Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Nightwing (Vol. 4), Issue #8 – “Rise of Raptor (Finale)”! In the previous installment, the Raptor is always four steps ahead of Nightwing and seventeen steps ahead of Batman! And now Raptor has kidnapped Batman! For Nightwing this time it’s personal, but it seems like it’s always been personal.

This is also about Nightwing’s mother, the broad who died doing the trapeze tricks. I don’t know why she’s involved yet, but perhaps light will be shed on the situation at hand.

Nightwing (Vol. 4), Issue #8 [January, 2017]
Written by: Tim Seeley
“Rise of Raptor (Part 2)”

Speaking of the circus, there’s a flashback of the Grayson family in their weird little circus trailer, late at night, with a kid named Tombo snoring like this: “SNNNRT! SNNNRT!” Dick cannot sleep with this racket, so he leaves the bedroom and sees his parents talking in the kitchenette.

“Look, Mary, I understand what these people mean to you, but it’s risky enough to have you in the public eye.”

“John, it’s a circus.”

“Still, what if the authorities link you two together? Dick needs both his parents.”

Dick hides while eavesdropping. Mary says turning “him” away would be dishonorable, but John’s right. “I’ll tell him to keep his distance. At least for now.”

Mary continues to talk about how this “him”, whoever “he” is, has intense eyes. Bird of prey eyes. “He” makes Mary uncomfortable, and it’s not just the unwanted heavy petting!

Flashforward to the present day, where Nightwing realizes that Raptor has always been around. Always watching. And now Raptor has Bruce Wayne. Well, nutz to that! Nightwing is tempted to call the whole gang; Titans, Batgirl, Spyral, Jose Conseco. But no, Raptor wants this to be personal (he assumes), so Nightwing is going alone (like a dummy).

The still-dapper Bruce Wayne is tied to a dang chair in the middle of a currently empty construction site. Strapped by his arms, his legs, and his fat neck. The laser-cutting tool he keeps in his watch is gone, as is the batarang he keeps in his stinky sock.

Bruce tries to bargain, saying that he helped Nightwing bring down the Parliament of Owls. There’s still some good that can be done! Raptor says no, things have already been settled. “You took Dick Grayson from his home. From his people. You raised him in your world of privilege. You indoctrinated him in your version of justice. You turned him into a weapon for the rich in your war against the poor and desperate. You ruined Dick Grayson, ‘Batman’! And for that, you’re going to face real justice.”

Like, seriously, how can you not be on Raptor’s side with this? Fuck the rich.

So is he going to kill Bruce? Unfortunately, no. Ever since the kidnapping, Wayne stocks have risen! And when Wayne stocks rise to $200 per share, a lever will be released that shoves a silver spoon right into Bruce’s heart. How’s that for the stupidest Rube Goldberg device you’ve ever heard of?

Gross!

Suddenly, Raptor and Bruce hear the sound of a nightstick hitting a wall. Nightwing has shown up to ruin the party! “You’re just in time for your final lesson–” says Raptor as a second nightstick plows him right between the eyes, breaking his mask.

But Raptor just laughs it away. “You did good, ‘wing. You played the long game. You made the right sacrifices.” He picks a chip of plastic off of his nose and glares with those creepy yellow eyes of his.

“I’M DONE PLAYING YOUR GAME!” Nightwing cries as he uppercuts a bitch. Raptor moans and groans on the ground while Nightwing checks in on his butt buddy Bruce. Raptor flips a switch, which sends the platform, that Bruce’s chair is apparently on, to the sky. “NO!” yells Nightwing daintily.

“They want us to turn on each other,” says Raptor. “To be distracted by little things like whose god said what, and what shade our man-suit is. To squabble over our preferred brands.” Raptor sends Nightwing flying in the other direction with his super magic fightin’ glove. “Then when our man-suits are beaten and bloodied, and our gods have stopped talking, they want us to ask them for help.”

Raptor yaps and yaps, and Nightwing is tired of it. So he knees Raptor in the face at 400mph, breaking more of his mask, pushing his nose into his brain.

At this time Raptor begins telling his life story while throwing Nightwing around. He grew up in the circus too, he was an immigrant from [UNDISCLOSED], the local government didn’t like dirty little immigrants hanging around, especially since Raptor contracted leprosy! Treatable by normal drugs like cocaine and heroin, of course, but he didn’t have access at the time to such wonderful, wonderful drugs. “So my skin blistered, my nerves died, my fingers curled.”

While he became a pariah, there was but one person who treated him with dignity.

Every issue of Nightwing should be him getting tossed through wood and glass while being calmly talked at.

It was, of course, Nightwing’s mother. Young and full of fire, she was! Together, Raptor and Mrs. Nightwing would scale tall buildings and steal antibiotics and inoculants. And then that turned into stealing other things for the purposes of, you know, robbing the rich to give to the poor.

“I wasn’t one to make oaths, but I made one that day. To her. To Marie the Skydancer. Mary Lloyd. Your mom.”

And once Raptor recovered from the, uh, leprosy, he followed Marie the Skydancer wherever she went. “I was always there. One foot in the darkness. Watching. Protecting. Until Marie was killed by a selfish man who didn’t get money that wasn’t his. Until you were dragged away from Marie’s body by Bruce Wayne. A billionaire who delivered a kind of justice that wasn’t his to deliver. Who took a son who wasn’t his to raise. Bruce Wayne is everything your mother despised.”

And Nightwing needs to see justice served!

Well, Nightwing understands a little bit more now. Raptor loved his mother. He was a motherlover, so to speak. But she died, and he thought that he failed her. “You blamed yourself until it broke you.” Stuck in one moment in your life. Sound familiar? *points to the blowjob in the corner* You’re just like Bruce Wayne, friendo.

Nightwing cracks Raptor in the face a few more times while taunting him.

You see, because Bruce Wayne is the Perfect Man. And you, sir, don’t have enough dick to be Perfect.

It’s awfully convenient now that all Nightwing had to say was “you’re just like Bruce” to really throw this fucking guy off of his game. Distracted and stiff, Raptor doesn’t connect any blow. Nightwing eventually snaps his arm and then kicks him to the ground, leaving him writhing in non-agony (because Raptor can’t feel pain, you see).

In short, Nightwing saves Bruce and/or the day.

Eventually, some guy named Tiger shows up to take Raptor away. “’The Raptor’ is wanted in seventeen countries. Spyral is more than happy to take him into custody,” says Tiger. And also, if he starts babbling some fool-ass nonsense about Bruce Wayne being Batman, Spyral has technology called “Hypnos” that will change his fool-ass mind! So don’t worry Bruce – er, I mean, Batman – er, I mean, Bruce *winks so hard you can hear it in space*

Nightwing whines to Bruce that this is all his fault, and who could argue with that, honestly?

“Raptor did this all because of me,” says Nightwing. “He almost killed you, Bruce. You fell, and…”

“Dick,” interrupts Bruce, “I didn’t fall. I jumped. I jumped because I knew you’d catch me.”

*farts so hard it drowns out that wink*

Final Thoughts

WHY DO ALL THESE COMICS END SO ANTICLIMACTICALLY? Raptor kicks this kid’s ass for pages upon pages, issues upon issues, and all Nightwing had to do to psychologically torment the guy was go “more like you’re Bruce”.

Stupid Nightwing Comics. This circus shit is for the birds.