Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #3 – “Past and Present”! In the previous installment, there’s a lot of circus-related circusy drama going on. Something about a circus. Grayson and Raya fly to Atlantic City to speak to Haly, the old and dying cancer man who owns the circus, in his creepy Circus Warehouse. He bequeaths the circus upon our fair Grayson.

On the flight home, Grayson and Raya bone in a sexual way, and then a phone call from the villain (known as Saiko) sends him back to Atlantic City immediately. There, he fights Saiko in the warehouse. Saiko blasts some rockets into the joint, which burns it down. Saiko’s condition is unknown, but Nightwing gets Old Man Haly out with just enough life left in him to say that the circus is not what it seems to be, son. Sorry they’re trying to kill us over it!

If it sounds dumb that’s because it is! But man am I enjoying writing about it!

Nightwing (Vol. 3), Issue #3 [January, 2012]
Written by: Kyle Higgins
“Past and Present”

Would you buy this comic book if you saw it in the store with THAT cover? How unappealing. Smarmy circus folk? Clowns? Literally the worst.

A CORNFIELD IN IOWA, FIVE YEARS AGO. Grayson is chillin’ with his young circus homies by a bonfire outside. They’re laughing and ne’er-do-wellin’ and having a gay old time, indeed. Mr. Haly, not looking like he’s full of cancer and definitely not bleeding profusely to death, approaches the youngins and tells them that they had a bang-up circus show! Yea buddy! Those Iowans really ate that shit up! So go ahead and borrow my truck and go see a movie! I’m a niiiiiiiiiiice guy!

“First one to the truck rides shotgun.” declares Zane, one of the circus nerds, and they start to run. So there’s Zane, Raymond, Raya, and Dick. Yep. A real troupe of clownin’ around boneheads from the best years of their lives.

Sounds pretty nice except for the circus part and the Grayson part.

She wants to put HER penis in YOUR vagina, buckaroo.

“Hold on a second, Dick…” Haly grabs Grayson’s shoulder and tells him that Raya over there, you know, firecrotch? She could outrun Zane and Raymond any day of the dang week! But she’s not doing that at all right now. Do you know why, Grayson, you stupid kid? It’s because she doesn’t want to ride shotgun. She’d rather slobber your knob in the back of the pickup, son. You feel me, homes?

Ahh yes, Grayson has nothing but fond memories of poor, old, deceased, dead as a doornail Mr. Haly. He’s at Haly’s funeral making a point to catch his readers up with the current situation (dead guy). Also that there’s a lunatic named Saiko who thinks Dick Grayson is the fiercest killer in all of Gotham! And maybe he’s right! What do I know about Dick Grayson?? Am I supposed to just believe that he’s a dang Circus Boy?? Sounds implausible.

“In the heart of the circus.” These were Haly’s dying words. Sort of. I cleaned it up a little bit! Anyway, Grayson’s got a puzzle to solve and he’s going to be damned if he’s going to let a little thing like DEAD CIRCUS OWNER get in his way!

Many funeral attendees are muttering about Grayson being the last person to see Haly alive. The mutterings are suspicious. Bryan Haly, Mr. Haly’s Large Adult Son, is super pissed that Grayson is even there at all. Here, see:

You ruined my FATHER’S FUNERAL by MAKING A SCENE, buckaroo.

Yeah, told you. Bryan needs to calm down, I agree! “You think you can just stroll in here and take it? Like the circus is yours just ‘cause he gave you a piece of paper?!” Bryan the Angry Drunk Son froths and spits. A group of three pull Bryan back as he yells further “My dad’s gone, and he’s not gonna be around to help you anymore! He’s dead…you hear me?!”

And then Bryan gets quiet and starts breaking down while sitting on the ground.

So, later, after all that unpleasantness is behind us forever, Grayson and Raya talk to each other about the Saiko situation. Here’s where I learn that “saiko” is Japanese for “best”, so Saiko is gunning to be the saiko psycho in Gotham City! Raya tells him that the authorities should be talking to Zane, their old circus buddy, about this. Zane’s really making a name for himself these days, his job is to give these assassins work like a booking agent! He does this shit in Chicago! Grayson is floored and shocked and stymied and pooping his pants.

Yep, yeah, this is kinda all your goddamned fault, buckaroo.

Seems kinda strange to me that, after all these hours that he and Raya have spent together over the last few days, Grayson has just now learned from her how much his old friends suck and/or are dead lately! Look at that, she even gets a dig in there. “You’re not exactly great about staying in touch.” It’s like, my circus parents died during circus-related sabotage, this whole circus shit doesn’t exactly dredge up the warmest of memories, you jerk from jerk hell.

“You look forward instead of back, Dick. It’s who you are…Hey, you’re the guy that didn’t even come back for Raymond’s funeral.” Raya says saltily, like the saltiest sea. The Dead Sea, that’s the one! Raya’s a big ol’ Dead Sea about Dick.

But Dick can’t worry about Raya right now! He’s in Chicago already, possibly before she even finishes another sentence. He swoops around the Windy City as Nightwing looking for Zane.

Zane is easy to find since his name is on about four trillion different government watch lists. His business is too far removed to be linked directly to any of the murders or assassinations, but he’s on notice! *wags finger*

Mr. Haly’s death and Saiko aside, now all Nightwing cares about is what the fuck happened to Zane. Has he gone inzane?! LOL! Zane’s got a giant office with a dozen posters of his 15-year-old self in a leotard on the walls from his glory days. What I didn’t notice until just now (and I had to check the beginning of the issue to verify) is Zane’s giant disfiguring scar on the side of his face. It’s there in his posters, it was there in the flashback. CURIOUS!

Zane knows who Nightwing is, and was ready for him to show up. Nightwing, right off the bat, throws some verbal punches, accuses him of hiring an assassin to murder Mr. Haly. “Tell me who contracted the hit and I won’t relocate to Chicago and make you my new hobby.” Nightwing threatens. Sounds sexy.

Zane explains the reason for the posters on the walls: “We live in a world so focused on ‘where we’re going’ that too often we forget where we’ve started.” Sounds like some Grayson talk! Zane then goes on to say that the posters serve as a reminder of his past…and there’s another component of his past that he doesn’t get to indulge in often enough…

This is when Zane sticks his hand forward in Nightwing’s direction, and Nightwing is suddenly overwhelmed incapacitated with haunting memories of his past. He clasps his hands over his ears and tries to shut out visions of his failures as Robin, and his failure to stop Saiko, while they seem to be physically burning his brain. “I got upgrades!” Zane yells, then cocks a gun and starts shooting at Nightwing while he attempts to override the visions and get his little acrobatic ass out of there.

I blame you for all my pain and suffering, buckaroo!

“You don’t get other killers work without putting in work yourself.” Zane informs the playful backflipping hero. Nightwing is processing all this new information the only way an uneducated former circus performer can! Poorly!

He sees visions of his parents giving him shit for letting them die. He tries to shut them out, convincing himself that they are not real. He watches the reenactment of the breaking trapeze line, the two of them falling to their death while Nightwing attempts to save them screaming “NOOOO!!!” His parents are dead on the ground. People from his life stand around taunting him. “WORTHLESS.” “A JOKE.” “FLUNKEY.” “INCOMPETENT.” “USELESS.” “FAILURE.” Nightwing frowns. It’s funny!

Next he sees a vision of Raya placing a bouquet on top of a casket; tears streaming down her face. Before Nightwing fully understands this vision, Zane just starts pistol whipping the everloving fuck out of him. I mean, just hammering on the guy! I mean, Nightwing should really be dead right now. “Come onnn…I thought you were supposed to be one of Gotham’s finest!” Zane yells, clubbing him again. This is ridiculous. There should be blood sprayed all the way to Nova Scotia.

Nightwing is trying to understand what Zane meant by “upgrades”, figuring that he must have acquired psychic powers from some outside source. But, the question is, from whence! And then he realizes, apropos of nothing, that Zane is transmitting radio waves and segregating specific frequencies to channel into his emotions! NO SHIT, NIGHTWING. I thought of that already 45 minutes ago while wearing my pineapple goggles on Mars. Shithead.

BU-U-U-CK-A-A-A-R-O-O-O-OOOOOO!!

So Nightwing inverts the signals using his Ultra-Signal-Inverting-Suit-Plugins! And that really messes with Zane’s head, man. “Feedback.” Nightwing mocks silently.

While Zane is lying there bleeding from about eight orifices, Nightwing demands from him the information about who hired Saiko. Zane is crying and cringing, the guy’s a real mess. He doesn’t know who, he swears! And Nightwing is supposed to believe him because he woulda killed him already! So you see! *spits*

Nightwing warns him to find a new career, and then takes off into the night. As do all superheroes. How original. Take off into the day once in a while.

At some undisclosed time later, Dick Grayson is aboard the circus train outside Philly. He knocks on Raya’s quarters and apologizes to her about “always looking forward”. He admits to her that he WAS there at Raymond’s funeral. He never told anyone before, but Grayson snuck out of Wayne Manor that night and took two buses to get there. TWO buses! The kid took TWO buses, Raya! That’s committing to a friend’s funeral! The problem was, though, that he chickened out when he saw her there. He saw her standing at the casket with a bouquet of flowers; tears streaming down her face. “It was the same look you had last time we saw each other, at my parents’ service. The same look when I said goodbye to you…I couldn’t do it again.”

So he ran.

But he’s not gonna run this time. He’s staying put! Travelling around with the smelly poopy circus! It’s what Mr. Decomposing Haly wants, it’s where he belongs, yada yada yada. Until he can figure out why someone wanted to kill the guy, he’s not going anywhere! He’s staying RIGHT here…

Saddle up, buckaroo.

…uh…

…ok, so Grayson and Raya are gonna bang again. Let’s cut to somewhere else…

We cut to drunkard Bryan Haly sobbing at his desk. “This is all his fault…my father…and the circus…Dick was never supposed to be part of this…” he cries pitifully into his hands.

“…You’re still going to kill him?” Bryan, horrified, asks an unknown visitor.

“When the time is right…that’s EXACTLY what I’m going to do.”

eek it’s saiko

Final Thoughts

The corner of the final panel teases an appearance from Batgirl! Oh boy, redhead love triangle.

I don’t dislike this as much as I’m projecting! I swear on Raymond’s grave!