Nightwing #30 (HERE BE SPOILERS!)

Spyral.

I immediately associated Spyral with "Batman Incorporated," and, in reading my previous reviews and its Wikipedia page, I realize that its mission has stayed the same in each incarnation.  Dr. Dedalus sent his daughter, Kathy Kane (the original Batwoman), to Gotham to learn Batman's identity, matching Spyral's mission of learning superheroes identities, as Batman states it in this issue.  I'm not sure what it plans on doing with those identities once it has them, but I guess that we'll get there in time.

(Interestingly, in re-reading my reviews of "Batman Incorporated" #4 and #5, it was only clear that Dr. Dedalus was recruiting Kane for some sort of mission, through Gaucho; Morrison never specified what the mission was.  I'm assuming the second run of "Batman Incorporated" added that it was finding out Batman's secret identity; it also seems that we learned that Kane currently leads Spyral.  Of course, it's possible that Morrison did actually mention Kane's mission in the original run, but it wasn't clear, given how chaotic Morrison's writing on "Batman Incorporated" was.)

Bruce decides to take advantage of Dick's death to send him into action as an agent of Spyral, to discover what it knows and why it does what it does.  It's classic Bruce, but I'm not entirely sure that it's that sounds of a plan.  Based on "Forever Evil" #7, four other people at the very least know that Dick is alive:  Catwoman, Cyborg, Lex Luthor, and Owlman.  Moreover, unless Dick ran from the room in the downed Watchtower just as they released the Justice League, it's likely that all of them -- Aquaman, Firestorm, Flash, Green Arrow, Green Lantern, Hawkman, Katana, Martian Manhunter, Shazam!, Stargirl, Superman, and Wonder Woman -- saw him alive.  OK, Catwoman, Lex, and Owlman probably aren't associated with Spyral, and it's not like Wonder Woman has drinks with Batgirl on a frequent basis where she would learn that Barbara thinks that Dick is dead.  But, it still seems like a lot of people know his secret, making it unclear how effective Dick will be as a mole within Spyral if his success is predicated on the world at large thinking that he's dead.  Moreover, the woman who approaches Dick at the end knows that he was Nightwing, so I'm not really sure why Dick would need to remain anonymous in the first place, since it's not like they're fooling Spyral.

On top of that, Dick's status, if you will, isn't the only murky problem to come from this issue.  Dick confirms that he was Bruce's ward here.  Although I'm glad to hear it, it really steps up the question of how anyone could possibly not know that Bruce is Batman.  DC is really just pushing the limits of our willful suspension of disbelief.  As I've previously said, you've got to take superhero comics at their face value if you're going to believe that Lois would've never guessed that Clark was Superman with glasses or Aunt May would never associated Spider-Man's voice with Peter's.  But, we're really pushing the boundaries with this one.  Plus, if Dick was Bruce's ward, it stands to reason that numerous people will recognize Dick in and of himself, again calling into question why he needs to appear to be dead to be successful in infiltrating Spyral.

All that said, I can't say that I'm not excited about this new start.  This series suffered from way too many changes of pace and locale, with Dick bouncing from career to career or raison d'être to raison d'être.  For the first time in a long time, he has a purpose that seems capable of fueling numerous issues without sputtering out unexpectedly.  He apparently only had to die to get one.

*** (three of five stars)