Nightwing #3

Issue Details

Synopsis

THE OUBLIETTE Nightwing finds himself surrounded by Kravian soldiers, but he fights himself free and escapes into the woods. He uses his headset to call back Miggie Webster because the woman he only met a few days before seemed to be in a desperate situation earlier. She answers the phone, but is cut off by a man who calls her a "slut" and obviously uses physical violence to intimidate her. Nightwing is helpless at the moment and has a mission to take care of first. And that starts with trying to stop the soldiers from killing Kravian citizens because of their ethnic background.  Nightwing saves a family and luckily the husband agrees to smuggle him into the State House. But as soon as both men are inside the building, Nightwing gets hit over the head with a metal stick. As he awakens later, he finds himself handcuffed to a chair. The husband apologizes for hitting him — he just saw a chance to save his family by doing Prince Balsik a favor. Balsik does not recognize Nightwing as Dick Grayson, so Dick just tells him that he actually was hired by an American to find out more about the death of the Graysons. Balsik orders to prepare "The Oubliette" for Nightwing — the typical punishment for traitors in Kravia. The man who sold out Nightwing begs for mercy, but only gets shot by Balsik.   Shortly after that Nightwing gets covered with honey and is dumped into a deep hole in the ground. On the ground Dick meets Heinmel Von Cart and the Prime Minister explains that soon thousands of rats will be released into the cave. While Dick climbs up the cave to free them, Von Cart talks about the history regarding Prince Balsik.   The Prime Minister confesses how he replaced the real young Prince Balsik, who already had shown flashes of cruelty in his actions, with his own son Kemper. It was after a circus show that Von Cart disguised himself as a clown named Pickles and personally killed Balsik. Too late, he noticed that the Graysons were up above checking the trapeze rigging (which they always did after a show) and were thus witnesses of the murder. At first, Von Cart only sent them a letter of warning, but later he decided that the Graysons had to be killed. The irony of course is that his son Kemper turned out to be an evil tyrant as well.   While listening to Von Cart, Nightwing finally reaches the entrance and ties the rope to the metal bars which seal the cave. Thus, he is able to pull Von Cart upwards just as the rats are entering the cave. But after con Cart admitted being responsible for the death of Dick's parents, Nightwing is eager to feed him to the rats. But he decides against it and instead manages to open the bars after knocking a guard down and taking his keys. Just as he and Von Cart are about to escape further, the guard gets up again and shoots both of them...