If there’s one thing I hate about big events it’s that it can be a bit confusing on what to read first. Oh sure, the company will provide a checklist sometimes but not all the time is it reliable. Sometimes a tie-in issue will spoil a big moment in another title before you read it. Unfortunately that is how this issue of Nightwing is going to be remembered for me because this should be read clearly before Batman #7. For the sake of spoilers I will not say what the moment is in either review. But the disappointment of this revelation summed up my thoughts about Nightwing #7 quite perfectly.

As a finale for the current arc, Kyle Higgins goes through the motions if I’m being honest. There aren’t any big revelations in this issue until the Saiko stuff is over. The big fight in the circus between the two is fine, but again its nothing really special. I do like the comment Dick makes about how the villains in Gotham are a bit too predictable. While Saiko’s unfortunate origins is connected to Dick, it’s certainly not his fault and trying to kill him for it is really stupid. Apart from that commentary though, the fight is ultimately not that interesting. In fact I was hoping a big talk between Dick and Raya considering how big the romance was this first arc; but we get nothing. The second half of the title is starting the tie-in to ‘Court of Owls’ event but it feels really rushed to put it in the book. Why did we need this in this issue? Shouldn’t we wait till next month to start this crossover?

The art is once again shared by both Eddy Barrows and Geraldo Borges and this time it is much more noticeable. Mainly because Barrow does the first half of the issue and Borges does the second half. It would have made more sense if Barrows did the entire Saiko fight while Borges does the ‘Court of Owls’ pages but unfortunately we don’t get it. So when he get the final moments of the ‘big’ fight it is a bit hard to swallow because the style changes so drastically at the climax. That’s not to say Borges is a bad artist, it’s more than serviceable. His faces are kind of wonky though and I think he has a tough time with Dick’s face while wearing his mask. I would much prefer Barrows as full time artist considering his style is really coming into its own for this title. Let’s hope when this crossover starts we get Barrows full time.

Again this issue isn’t bad but it certainly is a disappointment for me. The final fight between Nightwing and Saiko is by the numbers and the sudden change in art is a bit jarring. Plus I really don’t see the need to introduce the big Batman crossover towards the end of this story. It feels really weird to introduce it now considering Dick has gone through a lot this arc and we’re suddenly right into the next big story. I would have loved to see Raya talk to Dick about why she felt the need to kill him. But we don’t get any emotional moments and as I said before this feels more and more like a B-movie. It has some good moments but you can easily see the cracks and mistakes as you go on.