This winter, The Joker is on the loose and is seeking revenge against the Bat-family in the horrifying “Death of the Family.” And this time around, his vendetta is personal.

 

Next week sees the release of NIGHTWING #15, which is the first issue of the series to be an official tie-in to this acclaimed crossover event. But while issue #15 sees Dick Grayson facing The Joker, the impact of “Death of the Family” will change the course of NIGHTWING forever in issue #16.

 

“I guess the only thing I can say is, it's kind of my ‘opus,’” writer Kyle Higgins teased to NEWSARAMA about NIGHTWING #16. “Everything that spins out of NIGHTWING #16 is my big, huge, epic Nightwing story that I've been planning for a long time. But it all begins in NIGHTWING #16.

 

“The Joker is going for the jugular with all the Bat allies -- so, all of their greatest fears, all of their perceived weaknesses, these are the aspects of the characters that the Joker is targeting,” Higgins continued to COMIC BOOK RESOURCES. “As that relates specifically to Nightwing, someone who is arguably the most outgoing, social character in the DC Universe, there are a lot of ways to get to him, to whether it be through friends in Haly's circus, whether it be through potential love interests. If the Joker does know Nightwing as well as he claims to know him, that's pretty terrifying. Based on that reveal at the end of BATMAN #14 of the Joker knowing everything, I think if I were Nightwing I'd be quite concerned!”

 

To read more from Kyle Higgins on “Death of the Family” and to see sneak peeks at the interior art of NIGHTWING #16, check out the full interviews with the writer that ran this morning in MTV GEEK, IGN, COMIC BOOK RESOURCES, NEWSARAMA, and COMIC VINE.

 

NIGHTWING #16 trapezes into stores on January 23, 2013.