: (2 of 5cowls)

This cover has a great idea, but it loses something due to poorly chosen layout and not so hot coloration. Michael Golden has a good concept here, the image of Oracle sitting in her clock tower and watching current events on the various screens: Nightwing being attacked by the Moxton's guard dogs, a news story on Bruce Wayne as a murder suspect, and the fire at Lockhaven. However, its muddled in the execution. First, the eerie green lighting is great, providing there is an eerie green light source its coming from. Instead all 3 main screens are in full color, and not impacting the enviroment's reflected light at all. Second, the splashes of full color and the placement of the screens and Babs camouflage Oracle's presence in the image. It wasn't until a second glance I even realized she was even there. I think the green theme would have been better if used in the entire image. FInally, the red in the title banner made this look like a Christmas issue. Bad choice. He gets2 cowls for effort though.

Story: (2 of 5 cowls)
Ho hum. It took me a week to convince myself to go back through this issue for the details to write a review on it. Again Dixon seems to have decided since he's jumping ship, there's no sense in bailing out the water seeping in. The story is again hampered by the split focuses. Not subplots mind you, there aren't really any of those here except maybe the completely unecessary and non-impacting appearance of Orpheus. (Being as he's in Gotham, he isn't going to have diddly doo-doo to do with Nightwing's book beyond this encounter, and this encounter had no impact or advancement on either major storyline crunched into this issue.) Our attention is split between the research into the murder, and the fire in Lockhaven. These issues are too important to be relegated to half a book. For God's sake focus on the murder, then do the Lockhaven garbage later. There's also some things Dixon is completely overlooking, like the fact that Officer Grayson never went back to the station after getting to Gotham for the prisoner exchange, and the fact that I'm pretty sure every police unit in the Haven would be dispatched to Lockhaven for the crisis. If Dixon doesn't get Grayson thrown off the force for this disappearing act, I think the credibility of the entire story is a wash. There's also a time continuity fiasco going on here. If I'm reading the NW issues right, maybe half a day has passed since the murder. Yet in all the other Batbooks it is already a week to a month later, and Dick has since performed actions he hasn't even thought about in his own book. Technically by the time off the arraignment 4 days later in Gotham Knights, whatever is happening in Lockhaven must already be settled, so we know Dick got out completely unscathed and settled things enough to be back in Gotham for the hearing and to pick up Alfred, etc. Maybe Dixon needs to note the time frame of the book. I for one and confused and annoyed. As for the rest of the story in this issue, the idea of eliminating suspects is a good one, but I'd think the MOxton's would be more of a Robin or Spoiler level investigation, and a waste of Nightwing's higher skills and abilities. Also, whatever happened to the absolute importance of the Bat being visible when Bruce is not able to be? Shouldn't Dick be in the cowl to keep people from realizing that there's no Batman because he's locked up in Blackgate? By now every villain out there must have put 2 and 2 together. It was good to see Dick vehemently defend Bruce, but I think fans are getting miffed over the rift being opened between Dick and Babs since the Last Laugh crossover. Again kind of feeling like Dixon saying "I'm leaving, and I'm going to destroy all the wonderful things I've created on my way out."

Artwork: (3 of 5 cowls)

At least we were spared from Trevor McCarthy this month. Mind you Burchett isn't that much of an improvement, but at least his figures and faces are relatively consistent and don't look like cariacatures. He does slip between being detailed and being cartoony though, which becomes frustrating. Pick a style and your fans will find more reason to like you, I assure you. I was able to recognize most of the book's characters without having to stop and read the text, except for Mallory Moxton, who's somehow miraculously gone from being a baby-faced, deceptively harmless looking red-head to an angry-looking wanna be blonde fashion model. *Boggles* My biggest issue is that all of Burchett's scenes seem static. The action pictures are not very dynamic, and the non-action are downright dull. He needs to loosen up and get a little wilder with his poses. Mind you, too far to the wild side and you end up with another Trevor McCarthy. The inks were ho hum, the colors were ho hum, I don't even have a stand out image to point out this time around. Does anyone have Greg Land's phone number so I can call and beg and plead with him to come back to this book?

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