With me now picking up Nightwing again (as I wanted to check out Peter Tomasi’s take on the character, after his sterling work on Green Lantern Corps and Black Adam), I’ve started re-reading the trades I collected containing some of Chuck Dixon’s run on the title.

I’ve re-read these trades a good few times now, but its a cracking run. Its easily re-readable, with a great setup for Dick. Granted I’m missing the first few trades where he establishes himself in Bludhaven, but I pick up the story around the time of him deciding to join the Bludhaven PD, and Dudley Soames becomes Torque.

Chuck Dixon did a great job crafting a world for Dick which played to the strengths of the Bat-franchise, while still giving him some distance from Bruce. Bludhaven is presented as similar to Gotham before Batman, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent cleared out all the old gangs. Corrupt to the core, with most of the city under the control of the gang lord Blockbuster, Dick eventually decides to join the police department to try and clear the corruption up from the inside. However its a decision that quickly comes into conflict with his other life as Nightwing.

Part of the strength of the title came from its characters. Dixon had good fun building up the Dick/Barbara relationship (now on hold since Dick’s stay of execution during Infinite Crisis), while also introducing a strong supporting cast with Clancy, potential love interest and another resident of Dick’s apartment building. Dudley Soames, ex-Inspector in the Bludhaven PD and right hand man to Blockbuster, who goes his own way, joining up with Intergang and trying to take over the city for himself. Nite-wing. The wannabe vigilante who’s violent streak brings him into conflict with Dick, who’s attempts to train him end badly.

Its a great run, and that kind of interesting stable of co-stars is something Peter Tomasi should look to for inspiration. So far his run is off to a strong start, so I hope he also builds up a strong supporting cast. Certainly he’s playing with the shared-universe aspects, and showing Dick as a cornerstone to the DCU. The scenes in recent issues with John Stewart and the JSA helping him construct his new headquarters were great.

Nightwing’s a great character, and important to the DCU. He’s also been stuck in the wilderness since he was spared the axe during Infinite Crisis, so I’m hoping that Peter Tomasi’s going to be on the title for a good while and will take it from strength to strength.

Well, its been a good couple of weeks, with Green Lantern #28 last week, and Green Lantern Corps #22 this week.

As shown in the preview, we got our first Red Lanterns in GL. The Empire of Tears are setup as the Guardians for the Red Lanterns, and (unsurprisingly) Laira became the first recruit we’ve seen.

The interesting thing was Laira’s recruitment. In a similar way to the yellow rings, the red rings don’t give you a lot of choice in your recruitment (athough Batman was able to force off a yellow ring, using a combination of will-power, and previous exposure to a GL ring). However, the red rings are a lot more violent. It looked like it was virtually burning itself onto her finger, and then she started vomitting up the red energy. It was an incredibly powerful scene, and I’m really looking forward to seeing more about the red lanterns in the upcoming story arc.

And, of course, we also got a tidbit about the Orange Lanterns (it’ll be interesting to see if most of the Corps are identified by their colours - or if we’ll get more different names a la the Sinestro Corps). I’ll be interested to see what happens with them, and when we’ll start seeing hints about the Indigo Lanterns.

This week, we got the second part of the Boodikka Alpha Lantern story. I’ve basically covered my feelings about this arc in a previous post (in a nutshell, I’m not a huge fan of the character, but I think its good to spend a couple of issues focusing on other Lanterns, and its a good companion piece to the main Alpha Lantern storyline in GL), however I’ll also say again that I really enjoyed the writing and art in these issues.

I hope Sterling Gates gets another GL gig soon (maybe similarly, filling in on a 2-issue arc spotlighting a GL outside of Kyle and Guy), and I really liked Nelson’s artwork. More from this team please.