A little uneven but serves its purpose.
This issue has three acts, the first one starts off with a flashback involving Dr. Leslie Thompkins and the whole point of the flashback is to do three things, to illustrate the tone in upcoming Grayson series, to introduce a notable cleavage..I mean a character pre-Flashpoint to the new 52 and to give some more backstory as to why Batman views Spyral as a threat, this section was written by Tim Seeley. The second act is Batman convincing Dick Grayson to join Spyral, WITH HIS FISTS, this section was written by Tom King. Then the third act concludes with Dick Grayson globe-trotting with his escrima sticks essentially leading straight into Grayson #1 which was written by Tim Seeley and Tom King. In fact, the end of the issue was sort of like seeing someone leave home and go away to college for the very first time.
The issue is essentially the bridge between Forever Evil #7 and Grayson #1 NOT Nightwing #29 and Grayson #1. The new creative team behind this is Tim Seeley (Revival, Hack/Slash) and Tom King writing and you can tell by the very first page, it looks nothing like what you have read in the past 29 Nightwing issues, this leads to one of the main issues of Nightwing #30. The problem is that the book is rather inconsistent tonally , on the one hand you have the Spyral stuff which is off-the-wall zaniness (one character has a swirly face, another one looks like a member of KISS), similar to Hack/Slash but on the other hand, you had the Bruce/Dick interaction which was set in the dark Batcave which is more similar to Batman in the new 52. I think that both work well on their own but when you put them in the same story, it makes it seem as though you're reading two different books, which is generally not a good thing.
The "sparring" session that Batman and Dick Grayson is rather brutal, it is probably the non-powered hero equivalent to the damage that Superman/Zod caused in Man of Steel. The justification that Batman gives when persuading Dick Grayson makes sense, especially when you factor in Batman's paranoia. The idea that is given not only raises Dick Grayson's importance in the DCU but it could give Dick Grayson more of an opportunity to interact with the rest of the DCU in a way that wasn't really available to him before in the new 52, which I like. The are two issues that I have with the Batman/Grayson interaction, one is that he tells Dick that he should not tell the rest of the Batfamily about him surviving the events of FE because of trust, but if you've read Forever Evil #7, you know that at least a dozen people know that Dick Grayson survived, many of whom are very dangerous people, so what's the harm in letting Alfred and Barbara know that he's alive. Second is that Tom King writes Batman as a complete sociopath. I will say the Batcave stuff was probably the low point of this issue.
From an art perspective, it's a mixed bag (which tends to happen when two different artists draw an issue) the best parts of it were the Spyral stuff, when it went to the Batcave, it wasn't as good for me, I mean Batman and Dick Grayson are battling each other shirtless, but I couldn't make out which line was a muscle and which line was a scar. Not to mention that the designs of Dick Grayson looked different between the two settings, this once again leads me to the main issue that I had (illustrated in paragraph 2). By the way, am I the only one that finds a shirtless but still wearing the cowl Batman rather silly?
Overall, this was a solid-filler issue, it is NOT a Nightwing comicbook but rather Grayson #0 and it did what it was supposed to do which was to lay the groundwork and build excitement for the new Grayson series. I like the idea of why Dick Grayson is going to "join" Spyral, I like the tone that they are going for in the new series, I just wished that the issue didn't go back and forth between tones. The best part of the comic dealt with Spyral, which makes sense, considering that the writers of this story are going to write Grayson and if the Spyral stuff didn't work, we would have had a serious problem. I think that if you're a Dick Grayson fan and especially if you're a nervous Dick Grayson fan, this is definitely an issue to check out. But if you're strapped for cash and can only buy 1-2 issues a week, you should probably skip this.
