Nightwing 2025 Annual #1 review

Watters and Francavilla reteam in Nightwing 2025 Annual #1 to drop the 4-11 on Olivia Pearce and the Zanni. To do so, Watters picks and prods at their backstories with detective work by Commissioner Maggie Sawyer. As her footwork illuminates more dark truths, the nature of the Cirque Du Sin and their master plan becomes clearer. Let’s break down the new information below!

Canonically Wonder Boy has like the strength of 100 or so men, but in the comics, not so much.

Working Backwards

First and foremost, this annual is another fairly good Sawyer noir story, despite featuring almost no Nightwing involvement. In many ways, the street-level direction plays much like Gotham Central and shares a lot of positive thematic DNA with Tom King’s Rorschach. For instance, the story ties into real life allusions to Dr. Fredric Wertham’s Seduction of the Innocent and the arguments that led to the creation of the Comic’s Code Authority and the Hays Code. Sawyer’s character spends much of the issue digging through files, investigating records, talking to witnesses, and visiting places of interest. Maggie also calls out the passive and submissive behavior of the Blüdhaven PD to orders from Spheric/Helios. Ironically, Sawyer has been passive thus far in the main book, only to now question Pearce’s control. Made worse by the fact that all it took was a thorough background check.

One cool element about this story is how it wedges its gritty tone between the weirder interdimensional imp attack happening at the same time. There’s neat mentions of Dan Turpin, visits to Chase Meridian in Arkham Tower, and even features the Gray Ghost and shark repellent. Although, this is likely the first instance of Golden Age metahuman Wonder Boy as his sidekick. In any case, when Sawyer finally does catch up with Pearce, it is only to confirm Melinda’s testimony. As a reminder, Olivia Pearce, also known as Colombina, reveals her true face to the mayor in Nightwing #124. Now, despite her overtly suspicious behavior, Sawyer can’t see anything beyond her very demure and mindful features. So, the mystery of her face behind her face will continue in the main book’s storyline.

Turning Into A Circus

Watters cleverly drip feeds information about Pearce’s identity. He begins the issue with her abusive prosecutor father attempting to legally and illegally punish his daughter for her interest in comic books. The counselor’s overall argument being that comics draw out a person’s deviancy. Ironically, this proves to be very true for Olivia whose love for comic book death traps borders on psychopathic sadism. In fact, this very lust for violent entertainment seemingly draws her to the Zanni. Incidentally, the dark god of entertainment shares his own thesis about the world’s superheroes outshining the circus. Namely, how the strongmen like Superman, acrobats like Robin, or freaks like Martian Manhunter belong in entertainment and not deadly serious heroism. Instead, because superheroes and metas have become commonplace, people have fallen out of love with the circus or to a larger degree the wonders of the world.

Naturally, Francavilla’s circus poster looking artwork establishes a spooky but mood driven atmosphere. Particularly, images of Zanni crawling down walls or emerging from smoke. The color alone depicts Olivia’s perspective of a colorful girl in a colorless world. On that same note, Wes Abbott’s creepy lettering becomes eerie references to Golden Age Comics and Batman ’66. Narratively, Lloyd Carroll’s origin story as the Ringmaster is an unintentional highlight. Something about the perversion of his comic book death traps is a tragic casualty of the demonic duo.

Recommended If…

• You enjoyed Nightwing #125-126.
• You have a soft spot for Maggie Sawyer or detective noir.
• Praying that someone explains what the Zanni is up to.

Overall

Whatever the Zanni really is, he is old, powerful, and very much trying to kill superheroes for fun. Similarly, we may not know what kind of creature she is, but her deviant origin is a very interesting start. Overall, this is a great change of pace from the regular book with a lot more relevance to the bigger picture. Not to mention its darker tone, creative storytelling, and themed layout. Hopefully, the main title story picks up on this momentum and brings this arc home. Find out next issue of Nightwing, where maybe Nightwing can join us!

Score: 8/10

DC Comics have provided advance copies of books for review.