Some thoughts on NW #141 as requested.
I found it interesting that the civilian in the beginning was happy about Nightwing finally cracking down harder on criminals as evidenced by Dick beating the cops excessively. Yet, in Watters's previous arc, Dick pulled a pretty dangerous move on the Helios cops by pulling them out of the air to the ground in the middle of traffic.
Nightwing (Vol. 4) #121
Maybe the civilian was also referencing this time period when talking about Dick finally taking the necessary risks to save Bludhaven, but it would be funny if he wasn't, and if Watters simply forgot his own writing.
I mean, Dick was defending himself (and the kids) in both situations, but I guess it's seen as more proactive or "badass" for Dick to physically beat the cops rather than just yoink them down. Dick giving into his anger vs him saving his ass in the moment. Still, I imagine the Helios cops probably ended up in the hospital or at least had some injuries after crashing into the street like that 😭.
Anyway, it was cool to see Dick in the old suit with his long hair.
In contrast to the civilian who enjoyed Nightwing's violence, it was nice to get that story from the woman who had a great experience with Nightwing. I love those moments that show how being a hero isn't just being there when the city is under attack or stopping a robbery from occurring. I love that it can be much simpler than that by being a listening ear to someone who needs it. That lines up with past behavior we've seen with Dick, so I thought that was one of the strong points of the issue.
Then the whole identity reveal thing came into question, and Dick said he knew revealing himself would jeopardize his family, but he didn't have a choice at a certain point. Not sure I totally get what he meant by that. Made me think of TT's run when the bats said they'd give up their secret identities for Dick (which I think was dumb but whatever). So these are two different situations, obviously, but Dick got the family's permission before to give up the secret identities (again, dumb), so one could argue that him blowing everyone else's cover in this instance wouldn't garner as big of a personal repercussion from his family as it could have because of that prior authorization he got. And by that I mean his family not being as mad at him for his actions.
But again, those were under different circumstances, and just because the family gave the okay in that instance to reveal their identities (dumb) then that doesn't mean they'd be fine with it this go around. And as far as we know, Dick didn't ask them again whether they'd be okay with that, so he does come off a bit selfish in this instance by being willing to potentially fuck up everyone else's secret identity.
In Nightwing (Vol. 2) #100, Dick didn't even want Nightwing to be brought up and connected to Blockbuster's death because he didn't want Batman to be connected by association. However, he was willing to turn himself in as an accomplice to Blockbuster's death under his civilian identity because he saw that as his one shot at atonement.
So if we're following Dick's line of thinking from Grayson's run then Dick's decision in Watters's run doesn't flow as well, but if we look at it from what went down in TT's run then I suppose it does.
"But at a certain point, I don't have a choice."
I've got too much brain fog right now to properly decipher that. I wish he'd elaborated a bit more. He was talking about his lack of sleep and being more aggressive right before that, so I wonder if he meant that he needed to turn himself in because this guilt was going to keep eating him alive and eventually cause him to go too far one day. So it's like if I don't turn myself in then I'm going to continue to get worse and worse, so I have to do this.
Anyone else have other thoughts on that?
Anywho, I'm so glad the woman that stepped forward as the witch was a fraud. I was immediately disappointed by the thought of the witch just being a woman in a manic state. Like nah, give me a real supernatural witch. I want full SPN vibes.
I also liked that Dick was secretly analyzing the entire situation, and we realized he had his detective brain going as soon as he turned around in the crowd and took off after the person who left. And then it was interesting when we got the reveal that the mayor was the one who set up the fake witch and "took care of" the real witch for Nightwing's sake.
"Please don't hit me again!"
"I'm not--I'm... That's--that's not me..."
Poor Dick. He acted quickly, but he didn't want to be like that. He's had so little sleep that his impulse control and ability to regulate his emotions properly is fucked.
The accusation against Dick triggered a panic attack, and I liked that we got to see it, and I like that it happened in the moment. It didn't happen when he was at home by himself, it happened during an interrogation. The imagery of the witch hanging and Dick choking was great. I liked the comparison to the witch's situation and Dick's own.
All in all, I enjoyed this issue.
