Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #5 – “‘Til Death Do Us Part”! In the previous installment, Batgirl shows up and makes Redhead Raya nervous. Batgirl and Nightwing spend the night chasing down some no-name who-cares from a case that Batgirl is working on. Raya doesn’t like that Grayson spent the whole night with Barbara Gordon. They’ll probably fight about it insufferably in this issue.

Also, Dick Grayson finds a book in the main circus tent with his name in it. He was like “that’s my name!”. This is the level of intrigue that Kyle Higgins can muster up for us.

In short, I’m peeing myself with suspense here.

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #5 [March, 2012]
Written by: Kyle Higgins
“‘Til Death Do Us Part”

And if the cover is any clue, Nightwing is gonna have to marry a giant monster lady who eats him in Issue #5, which is a drastic deviation from circus-related shenanigans and/or young redhead boning. Sounds titillating!

In a graveyard, in front of a specific tombstone, a young woman is performing a scary voodoo seance, complete with a circle of candles and jingling beads! “In all that transpires between this world and the next, I bid thee…come forward!” she cries. This young woman is Zohna, daughter of Jeremiah and Ciara, which she has to say to the demon that pops out of the ground because she read a lot of fantasy novels where demons have to hear your name and your parents’ names before they talk to you.

“WHO DARES TO WAKE THE SPIRIT ACHERON” booms the demon thing. I looked up “Acheron” and that Kyle Higgins nerd picked a Dungeon & Dragons reference. The demon, fresh from Demon Estates or wherever in Hell that demons come from, is ready to do whatever bidding Zohna asks. Laundry. Gardening. Give her what is rightfully hers, whatever that is. We’ll find out later. It’s bound to be something inexplicably Haly’s Circus-related, though!

Tonight, Nightwing motorcycles through Louisiana chasing his train. He got sidetracked researching hired killers (probably with binoculars, in some bushes, with his hand down his pants), but it was worth it! Now he’s trying to get back to the train unnoticed, even though his vehicle likely sounds like a jackhammer as he hurls from a ramp into the caboose train car.

Too bad I’m fucking illiterate. What do you want from me? I grew up in the circus!

He fills the reader in on the current Nightwing drama while he dresses back into his street clothes and frowns at the big book he found in the circus tent. It’s his only clue he has so far, and it’s a stupid pile of nothing. He already knew his name! That’s not new information!

But the book is full of other names too, names that are so old he can’t even prove these people even existed. Bah! Fucking frustrating! Where’s Grayson’s redhead at?! Daddy needs to let off some stress! Oh, right, the Barbara Gordon thing. Yeah, that was awkward. I guess they’re not speaking to each other right now.

The next morning, while the crew sets up the circus in whatever bumfuck town they’re in now (New Orleans!), Jimmy the Cranky Clown is reading a letter to himself. We only see this part: “Because we were meant to be together, Jimmy, forever. You need to stop denying it. For both our sakes.” It sounds to me like Jimmy ran away and joined the circus! He snaps out of it when Raya approaches and asks him what his fucking problem is.

Marc, Raya’s acrobat partner-in-crime, tells Raya to talk to Grayson because New Orleans is too swampy to set up properly without cement. Raya doesn’t want to talk to that lowlife, obviously, but Marc’s like “do it, boss”. Raya frowns. She and Grayson can be frown-twins.

Speaking of Grayson, he spends a couple pages regaling us about a dream he keeps having. You know how people love hearing about others’ dreams, right? Heh heh. Everyone hates that! *shifts eyes nervously toward tomorrow’s scheduled article…*. Anyway, Grayson’s dream is about his friend Raymond and his parents, three dead people. He thinks that he’s thinking about them because Zane fucked with his brain a couple issues back, but he’s nonetheless unnerved. And so am I. Let’s get back to the Hell Demon already!

A knock on the door wakes Grayson up out of his nightmare about smiling friends and family. It’s Raya to tell him about the cement. And that’s it. Nothing else. Nope. Nothing. That’s it! I’m going now. That’s all I needed from you! Bye.

Barbara? I don’t know any Barbara! This is about the other girl. You know the one. The other redhead. I think her name’s Barbara.

OK, well, Grayson’s not gonna let that go right now, so he turns on the Grayson Charm (i.e. sprays his dick with Axe body spray) and tells Raya to lighten the hell up. It’s date time, baby! And Raya can’t stay too mad at this swarthy hunk o’ man, so she gives in within fourteen seconds. What’s that thing Kramer had in Seinfeld? The Kavorka! “Lust of the animal”. Grayson’s got it in spades.

Later that evening, Raya flips around the trapeze during rehearsal while Grayson and Jimmy the Flop Sweat Clown watch on the ground. Jimmy ain’t looking too good. Grayson offers him water, which Jimmy graciously accepts. He feels like something is going to go wrong any second…

Hell needs a few more clowns, I always say.

And it does! Who expected that, huh?

Grayson immediately swings a chair at the demon. “Drop him!” he bellows like a sinewy 150-pound little punk. “If you’re smart you’ll leave this fight all alone.” responds an unphased Acheron. And then the demon punches Grayson in the face with a fist the size of his torso, knocking him down. Acheron then carries Jimmy the Hapless Clown into the woods.

The Sex Woods, that is. *devilish grin*

Without even missing a beat, Grayson squeezes into his Nightwing nighties, hops on his hog, and starts burning rubber through the woods! He instantly notices, through his super special Georgi LaForge visor, that this monster isn’t giving off any heat.

I forgot to mention that Acheron speaks in rhymes with beautiful, flowery poetry. “The hour’s nigh, your souls are soon combined. Hold tight the object which creates the bind!” Acheron says after strapping Jimmy the Frown to a tombstone by his arms and legs with rope.

Now Zohna, daughter of Jeremiah and Ciara, starts confronting Jimmy. “We belong together, Jimmy…we always have. Forever.” she pleads to him. Not the way to get what you want, lady.

Jimmy tries to argue that none of what she’s doing is right. He’s pretty level-headed about it, instead of screaming stuff like “WHAAAAA!! WHAT THE FUCK!!! WHAT’S GOING ON!!!! WAAAAHHHHHAA!!” like I would. She must have done this to him before!

“You were supposed to stay away from all this garbage!” complains Jimmy, clearly not taking a step back and seeing the beauty of a successful occult ritual! “It’s too late,” says Zohna, “The sacrifice has been made. The demon is bound to me. And now he will bind us, forever. Our souls as one.”

Jimmy must have a big ol’ dick, because falling this hard for a clown is depressing.

Nightwing leaps out of nowhere and boots Acheron in the face! He does some somersaults and stuff too, which is less effective. Acheron is about 45 stories taller than Nightwing, though, so the decision to piss off the demon was shortsighted. Zohan continues with her ritual. Nightwing is able to pause just long enough to notice the symbol flashing on top of the tombstone before Acheron grabs him with a giant fist.

Aha, the Water Temple hath been opened!

Zohan’s ritual appears very painful for Jimmy, who looks like he just shat his esophagus. Acheron is a little preoccupied at the moment getting his ass kicked by this mortal, you know, twig, but tries to carry out the ritual nonetheless. “Only get one shot at this.” thinks Nightwing, “Hope he makes it count.”

Then, Acheron finishes his, uh, poem, and a huge bolt of lightning strikes the tombstone. I thought this was a good thing at first, but Zohan screams “NO!!!” so it must not be!

But then she asks what just happened, suggesting that she said “NO!!!” even though she didn’t know what she was saying “NO!!!” to. Nightwing surmises that she and Acheron had just become unbound. That’s when she flies off the handle again. “NO! YOU WILL DIE FOR THIS!” Zohna wheezes before Nightwing takes less than a step and ties her arms behind her back with something that looks thinner than dental floss.

Nightwing now talks to Jimmy, who has miraculously untied himself from the tombstone in what can only be described as the fourth cop-out in two pages! Nightwing asks if the symbol he saw was a family symbol, and neither Jimmy nor Zohna actually answers this question, so I’ll speak on their behalf: maybe!

Nightwing leaps away, but has one more question for Jimmy: did the ring Zohna was using during the spell actually have power over him? Seems like a weird and awkward question to me! Jimmy tells him it used to mean something to them.

Like, how about we just say it was a wedding or engagement ring? No one has conversations that follows these stupid, twisty paths. HIGGINS!!

Our special BDSM ring…our safe word was “snickerdoodles”…

The next morning, an uncostumed Dick Grayson approaches an uncostumed-but-still-sad Jimmy. “I went to grab water, and you were gone. You feeling any better?” Grayson asks, like you can’t tell Grayson is Nightwing behind the tiny eye mask he wears. Jimmy gives him some sage advice: leave your past in the past where it belongs. In other words, get the fuck out of this circus, kid!

Jimmy throws the ring down a sewer grate.

We end with two people having a conversation regarding Dick Grayson’s discovery of the “Book of Names”. He found it, and he has no idea what’s going on right? Because no one wants to ruin the surprise…

It’s revealed that Raya is talking to Saiko, both conspiring against Grayson. Saiko needs to know that Raya is committed to the plan. “All that’s left is getting back to Gotham. I need to know you can do it.”

And Raya unmasks Saiko, revealing a face with large rosette scars around his black eyeballs.

“I’m 100% committed, just like I’ve always been…Raymond.”

They kiss.

It’s Raymond.

Final Thoughts

It’s Raymond! The dead kid! He’s possibly not dead! In cahoots with Raya the Sultry Redhead and Zane the Bad Boy!

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the Batfamily universe supposed to be largely free of supernatural and paranormal elements? Isn’t it mostly true crime, with gritty, psychotic villains and superheroes with technical equipment instead of superpowers? What’s going on with these zombies and the demon-summoning?

Two issues left for Nightwing to fumble his way through some more bullshit in a circus that doesn’t want him there in the first place. Feels like this can be wrapped up in half an issue, though, and then switch to Marmaduke for no reason in the second half! Now THAT’S a comic!