New Comics!: The "Night of the Owls" Edition #4 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

I'm starting a new review for this next group of issues, despite having read them at the same time as those issues in the "Night of the Owls" Edition #3 review, because my guess is that we're going to see a shift from the peripherial members of the Bat-family engaging the Talons to the core characters attacking the Court in full, given that we're dealing with two series involving former Robins and two series involving Batman himself.  We shall see, I guess.  To be honest, I feel like it's time to start drawing the event to a close.  Although I enjoyed the skirmishes depicted in "Batman and Robin," "Batwing," "Birds of Prey," and "Catwoman," none of them were really essentially to the plot.  Ten issues into this event, we still really have no idea who the Court is or what motivates it, beyond some vague sense of balancing out power in Gotham.  It's time to get the show on the road.

Nightwing #9:  We get the final part of Cobb's history here, where he reveals that Dick Grayson is the descendant of Cobb's son, who he conceived with the daughter of one of Gotham's elite and who the elite stole from him becuase he was not part of it.  He avenged that rejection by stealing the baby and entrusting it to be raised with Haly's circus, setting in motion the events that would lead Dick to being raised in the circus.  Higgins does an admirable job of making it seem like we're reading the secret history of Dick Grayson that his creators always intended, an echo of what I feel like Snyder is doing in "Batman" by keeping alive the lurking possibility that the Court was behind the murder of Bruce's parents.  However, Cobb's knowledge of Dick again raises the question, for me, of how the Court didn't know Bruce's identity as Batman.  If Cobb knew Dick was Nightwing, the Court knew Bruce was Batman.  Period.  At some point, Snyder is going to have to address this discrepancy because, for me, it's a huge hole in the event's plot.  Otherwise, I have to say that I was confused by the action sequences in this issue.  When we last left Dick, he appeared to have been skewered from behind with three knives.  Here, we see that it was from the front, making it much more likely that his body armor halted most of the knives' penetrations.  However, even with this clarification, it still gets hard to believe that Dick is able to withstand the abuse delivered on him here.  By my count, he suffers four direct stab wounds and essentially falls off a multiple-storey bulding.  I would buy the idea that he barely manages to survive the fight, but, instead, Higgins has him carting off Cobb's body, something that apparently takes little effort from the way Barrows drew it.  It's not the most realistic portrayal of Nightwing, who doesn't have regenerative powers like the Talons (unless we're arguing that he does, thanks to the dental implant).  Overall, like "Batman" #9, I found this issue to drop the ball on a number of important threads that I had hoped it would actually help resolve.

Red Hood and the Outlaws #9:  As expected, this issue also moved forward some plot points.  First, we learn that it was Batgirl who took off the Owlsignal from the Batsignal, explaining why it had returned to normal when Catwoman appeared alongside it in "Catwoman" #9.  Second, we learn that Victor Fries is on the Court's list because he helped it re-animated the dead Talons.  But, perhaps more interestingly, from the perspective of "Red Hood and the Outlaws" and not necessarily of the "Night of the Owls," we learn a little more about Jason's standing with the Bat-family.  As I've mentioned as I've reviewed this series, I've wondered if the DCnU Jason might have committed a bit fewer crimes than the DCU version (in part due to my long-standing hope that everyone will just be able to hug out their anger one day), but Babs' response to seeing Jason confirms that he was, in fact, the homicidal maniac that he used to be.  I think Lobdell, therefore, is just using this event to signify that, at some point, the door may open to Jason's reconciliation with the Bat-family (given his willingness to help in this issue), but we've got a long way before it happens.  I'm OK with that.  Babs is a law-and-order kind of girl, and Tim probably had her specifically in mind when he mentioned last issue that he hoped other members of the Bat-family would eventually understand that Jason returning from the dead was, you know, a lot to handle and maybe sent him to Crazy Town for a little while.  To be honest, Lobdell probably does the best job of any of the authors so far of using the tie-in issue to move forward some plot points in the ongoing series and not just servicing the cross-over event.  He also manages to give us some insight into Jason, since it's not really all that much of a stretch to see the parallels between Jason and the Talons.  (Returned from the dead as an assassin?  Check.)  Jason is facing down his demons, trying to atone for his past (even if he doesn't quite admit it), unlike the Talon in this issue, who just wants to return to his death.  I felt like Lobdell used this contrast to give Jason kudos for having the courage to start trying to deal with his past, rather than simply seeking to escape it, like the Talon is.  Plus, Koriand'r and Roy's battle with Mr. Freeze is pretty damn great.  All in all, it's one of the better installments of this series and the event.

All Star Western #9:  I...don't have the faintest clue what happened in this issue, let alone how it connected to the "Night of the Owls."  Seriously.  No idea.  The narrator in the first story is allegedly someone working with Hex, but, other than the person he kills on the first page (which would presumably make it difficult for him to go on narrating), I have no idea who it is.  I could continue, but the less said about this issue the better.

Batman:  The Dark Knight #9:  This issue raises for me the question that has been nagging me over the course of this event, namely why the Court of Owls is risking exposing itself now.  The Talon in this issue talks about the Court retiring him because he had too often been seen, but, by the nature of this event, the Court is also allowing itself to be seen.  Why is it OK now?  I'll address this issue more in the "Night of the Owls" wrap-up post that I'm writing, but I thought I'd mention it here.  Otherwise, this issue is mostly a study of the Talon sent to kill Lincoln March, not, as the cover would have you believed, a battle between Red Robin and a Talon (hello, pet peeve #2, it's been a while).  As such, I don't really have all that much to say about it, since it doesn't really explore the death of Lincoln March, as it does depict more details about it.

Batman Annual #1:  Holy effing crap.  This issue is as amazing as everyone said it was.  The revelation that Nora was never Fries' wife was nothing short of brilliant.  It is, to my mind, the best change in the DCnU that I've seen.  For most of this issue, I kept wondering why Bruce was so adamant in denying Fries the opportunity to help his wife.  Bruce seemed (forgive the pun) remarkably cold when dealing with Fries just before his accident, refusing to allow him to leave with Nora after firing him for pursuing his own research.  Bruce isn't that type of guy normally, and I was wondering if Snyder wanted us to believe, as Bruce himself asserts in his initial meeting with Fries, that it was just his poor social skills from too much time abroad that made him so cold.  But, the revelation that it had nothing to do with Bruce's social skills, but it was instead Bruce trying to keep Fries from stealing a woman who wasn't, actually, his wife, made perfect sense.  It shows Fries' psychosis, putting him on the same level as the Joker and Two-Face.  Yes, he "loved" his wife, but he actually just loved the idea of a wife frozen in the cold.  Mr. Freeze has always been the tragic hero, driven to crime (and his powers) from his devotion to his wife.  Snyder and Tynion don't changet that motivation here, but instead tweak it to make it actually make sense.  One of my problems with Mr. Freeze in his DCU iteration is that it always seemed a stretch that Freeze so quickly embraced murder and theft as part of his devotion to Nora.  Snyder and Tynion actually correct this flaw, showing that Freeze is, at heart, a psychopath, explaining why the killing and stealing was necessary.  They also manage to work it into the "Night of the Owls" more flawlessly than other tie-in issues of this cross-over event, explaining that Freeze's motivation was to use the Court's resources to find a way to reanimate the Talons and, in so doing, develop a cure for Nora.  "Red Hood and the Outlaws" #9 didn't go into this detail, but it's an important (and brilliant) one.  Moreover, Snyder and Tynion show the scene at the end with Fries' mother to show us how Fries often acts from a sense of moral purpose, even if it's misguided.  He's helping his mother here, even if he's killing her.  He's trying to save his wife, even if she's not actually his wife.  It shows that something's wrong with him, but still gives him a moral compass that maintains the sense of tragedy that his character has always had.  The only negative I can think of mentioning about this issue is that I'm not 100 percent sure what happens with his mother at the end.  Why did she have the two goggle-esque cuts on her hand?  Did she do that?  At any rate, it's a brilliant issue and I think I'm going to have to read it again to let it wash over me!  (Plus, we get a brief but awesome reunion of Nightwing and Robin, which alone makes me a happy camper.)