Nightwing #5

That looks a bit like Trigon except I think Trigon had more eyes.

Nightwing is still with the traveling circus and headed for New Orleans. Waiting for him and his circus is Zohna and her newly summoned demon, Acheron (not Trigon!)

She summoned a demon to kidnap a clown? Seems a bit much.

Actually, Nightwing was left behind by the traveling circus! So now he's racing to catch up with their train.

Wouldn't it be easier to just learn the highway to New Orleans and meet them there?

Haly's circus starts setting up in New Orleans with a little tension between Raya and Dick. She hasn't been speaking with him since she met Barbara Gordon. Why should she? She's obviously just a replacement! Except she should actually be flattered. Dick obviously has a type and it was most definitely influenced by the first redhead he was close to in life. Her. She eventually caves to his request for dinner but only because they're in New Orleans. Which makes it special somehow. But I'm guessing she may get stood up because Nightwing is going to be busy.

Oh! The demon really was summoned to catch a clown!

Acheron appears to bring Jimmy the Clown to his psycho ex-girlfriend Zohna. The demon seems all business. If I were a demon, I think I would be insulted if I were summoned all the way from hell simply to go capture a stinking clown. Because, you know, really? Even if some overly dramatic losers still claim that clowns are so fucking scary, they're not exactly known for their overpowering natures and strong defensive skills. I think a normal, run-of-the-mill kidnapper could have taken care of this mission. But, again, kudos to Acheron for putting his all into the mission, no matter how lame the mission may be. That's a demon that takes pride in his work!

Luckily Acheron kidnaps the clown when only Dick is around. That way, Dick can run off after it without anybody screaming at him to let the police handle it. Although I don't think circus folk like to involve the police. So maybe they'd expect Dick (the owner of the circus now) to handle it himself. I really don't know how things work when you live in a traveling cesspit of inbreeding and tobacco spitting.

Sorry if I offended any carnies reading this! Ha ha! That was a joke. Fucking carnies can't read!

Oh man, seriously, I don't mean to be all prejudiced and shit! It's like Carnival Folk are the only people we can still make fun of, right? I mean besides Mexicans.

Geez! Calm down! That was a joke! I love Mexicans! My gardener is Mexican!

No, no! Sorry! That was another joke. My gardener is actually Portuguese.

Fuck. I just can't stop myself! Pretty soon I'm going to call Spaniards chicken chasing pepper bellies and offend myself! No, that's a joke. I don't get offended.

Nightwing, you're not even trying! Batman would save the day and still have time to fuck Raya on top of the dinner table!

Nightwing follows the demon out to the usual New Orleans Voodoo Cemetery where Zohna and Jimmy are being bound in unholy matrimony (just like the cover told us would happen!) by Acheron and his rhyming vows. And now Nightwing is going to save Jimmy from this demon.

How arrogant are some of these super heroes? Just because Nightwing trained under Batman and he fights crime in Gotham, he thinks he's cut out to take down a Demon? Do they all just have a death wish? They don't care if they die as long as they die doing good? It's not like he has to leave Jimmy to die. He could get help, right? Dick Grayson has connections! Sure, he's going to have to do something to delay or stop whatever is going to happen right here and now. But a normal human against a demon? I guess Dick just knows he's that smart!

The Demon is not speaking in sonnets, dumb dumb.

At least Nightwing is acknowledging that this isn't the kind of shit he usually deals with. And I guess this Demon probably isn't going to be much different than fighting Bane or Killer Croc! Just keep moving and don't get hit, right? Unless it has, you know, fire breath or a stone gaze or something. Maybe it drains levels! That would be a huge pain in the ass!

Again, admitting he didn't quite think this through!

As Nightwing is fighting, he notices a mystic symbol over a hole in a crypt. And perhaps this is why Nightwing is confident when he goes into battle against some major unknown like this. He's confident in his ability to perceive everything around him and formulate a plan on the fly. It really is so simple and yet so effective in life, even if you aren't a super hero. Just noticing things. Perception. And then putting the pieces together. It's the real intuition. It's called deduction and it's what most people are doing when they claim they've intuited something. They've just weighed the evidence around them and made a likely guess at some outcome.

So Nightwing gets the Demon to chase him and he leaps it and shoves it into the hole from whence it came. The Binding Spell is broken and the wedding undone! After the demon is taken care of, it's a simple matter to apprehend Zohna before she scratches Dick's eyes out. Nightwing heads back to the circus and talks with Jimmy the next day (but as Dick, not as Nightwing!). Jimmy gives him some good advice to leave the past in the past. But I don't think Dick can veer from the path he's on now. He's just going to have to deal with all the hell that is about to break loose around him and the circus.

OMG! Raymond isn't dead!

This shows the difference between Nightwing's writing and Batwing's writing. Where Batwing introduced a flashback that ruined the surprise that Massacre was Batwing's brother, this story wove the Circus tale so well that I didn't even consider making connections with one of Dick's dead circus friends. I'm not saying it's not obvious, after the fact. But it was done with some really good obfuscation. Or legerdemain! A word I learned from John Ostrander way back in the day!

And apparently Raya is a bad, bad person. Go figure! Of course the woman is the bad guy! Isn't that always the way. From The Bible to The Bible to other parts of The Bible and more parts of The Bible and later parts of The Bible and Macbeth, the woman is always the problem!

I'm still really liking Nightwing. It easily moves up another ranking. Not much more to add to what I've added before. Good writing. Well-paced story. It's fun. And Nightwing mostly resists saying stupid things like he used to when he was Robin in the middle of a fight.