Review: Nightwing- The Gray Son Legacy

Quick Summary

Pros: The book’s main storyline is compelling and features an interesting conflict between Nightwing and the book’s main villain. This main storyline contains well-executed character development for Nightwing.

Cons: The book’s subplots are underdeveloped and are an unfortunate distraction from the main storyline. The artwork doesn’t suit the storytelling in most places.

Overall: This book is one of the better Nightwing books from this time period but still contains some problems. The main storyline is solid and has some great moments from both the heroes and the villains. However, it is weighed down by the other stories stretching through this collection, all of which are lackluster. This book may appeal to readers looking to experience the “Ric Grayson” era in Nightwing history but does not have too much appeal outside of this.

Story

Nightwing: The Gray Son Legacy, by Dan Jurgens, may be the best of the “Ric Grayson” era Nightwing stories but even it is troubled in a few ways. The book’s central narrative is where a majority of its positives come into play. This narrative has unique villains, a compelling conflict, and generally adds to Nightwing’s development in interesting ways. However, the book’s subplots are lackluster and generally distract from and weaken a better storyline. I would recommend this book to readers looking for a quick sample of this unique time in Dick Grayson’s life, as it summarizes the previous two volumes while significantly advancing the storyline, but wouldn’t recommend it to anyone just looking for a good comic to read.

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At the core of The Gray Son Legacy is a story about the Court of Owls manipulating Dick Grayson for their own ends. It is revealed that the Court helped cause Dick’s memory loss, that they pushed him away from the Bat-family, and that they are planning to rewrite his memories to make him subservient to them. This is a solid twist that is interesting on its own but is even better considering Dick’s extensive history with the Court and his specific connection to William Cobb. It also makes for a compelling central conflict, one with a powerful villain but that ultimately ends due to a triumph of will.

I also appreciate the way in which this volume begins to move past the memory loss storyline. It starts with a chapter that fully delves into the grief felt by members of the Bat-family and by Dick, in the wake of Dick’s memory loss. Then, it ends by starting to give Nightwing his memories back while not discounting the experiences he underwent when he was Ric. This feels like a good way to move on without dismissing this era entirely.

The problem is that the book’s subplots are lackluster. The storyline surrounding the Nightwings and their vigilante crusade feels underdeveloped and weak. In a similar way, the power outage storyline adds little to everything else taking place here. Unfortunately, the time spent on these lackluster storylines takes away from time that could have been spent further developing the main narrative and, thus, ends up damaging the volume as a whole.

(spoilers end here)

Art

The artwork in The Gray Son Legacy is alright but somewhat conflicts with the tone in the storytelling. The book’s opening chapter, with artwork from Travis Moore, is the most impressive, as it contains well-designed and detailed depictions of characters and events. Then, Ronan Cliquet takes over for the rest of the collection. Overall, Cliquet’s work is well done and looks particularly good in a few places. However, the stylized visuals don’t pair well with the intensely grounded and gritty story being told here. This creates a volume where the artwork and storytelling are somewhat at odds, which produces a lackluster reading experience.

Continuity

Nightwing: The Gray Son Legacy continues the story from Nightwing: Burnback (Review).

The story here continues in Nightwing: The Joker War (Review).

This volume also references other comic books, detailed below:

• Nightwing was shot and lost his memories in Batman #55, collected in Batman Vol. 8: Cold Days (Review).
• The Court of Owls was revealed to the world across Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (Review) and Batman Vol. 2: The City of Owls (Review).
• Dick Grayson’s connection to the Court of Owls was expanded upon across Nightwing Vol. 1: Traps and Trapezes (Review) and Nightwing Vol. 2: Night of the Owls (Review). For more about this period in time, see the New 52 section of our “Nightwing Reading Order“
• The symbol seen in the sky in Nightwing #65-67 is a reference to events taking place in Justice League Vol. 5: The Doom War (Review) and the Year of the Villain (Review) event.