Thursday, July 10, 2014

Grayson #1

   There's nothing wrong with shaking things up in a comic book series every now and then - it keeps readers on their toes.

   But there's also no sense in throwing out the baby with the bathwater.

   In Grayson, we hear the splash of buckets of bathwater.

   Dick Grayson, the original Robin (the Boy Wonder), made the change to Nightwing for a very good reason - he had grown up and had earned the right to step away from Batman's shadow.

   I think most readers had no problem accepting that.

   But if anyone wants to explain why DC would take an excellent character and toss it away, I'd love to hear about it.

   None of which is to say that this is a bad comic. Writers Tim Seeley and Tom King and artist Mikel Janin have crafted a solid comic here, in which an acrobatic James Bond gets involved in some kind of espionage that involves a kidnapping, a rescue attempt, a surprising (and worthy) opponent, and a decent setup for future issues.

   But virtually unseen in the issue is Dick Grayson, who demonstrates little personality or justification for his new mission.

    The story is well crafted, I like the art a lot, with dynamic layouts and strong character designs - but there's just not enough here to hook this reader. Sorry, but I won't be back for issue #2.

Grade: B

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I haven't seen Grayson #1 yet, but if it's as bad as Nightwing #30 was, I'll pass. I don't know who wrote the main story in Nwing #30, I honestly didn't want to find out because that bad.

I won't go into depth at how the character whined the entire time, the absurd motorcyle kick, the bad dialog, I'll leave it at that.

Having said that, I for one have wanted Nightwing to move out from under the Bat-umbrella for years, basically since he left Titans and was forced back into it. Over the years we watched as he was continually forced back to gotham, back under the sufficating batverse over and over, even in the middle of a major storyline of his own. If that can be avoided, and batman plays at most a five percent role in the story, fine. If the story is good and the art is good, fine. If characterization is good, fine. But #30 gave me no hope for that.

#1 better bring it hot, loaded, and firing on all cylinders. It has a short lease as I expect this is not much more than Didio finding a quiet way to jettison the character to fit the awful new stinkypoo.

So much good was lost and replaced with so little, its why my pull is now more independent than DC.

Just my thoughts.

Chuck said...

Anon, don't hold back! ;-)

I liked the Nightwing character and thought it was a great "next step" for Robin - it's hard to see "Grayson" as anything but a step down.