Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Nightwing (Vol. 4), Issue #10 – “Blüdhaven (Part 1)”! In the previous installment, a Skeletor-looking baddie named Dr. Destiny is able to infiltrate Nightwing’s mind and make him have bad, bad, scary dreams! Superman helps Nightwing enter Dreamland (and, by extension, a town in Superman’s alternate reality world called Blüdhaven where his Nightwing spent a lot of his time) via a very elaborate machine that seems to only serve a single purpose, so that’s rather convenient. In the end, Nightwing defeats Dr. Destiny with the help of all his DC Comics superhero friends.

Now Nightwing is going to check out Blüdhaven to see what all the fuss is about. They probably have a beer garden and a bowling alley. And a Guy Fieri restaurant.

Nightwing (Vol. 4), Issue #10 [February, 2017]
Written by: Tim Seeley
“Blüdhaven (Part 1)”

Look out Blüdhaven, Nightwing’s about to strut through your mean streets with the tightest buttocks in town.

Robin stands untethered and unsupervised atop a gargoyle near the top of a huge skyscraper. “TO ME, MY TITANS!” he bellows. Batgirl, who has been sneaking on the kid, makes her presence known. She startles little Damian Wayne, who is like “uhhhhh, uhhhhhhh, I knew you were there the entire time!”

Batgirl hasn’t seen Robin since Tim Drake’s funeral. She wants to know how the little squirt is doing. She’s also trying to grab some information about the unusually silent Nightwing. Robin reminds Batgirl that she told Nightwing to go to hell…

And what a Hell it is! Blüdhaven looks like an even shittier Gatlinburg, Tennessee, or Branson, Missouri. A man named Paulie Paterno at the ol’ Import/Export office is jabbering on the phone about how Blüdhaven is being sold as “family-friendly” these days. The cops are paying so much attention keeping the tourists safe that all the illegitimate business happenings have been much, much easier lately.

On his way to answer a buzzing doorbell, Paulie lets the man on the other end of the line know that he’s got eighteen truckloads of the good stuff coming. Yeah, baby.

Paulie answers the door and gets fucked up. Just another day in family-friendly Blüdhaven!

Paulie’s sleeping. Go talk to Silvio.

Dick Grayson has found his way into the Blüdhaven Community Center where he intends to volunteer for the “Teens Affected by Violence” program. He sits there during the interview with a short-sleeve polo that shows off his rippling biceps and a smug, self-satisfied grin. The interviewer asks Grayson “why Blüdhaven”? Why not Gotham? What are you, high?

Grayson’s got an apartment at the ol’ Blüd for a few months. In short, he wants to “trust people again”. He starts talking about Raptor and how their relationship messed him up a little bit. And he’s just telling this fucking lady all about Nightwing and Batgirl and Batman and Bruce Wayne and secret identities and running away from Gotham to get it all out of his head and…

…but he doesn’t actually say all of that. He wanted to, but he doesn’t. What he actually says is “That new tourism campaign really worked on me. I just can’t wait to ‘Get My Blüd Up’.”

The interviewer did a little research before her visit with Mr. Dickhead Grayson. His parents were circus folk, huh? Died tragically, right? Orphaned until Bruce Wayne took him in? Sounds like a Teen Affected by Violence to me, son! Welcome aboard!

I know where to find the best blowjobs in Blüdhaven! There’s this grandma on W. 21st Street who takes her teeth out and–

“You can call me Dick,” he says to her, forgetting that it’s the 21st century and no one wants to be called Dick anymore. A man named James Nice enters the office and he doesn’t seem very Nice to me. He seems like a Rascal. He’s the City Budget Analyst, and he pretty much tells Grayson that there are some great strip clubs in the area! Grayson declines like a true beta male and leaves the office.

Now that James and the interviewer – Ms. Shawn Tsang – are alone, James wants to talk about “them” wearing the costumes tonight. Shawn says it’s too soon. James disagrees wholeheartedly! Grace, for example – a woman named Grace – who is named Grace – never looked in the mirror and saw the monster she had become. She listened to the wrong voices, and she fell into the dark side. Something to that effect. James and Shawn are shifty. Let’s move on from them and never speak of them again!

Grayson sets up his apartment with furniture and Flying Grayson posters. He has never lived alone before, and he has never been financially independent before, and he’s barely doing the latter! But he doesn’t want to depend on Bruce’s money anymore, so he dipped into his savings and set up a Blüdhaven home base. The master plan here is to not be Nightwing for a while. Get to learn who Dick Grayson really is, what his hobbies are, his interests, his disgusting sexual fetishes. “Time to remind myself what they are,” he smiles.

Then he gets bored quickly trying to read and watch TV. By 8:40pm, he’s climbing the fucking walls. Join a chess club or something, Grayson. Throw an ax or two.

In the Office of the Mayor of Blüdhaven, the titular Mayor himself points at a picture of a whale leaping out of the ocean and tells the tourism board members sitting in his office to sell this shit if the casinos keep leaving town. One member of the board points out that their social media presence is really booming! The kids say it’s “on fleek”!

The Mayor all but slaps this woman. Tourism is down because Blüdhaven is a shithole. Make it not into a shithole or he’s going to slash the tourism budget and FUND THE POLICE! And nobody wants that! Except the sexy, bastard police.

Helicopters blare sirens and zip by the building. Grayson hears it way over in his apartment and seizes the opportunity to put down his penis and squeeze into the Nightwing costume. “I mean, you can’t get to know yourself all in one night, anyway.”

Nightwing sets the frequency of his, uh, mask, to the police scanner. Homicide suspect south of Dixon Park. The victim, Paulie Walnuts Paterno, was found with 39 broken bones. We think that a giant gorilla committed the crime. More news at 11.

Why Blüdhaven, indeed? Because it’s just like fuckin’ Gotham, that’s why.

Yeah yeah yeah, that’s what all the talking monkeys say…

Guess what? I was right about the gorilla! This monstrous, stupid-looking ape wearing a ball cap, a tank top, and green shorts leaps at Nightwing with all the ferocity of a giant gorilla wearing clothes. “Gorilla Grimm. A former resident of Gorilla City.”

Pfffft.

Gorilla Grimm is usually stationed in Gotham, but Batman and Nightwing kicked his ass a few million times. He’s been “incognito” for a few years, but I think they meant “AWOL”. “Never expected him to show up here.”

Nightwing smashes the ape against a wall and tells him that he’ll be going to prison tout suite! But Grimm claims his innocence. He’s trying to straighten up and fly right, that’s why he relocated to Blüdhaven! He swears it on his monkey mother’s monkey grave.

The helicopter SWAT team shows up to tell Nightwing to move along. They don’t like superheroes in Blüdhaven. Hit the road.

Gorilla Grimm is crying about a set-up while the SWAT team puts their knees on his fucking neck. Grimm hastily grabs Nightwing’s shoulder: “Ask Shawn. She knows. Talk to Shawn Tsang–”

Grimm gets cattle-prodded and gets marched away by the Feds, leaving Nightwing alone and confused.

Back in the Tourism Office of Blüdhaven, Cherry the Board Member catches a whiff of Nightwing running around on TV with the caption “GOTHAM HERO AT SITE OF MURDER SUSPECT CAPTURE”. Cherry beams. “What better way to say Blüdhaven is hip, sexy, and safe than with our very own superhero?”

After hours at the Community Center, Shawn gets out a briefcase that presumably contains a costume of sorts. “You can do this, Shawn,” she says to herself. “You can confront your old face.”

Tipped off by Grimm, Nightwing shows up to the Community Center to have a little talk with Shawn, but she has already put on her costume. She looks like a street clothes hooligan holding a can of spraypaint.

“DEFACER?!” Nightwing exclaims. Like I’m supposed to know who the fuck that is.

Final Thoughts

Get My Blüd Up, Bonerfuckers! Local criminal Defacer is going to paint penises on very important government buildings such as Mayor Tourism’s office and that statue of famed Nazi leader Adolf Something.