takes place (weird). The story still has a nice flow to it and the art is serviceable, but it wasn't until the last issue of this volume (after wrapping up the Joker story) that made me excited to see where the series is going next. In the next volume, Nightwing might be free of crossover burdens and Kyle Higgins has done an exceptional job with the solo stories.

So even if there was a big drop in quality here compared to the last volume, this one is still an entertaining read and I would still recommend this series to others.

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