Dan Watters' Nightwing run is turning out to be so unusual, such a mishmash of genres and approaches, I’m not quite sure if it’s good yet because I’m still trying to figure out what it is.

Here’s one where I’d be interested to read the series pitch to get some insight into Watters' conception of Nightwing or what he wanted to explore (could maybe go look for an interview, too). So far we’ve had a somewhat typical Nightwing gang war plot tangled up with something supernatural; now, with Nightwing Vol. 2: Death Traps, Watters adds crime noir (with artist Francesco Francavilla, no less!), wacky sci-fi, even some unexpected comics meta-commentary.

It is all over the place, more than I think words adequately describe, and it wouldn’t be working at all if it weren’t for how well Watters roots it all back to the series' core plotlines. I can’t say for sure, but the third book looks to be a culmination of the “Cirque du Sin” story; if it is, I’m as curious as to how Watters will wrap this up as I am about what he’ll do with a fresh slate.

[Review contains spoilers]

Honestly, I’ve rarely seen more whiplash in a volume than two issues of a straightforward police corruption mystery, with art by Francavilla, followed by three issues of fifth-dimensional imp shenanigans with art by Dexter Soy (plus a Team Titans callback!), and then art again by Francavilla on a police procedural with clear elements of horror. I’m reminded that the last time Nite-Mite showed up, in Tom Taylor’s Nightwing Vol. 4: The Leap, equally I found that book to be genre-hopping, but the differences weren’t nearly as stark as here.

Not to mention, in only Watters' second Nightwing volume, nearly as many issues spotlight Bludhaven commissioner Maggie Sawyer as they do Dick Grayson. On one hand, it’s Maggie Sawyer, with Dan Turpin in the background — if I can’t get a Metropolis SCU series, I’ll happily take this instead. On the other hand, Watters has a strange conception of Maggie as someone whose history of being Superman’s strong ally is preserved, but also some who’s suspicious of and hostile toward Nightwing, and that’s hard to make sense of. It feels part and parcel of the twistiness of this book overall, veering in and out of what we expect the book to deliver.

Yet Watters manages to tie all of it together. At Nightwing’s most ground level, corrupt arms dealer Olivia Pearce comes to Bludhaven trying to militarize the police and fakes a gang war to prove her case, a plot not unfamiliar in comics. At the book’s wildest, Nite-Mite is back, he’s turned Nightwing’s dog into a tentacled beastie, and Oracle manages to save the day with chicken soup.

But each of these are tied in some way to the supernatural Zanni and his disciples, including Olivia, such that at some point the wild and the mundane become inextricable — Nightwing mentors a kid orphaned in Nightwing Vol. 1: On With the Show’s gang war, as he does, but then the kid gets caught in the Zanni’s manipulation of Nite-Mite and develops the powers of an ancient Kryptonian superhero!

It’s heady and weird, but with the connective tissue of the Cirque du Sin, it seems to work. Then in the series annual, Watters takes it even farther, revealing Olivia to be the daughter of Guy Hillman, a Fredric Wertham-type figure who railed against his daughter’s love of comics — a love that extended to a fascination with death traps and a particular obsession with Robin, the Boy Wonder.

There’s a lot of voices in this annual. Hillman believes comics cause “degeneracy,” and we know that Robin Dick Grayson and his living situation with Bruce Wayne was a particular target of Wertham’s. Lloyd Carroll, writer of the in-story “Gray Ghost & Wonder Boy,” sees superheroes as an evolution of circus performance, taking what might seem scary and emphasizing its joy.

In contrast, Olivia and the Zanni point specifically to heroes like Superman and the Flash as being “anti-circus” — using circus tropes, as with Superman’s “strongman” costume, but then only ultimately reinforcing the status quo. The two want to somehow catalyze, not mitigate, the circus-esque terror of death (“You know a part of us wants to turn the page and see the hero reduced to a red smear on the page,” Olivia says), and they’ve identified the laughing daredevil Robin as the true hero through which they can do that.

(Tongue firmly in cheek, Watters' Carroll asides, “Sometimes you just get the feeling some readers fundamentally misunderstand what we’re trying to do.”)

All the pieces aren’t in place yet, but I wonder if here we find some of the answers to “Why this story? Why Nightwing?” Admittedly Nightwing can handle all of these genres, from space-faring with the Titans to taking down mob bosses, though I’d quibble a bit as to what’s right for Titans and what’s right for Nightwing.

But it also seems as though we’re mulling over Nightwing’s, or Robin’s, particular place in the superhero pantheon — if not the first sidekick, then at least the sidekick of greatest import, and in that way something else. Batman was hip until Robin came along, and then Batman wasn’t hip any more in comparison to a teenager who really knew what hip was.

Not that we haven’t seen this kind of thing before, even in Taylor’s run — Nightwing, the hero with friends across the DCU; Nightwing, the hero who grew up in this community — but I wonder if we might find this in Watters' pitch: Robin, the disruptor; Robin, the half of Wertham’s equation that made Batman dangerous; Robin, whose very presence turned antiestablishment heroes into the establishment.¹ All of which, of course, could be weaponized by an omniscient, malevolent god of the circus.

With the end of Nightwing Vol. 2: Death Traps, the stage is set, the villains identified, and it sure seems like the third volume could be the wrap-up to a trilogy. Nightwing defeats the Zanni with no ill effects? The governmental power of Bludhaven shifts now that Olivia’s gotten to Dick’s sister, the mayor? Bludhaven is transformed to a citywide big top? None of it feels off the table for Dan Watters' next one.

[Includes original and variant covers]