Nightwing by Tom Taylor vol. 6

Back when Dick Grayson got shot in the head and became Ric Grayson for a while, he got a mysterious package from an unknown source.  Not knowing what to do with it, he had it stashed in The Hold, Bludhaven’s secret maritime-based storage facility.  Now that he finally remembers that it’s there, he’s keen to get his hands on it.  Standing in his way is drama.  Not just any kind of drama:  Pirate drama!  So he’ll have to deal with that first, and then later team up with Batman when it appears that Heartless has come to Gotham and claimed the life of a young boy’s father.  None of this sounds like it’d be particularly tough for the title character to deal with, except that after all these years he’s now having to deal with a sudden fear of heights.

This is the penultimate volume in Taylor’s, though you wouldn’t necessarily realize it given how business as usual is carried on here.  That means you’re getting lots of solidly executed superhero action without anything feeling like it’s raising the stakes.  Yes, there’s the bit about Dick maybe finally being able to take down Tony Zucco, but that’s almost treated like an afterthought here.  We do get plenty of quality art from the likes of Stephen Byrne, Sami Basri, and Daniele Di Nicuolo in this volume, which is a nice consolation prize here if nothing else.  All of this is to say that I’m still looking forward to reading “Fallen Grayson” when it hits paperback, even if I find myself feeling like the wait for it won’t be that long or arduous.