Hard to believe that a writer like Tom DeFalco has been working in comics for almost forty years. For better or worse he has written a slew of titles for Marvel including Spider-Man, Spider-Girl, and Thor. He’s created new characters and teams for Marvel including Thunderstrike and the New Warriors. Hell, he was Editor in Chief for Marvel for a time! So why am I so disappointed that he’s doing a guest spot for Nightwing? Cause his somewhat Bronze-Age dialogue is a bit too cliche for me to enjoy. It’s not that he’s a bad writer now a days, I just think his style of writing doesn’t suit for today.

So I was a bit surprised that, unlike the #0 issue, this read pretty well. There were a few moments where I had to roll my eyes. Nightwing saying ‘Oh no!’ or the whole thing with Barbara just screamed something out of the 1990s. The whole Joker story line is gonna be a big deal for all the Bat-books but that whole sequence with Barbara felt a bit forced. But everything else from Dick looking after his new circus to him fighting the gang was pretty entertaining. But it begs the question: Why did Kyle Higgins not do this arc? I guess he’s busy getting ready for the crossover issues for next year but I still don’t see why he couldn’t write this.

The one guest I did enjoy was Andres Guinaldo on pencils. He has been doing this series for a while now with Eddy Barrows only doing half the pages at times. But his style really suits this series. It’s nothing like Barrows but it’s clean and he handles the action real well. His inker, Mark Irwin should get credit to make this book look as clean as possible. Also, Rod Reis has been colorist for most of this series so if anything the book looks consistent month after month. Finally: We need to stop showing the old Robin costume. I have yet to complain about any of these new costumes for the New 52 but…good lord….that is hideous.

So this issue was a bit of a surprised in that the writing wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. I still think Tom DeFalco’s writing is a bit too ‘old school’ for me but this issue didn’t make me cringe like the zero issue. Andres Guinaldo’s art though has really started to shine and I think he is a perfect fit for DC if given more than just guest spots.