Summary: On the eve of his birthday, Dick teams up with Tim, Damian and Babs to stop an arms deal that unveils that Heartless has big plans.
Plot: While I'm still not a fan of Heartless as a villain I have to admit this mysterious build up to his plan to take down Dick has my buying into the story. He's still a pointless edgelord of a character with zero interesting characteristics but that the threat to Dick and his family is personal works for me especially with how well the build up of Dick's relationship with his family. The scenes with Dick interacting with Tim and Damian were fantastic and loved the play with Barbra, they just added such a wholesome feel to the book that I love seeing month in and month out. The best part though? That tribute to Marv Wolfman and George Perez. You'd think that having Wolfman write a tribute to his time with Nightwing would be too self referential and over indulgent but it was perfectly done and  loved every panel of those two pages. Again and again, Taylor just proves that this is a book that shouldn't be missed.
Art: The over exaggerated, cartoony look that Di Nicuolo employs isn't normally my favorite style, especially as it doesn't convey deep emotions well but their light hearted look here really fit the tone of the issue so for once I don't mind them.
Grade:9/10

Summary: The World's Finest team up with Mite-World's Finest as an evil mite unleashes new mites based on Earth's super villains.
Plot: More writers need to take note: This is how you do event style story telling. Waid's mash up of Superman, Batman and Robin teaming up with Bat-Mite and Mr. Mxyzptlk(yes, I looked up the spelling) has the right mix of action, character moments and humor combined with a fast pace. So many writers pad their big stories with endless amounts of exposition with most of it leading to nothing but Waid's plotting is lean and mean with just enough set up to really draw you in and best of all it's not trying to be universe shattering or world defining: it's just focused on being fun. And doing that doesn't sacrifice any of the feeling that it's a bigger than normal story, it just doesn't have any pretentiousness about it. My favorite part though? When we got a look at the villain without a hood he looked an awful lot like a maniacal Mark Waid. I could be wrong, but he reminded me a lot of Waid for somereason which if true is such a great addition to the idea of 5th dimensional imps. I don't know where this is going next but I'm definitely a long for the ride.
Art: As per usual Dan Mora's art is perfect. I think the highights for me however were his design for the super-powered costume for Dick as it just channeled some real silver Age sensibilities and the 2D look of Batman, Superman and Robin at the end when parasite drained a dimension from them. It just had such a great, cartoony vibe that really came right off the page. If you aren't reading this book and you love super heroes you're really missing out.
Grade:10/10