You’re everything I despise, Bruce. But if there’s one thing I can respect about you . . . it’s that you always stay on brand.
I’ve always been a fan of the Nightwing character, so I kind of settled on this trade somewhat randomly. It collects issues 1 – 4 & 7 – 8 (don’t ask about issues 5 & 6; really, don’t) of the 2016 Rebirth series of Nightwing. As we all know, with comics even if there’s a giant number 1 on the cover, you’re still expected to have read about fifteen other issues of various other series in order to really understand what’s happening, so, yeah, I guess Dick Grayson has been away from Gotham as a spy that works for a circus (?). Whatever. As this book starts, he’s returned to Gotham and intends to take up the Nightwing mantle again.
So, the “Better than Batman” title refers, not to Nightwing, but to Raptor, a new costumed vigilante who has moved into Gotham and so, of course, we get a lot of the old “torn between two mentors” thing with Dick being torn between Batman and Raptor. If you think Raptor has his own agenda that isn’t quite as heroic as it at first appears, well, you get nothing because it’s incredibly obvious and frankly Dick isn’t served particularly well by the story requiring him to not get this until INCREDIBLY late.
Anyway, Raptor and Nightwing team up to take down a nefarious organization of Owls, but if you’re thinking it’s the Court, think again! What we have here is a PARLIAMENT of Owls which essentially the same as the Court of Owls except they’ve also put out a couple of absolutely cooking funk albums. Anyway, this was fun and enjoyable. I liked Raptor as a character, transparently evil as he was, and anytime Nightwing’s around, you’re gonna get a few fun scenes with Batgirl. I don’t know that Dick is served particularly well as a character here, but I enjoyed this quite a bit. It’s not a masterpiece, but I liked it. 3 stars.
tl;dr – Dick Grayson reclaims the mantle of Nightwing and finds himself torn between Batman and a new mentor, Raptor; nothing here is really exceptional, but it’s fun and entertaining. 3 stars.