For the longest time this book has been on the verge of being dropped. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this series on a technical level because Kyle Higgins and Eddy Barrows have done a good job making this series feel necessary. But sometimes it just felt more like a trade wait because, like most of these books since relaunch, the long-form arcs were spreading the issues thin. For the first time since reading the first issue though, I can confidently say I am pleased to keep reading this in issue form.

This is how you do a tie-in issue when it comes to events (or in this case a mini-event). It works in nicely to what Scott Snyder is doing in Batman but Higgins is also putting his own spin with Nightwing. Splitting the issue up as an origin story for the Talon Grayson is related to and a fight involving Nightwing and a Talon is paced very well. They both compliment each other very well and I was intrigued to read both. The fight with Nightwing was staged very well and I like Higgins is going to go all out on the action. (I’m sure the Nightwing BEFORE the relaunch would have found a way not to kill anyone) But it’s the origin story I love the most because this is Higgin’s wheelhouse. Along with Snyder, he did a great job with the ‘Gates of Gotham’ mini and this version of Old Gotham is basically his toy to play with. I would love to see another mini or even an ongoing of this world for Higgins to play in. (No not just in All Star Western, I mean a book just on Gotham City)

Eddy Barrows finally gets a chance to do an entire issues and the issue is better for it. I was so down on him from before because I never understood why people loved him so much. But with this series, and specifically this issue, I can see why people revere his art. His layouts are always great to look at and you can tell his puts effort into them. His layouts when fights are occurring are usually his best moments in an issue and this is no different. You can really sense the movement (and pain) in some of these panels and again I always love the trick of using transparency to show movement. The old-timey stuff though is also handled pretty well too and I love the sepia tone look to those flashbacks by colorist Rod Reis. The only thing I had a problem with was that there was a page where the layout was too confusing to follow. But one page out of twenty is hardly a big issue for me.

Even if this is a tie-in issue, I still think this is the strongest issue of Nightwing to date. Kyle Higgins is just great at not only writing a good tie-in but his writing for ‘Old Gotham’ is fantastic. Add in some of the best work of Eddy Barrow’s into the mix and you got yourself one hell of an issue. If the tie-ins are going to be just as great as this issue of Nightwing then we got ourselves one hell of an event here.