DC’s Nightwing Gets New Identity and Costume

Dick Grayson is a central member of the Bat-Family and the original Robin. But, this week, he’s headed for some dangerous territory in Nightwing #66. Recent events have led the crimefighter in some strange directions. Batman #55 saw the hero in a rather routing rooftop meeting with The Dark Knight and Commissioner Gordon. At the tail end of that meeting, everything went pretty horribly wrong as Grayson took a literal bullet to the head. When the hero came to, he was confused by all of his surroundings and understandably wanted some answers from the “strangers” around him. It turns out KGBeast was the one behind the shooting under the direction of Bane, but there are even more sinister plots at play with the hero’s new status quo. Nightwing Annual #2 covered everything about the incident with Grayson revisiting those moments where Batman tried to get his old partner to remember who he was and what his life was like before the gunshot wound. But, it turns out that Nightwing isn’t interested in returning to that life at the moment. *Spoilers for Nightwing #66 are coming up.*

So, Dick has been going by Ric Grayson as of late as he downright refuses to buy into anything from his past life as of right now. He still has retained that martial arts training from Batman and will help out those in need when duty calls. But, he’s not putting on the Nightwing suit any time soon. Even weirder, he gets strange dreams and visions of his old life that urge him to sort of remember what was and Grayson has no intention of listening to those thoughts either.

The young hero’s been going to therapy to deal with these developments, and then it becomes clear what’s really going on. Unbeknownst to Grayson, the Court of Owls has been behind this entire ordeal. They used a drug regimen and psychological manipulation to move the crimefighter into place for the next part of their scheme. There was never any amnesia to speak of only their dark influence hovering over the entire charade. Now, they are ready to give him false memories in order to get him to be the new Talon.

That’s right, the Court of Owls has their new leader for the time being. Talons have only been causing more and more problems for the Bat-Family and their allies in recent years. Facing off against one of their own again might make things a little bit harder to deal with. Ric Grayson is no more and only the cutthroat Talon remains. They’ve rewired all of his memories to put the Court of Owls in Bruce Wayne’s stead. His grandfather William Cobb has the upper hand and things are going to boil over in a huge way before 2020 brings even more changes for the character.

Nightwing is written by Dan Jurgens and drawn by Ronan Cliquet, and you can check out the official description of the issue below.

“William Cobb has taken the Nightwings down one by one, leaving Ric on his own in a Blüdhaven that is literally aflame. Cobb offers Ric a chance to save his city by at last fulfilling his legacy as the Gray Son and becoming the new Talon and leading the Court of Owls into a new age.”

Nightwing #66 is in comic stores now.