Nightwing #143

This made me miss the Gilmore Girls. 

(This may contain spoilers, but not really) There are so many things I liked about this book.  It’s so rare in comics today to find a good buddy team-up.  Tomasi had the perfect mix of classic secret-mission spy espionage and buddy comedy banter.

I loved how they found the hidden base, and the panel where Robin is pulling the guys eyelid back to fool the retinal scanner was straight “Bond. James Bond.”  Then just to top himself, Tomasi puts Robin on a conveyer belt of death that would have made any Adam West era Batman villain proud.  But the conveyer belt didn’t feel forced or stupid, because Tomasi established a reason for its existence before he used it to hold Robin hostage. 

Back in the day, Burgess Meredith, Cesar Romero or Frank Gorshin would have had a torture device with Rube-Goldberg-like complexicity just ready to go. Seriously, I love Victor Buono and it makes sense that King Tut would have a bunch of sarcophaguses just living around, but why would he have a sarcophagus suspended over of a pool of acid?

The buddy comedy in this is perfect.  It’s funny with the pulp culture references that I love. But the references aren’t contemporary so they’ll still be funny in 10 years, and they’re not so obscure that only a tenth the audience will get them. 

I hope the keep Robin in this book all the time.  If they do, Nightwing and Robin will become the Lorelai and Rory of the DCU.