Death of the Family trucks on, with the future of the Bat-family (and Alfred's life) in doubt and Gotham living in fear of what the Joker might do next. Next week's Nightwing #15 marks the series' first tie-in issue to the big storyline, and issue #16 will follow in January.
To get the skinny on what the Joker might have planned for the OG Robin and all-around awesome dude Dick Grayson, we talked with Nightwing scribe Kyle Higgins.
IGN Comics: So far the Joker has been gunning for the Bat-family by exposing their biggest fears. What’s Dick’s biggest fear and how is the Joker planning on exploiting it?
Kyle Higgins: Oh man, right for the jugular. [laughs]
IGN: That’s how I roll!
Higgins: [laughs] Well, Nightwing is someone who, of the Bat-family, you could say is the most empathetic of all the characters; he’s the most optimistic. He’s also the one that puts the most faith in relationships and in people. So there a couple of ways to attack that and as someone who has been traveling around the greater DCU for the last year, he’s someone who’s now settling in Gotham and building a nest. In terms of relationships and in terms of a literal place in Amusement Mile, his circus. So if you’re going to go after someone who’s empathetic, what better way than to go after the people he cares about?
IGN: You mentioned Haly’s Circus, which has been a constant theme in your run so far, and obviously it’s a big part of Nightwing’s origin, but what makes it an interesting thing to explore for you as a writer? What does it offer dramatically and thematically?
Higgins: Thematically, it represents the life that Dick didn’t have. It represents the connection to the past. Dick is someone who is constantly on the move. He’s someone who is always looking forward and never back. So the circus coming back into his life and these characters and this place that, in a lot of ways, represents so many things to him and so many ways his life changed from tragedy and everything else, for it to come back and reinvent itself in its current life is powerful. To me, it’s exemplary of “you can’t go home again” and nothing ever stays the same.
Interior Art from Nightwing #16
IGN: In terms of Death of the Family, how much of Dick’s history with the Joker, as Robin or from Grant Morrison’s Batman and Robin or wherever else, will come into play in this story?
Higgins: There’s not much in terms of specific instances that the Joker’s calling him out on. It’s more in terms of the genera idea that the Joker has of Nightwing, given the fact that they’ve interacted as many times as they have over the years. So it’s more kind of Joker going after Nightwing rather than a recap of the greatest hits. It’s a brand new attack that hopefully in a couple of years, or ten or fifteen years, when someone does another Nightwing/Joker story and they want to recap the greatest hits, this will be at the top of the list.
Higgins: A lot. There’s a lot of changes coming out of this event. Without spoilers, what the Joker puts Nightwing through definitely has an effect on him. What the Joker claims about Nightwing, it has a big effect on him. And there’s a lot of fallout that Dick will be going through. It also changes the direction of the series in a very literal way, with both Dick’s relationship to Haly’s Circus as well as its place at this new Amusement Mile. All of the things that you’ve seen up to this point, including Sonia Zucco, are all put into question by the events in issue #16.
IGN: What’s your take on why the Joker makes such a great villain?
Higgins: I think the Joker, in a weird, twisted way, represents an aspect of escapism and an aspect of wish fulfillment. This is someone who does what he wants, laughs at what he thinks is funny, and it’s terror through irony; through perversion. He kind of taps into the darker side that most of us have. He does a lot of things that we never could do. I think there’s something very elemental about that.
Interior Art from Nightwing #16
IGN: Eddy Barrows is back on board for the Death of the Family stuff. What’s he bringing to the story and your interpretation of Joker?
Higgins: Eddy’s been my partner in crime here for the last year and a half. He’s helped me grow mentally as a writer and really protect me in a lot of ways by taking ideas and taking scripts that I’ve written and turning them around with artwork and visuals that are beyond what I imagined and what I expected. So with issue #16 being his last issue on the book, I wanted to really give him a great going away party.
There’s a lot of really big sequences and big visuals to play around with. It’s chaos, absolute chaos, and Eddy knocked it out of the park, plain and simple. His version of the Joker with the strapped on face is terrifying and creepy. His style lends itself to that so well. I’m very, very sad to see him go, but at the same time quite excited that this is the note he goes out on.
Joey is IGN's Comics Editor and a comic book creator. Follow Joey on Twitter @JoeyEsposito, or find him on IGN at Joey-IGN. He thinks knows the world needs more horror comic books.
Source : ign[dot]com
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