Dick and Babs used to hang out at night. Dick had kind of an overbearing legal guardian who would have had some serious issues with him going out without permission. In his defense, the WERE training together. Years later, Babs has a problem...and it’s sort of become everyone’s problem as the Fear State crossover breaks its way into Nightwing #85. Writer Tom Taylor explores the relationship between Babs and Dick in an issue drawn by Robbi Rodriguez with color by Adriano Lucas. Nightwing moves to the edges of the panel in an issue focussing primarily on Batgirl.

Batgirl and Nightwing are destroying a whole bunch of her own hardware. As the AI entity that she’s up against doesn’t exclusively reside on said equipment, it’s primarily a symbolic gesture...and it might also be a matter of letting out a few aggressions: she created the AI in question. It’s okay: she’s a genius. She knows what she’s doing. And Nightwing is there to help her out. It’s going to involve breaking into a facility and beating up a few heavily armed guards. It’s going to involve seeing something horrifying. It’s going to get ugly. And then it’s going to get worse. 

There’s a strange middle ground that needs to be reached in any issue featuring a couple of beloved characters who have been around for decades. Dick Grayson and Barbara Gordon have known each other a long time through many issues and TV episodes reaching back to the late 1960s. Any story that’s going to make their relationship seem new is going to need to acknowledge their history while delicately placing it in an entirely new context. Taylor does this brilliantly..and even manages some very tricky bits of emotional manipulation to get the reader to interface with Babas and Dick in a totally new way. The dialogue is brisk. The action is engaging. It all comes together brilliantly.

Rodriguez cleverly contrasts Dick and Babs’ present and their memories of the past. The Batgirl and Nightwing of the now are drawn into the context of Batgirl and Robin of the past without any sense of exaggeration. The action between Nightwing, Batgirl, and the heavily armed guards takes place in a smokey atmosphere that allows Lucas a sharp opportunity to set a really appealing mood for the issue’s big action sequence. It’s all very slick and stylish, with a keen sense of the finer points of superhero action. Rodriguez and Lucas modulate well between drama, action, and powerful bursts of elegant brutality.

It’s pretty rare when a title character gets knocked out of the center of the panel of his own book, but Taylor does an outstanding job of making it work in the single most fascinating issue in the Fear State crossover so far. Taylor manages to fuse Nightwing with Batgirl in a way the provides interesting character development while simultaneously advancing the plot of the Fear State storyline. So often, multi-title crossovers can feel crude and awkward. Nightwing #85 is an excellent example of how a single issue can beautifully integrate with a crossover event. 

Grade: A