DC Is Dangerously Close To Breaking What Makes Nightwing Special

Published Jul 17, 2026, 2:30 PM EDT

Between “The Crossroads,” “The Bridge” (where he interacted with Batman), “The Forest,” “The Waterfront,” and “The Dive,” Nightwing’s “Blüdhaven Lore” arc has been phenomenal, examining Blüdhaven’s harrowing urban legends and finally providing answers as to what specifically ails it. Indeed, Blüdhaven’s superhighway has been the source of a lot of chaos in Dan Watters and Denys Cowan’s ongoing Nightwing run, and it turns out that it literally has been to blame for everything that’s gone wrong in this arc, unsurprisingly.

Nightwing’s Dick Grayson is not only an exceptional leader and ally, meeting all the heroic ideals and standards imaginable, but he’s also a great man. That said, Nightwing hasn’t been himself lately, with Blüdhaven testing his mettle and seeing him resort to more violent tactics, and it might not have been much longer until he did something he’d truly regret if it was not for the confession of a heinous criminal.

Dick Grayson Stoops To Batman’s Level In Nightwing #140

Nightwing #140 makes a point of discerning how much the events of the “Blüdhaven Lore” arc have gotten to him. Nightwing’s interrogation of a man in a Blüdhaven dive bar leaves its patrons frightened and believing that he was going to kill them, acknowledging, too, that it’s unlike Nightwing to behave like that. Indeed, throughout the issue, Nightwing’s “true colors” are debated by everybody in Blüdhaven, as well as whether he’ll turn himself in to the authorities, who consider him to be responsible for the superhighway crash that resulted in nine people being killed in Nightwing #136.

Interestingly, if Nightwing had not shaken Cannibal Colm’s whereabouts from the dive bar patron, he probably wouldn’t have found him and learned of the superhighway’s insidious machinations before Cannibal Colm was visited by the police, whom Cannibal Colm was sat waiting for. This suggests that there is value in Dick tapping into such anger-fueled emotions, even if it’s not Nightwing’s traditional crime-fighting style.

Blüdhaven Lore Ends In Nightwing #141

Nightwing has every reason to be furious, though. In Nightwing #140, Dick learns from Cannibal Colm that the superhighway was built with a singular purpose: “[Mayor Bisogni and Charles Halstead] designed the highway to make life objectively worse for everybody who lives in Blüdhaven” via emotional and psychological manipulation, essentially. The “excuse to sink a little lower” and pummel his enemies more brutally than he normally might, then, is not Nightwing suddenly giving in to frustration, misery, and rage, but a symptom of Halstead’s Medusa architecture and the road itself.

Thanks to the solicitation for Nightwing #142, which ties into Poison Ivy’s Batman: Bad Seeds crossover event, it’s been confirmed that Nightwing won’t be turning himself in and getting incarcerated in Nightwing #141. Still, Nightwing never needed to redeem himself for hitting people as hard as Batman would, or being a bit more menacing, since he technically wasn’t in control of his emotions, apparently.

Even then, his actions in the last several issues are nothing compared to what any lesser hero probably might’ve done in his stead. The solicitation for Nightwing #141, releasing August 19, reads as follows:

WILL DICK GRAYSON SACRIFICE NIGHTWING TO SAVE HIS CITY? The deadline has arrived. The curious citizens of Blüdhaven gather to see whether their hero will surrender to the authorities for the deadly crash that took nine lives. Nightwing doesn’t know what he’s going to do either. But one thing is certain — things can’t go on like this...

Nightwing #140 is out now.