Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #3 feels like the midway point in the series, with things starting to shift around for the three protagonists. It's also the issue where the concept of the series is starting to break down a little bit. At least for me.
I've only read a few books in the The Hardy Boys Casefiles series when I was growing up and never read the Nancy Drew Files books either. So my experience with these characters comes from the original books. Which means it takes me a little bit to get used to anything that deviates from that original tone and style. I've enjoyed the previous two issues in this series, but it's still weird for me to read the Hardys and Nancy in this kind of situation. Oh sure, the bad guys tried to kill these characters in their respective books back in the day, but it was never so bloody in those books even though the danger was quite real. It's a good series so far, but it's called The Death of Nancy Drew, and with the way issue #1 ended the title is probably the wrong one for this series.
There isn't much character development for any of the three main characters. Frank and Joe are Frank and Joe and Nancy is Nancy. There really isn't any difference between the way they are in the novels and the way they are here in the comics. Which is fine, you know, I'm glad Del Col isn't trying to change the characters except to make them 2020 characters rather than characters from the '20s, '30s or '50s. But at the same time, because these characters have been around for almost 100 years and have been in movies, comic books, TV shows and novels, it's really difficult to do anything with them without completely changing their personalities, which no fan of either book series would want to do unless absolutely necessary. So the fact that Del Col didn't do that and managed to keep things interesting is pretty cool.
The one thing I probably could do without is the romantic undertones of the issue. I know that Frank and Nancy have sort of been a thing since the Super Sleuths series that was published from the late '80s until the late '90s, but this isn't that series, and Del Col isn't actually doing anything with it, beyond Frank mentioning his crush on Nancy and then the classic trope of someone telling their crush that they love them, while hopped up on drugs after surgery or because of an injury or whatever the case is. You know the typical romantic drama stuff that's been going on since the advent of the soap opera. It should be cute, but it takes away from the severity of the situation the three detectives find themselves in. I dunno, maybe it's because the DC/CW superhero shows have really soured me on romance in comic book based TV shows, that that dislike for it has now bled into comics themselves.
The other thing that I have a problem with, is a problem that I have with this series as a whole, not with this particular issue. There was another mini-series that came before this and as the series goes on I see more and more connection between the two. I haven't read the previous series, so I have no idea what it was about, aside from the brief recap at the start of the first issue of this series, which makes it harder to get into because you feel like you came in in the middle of the movie or the second season of a TV show that relies on the viewer to have seen the first season and know what's going on. This series does a better job of trying to be a standalone story, but that connection is still there and every once in a while the writer reminds the reader of that connection and it does make me want to go back and read the previous series. So I guess it's not really a problem so much as it is an annoyance that comic books have in general these days.
Final Thoughts and Rating: Overall The Death of Nancy Drew #3 is a good issue with a pretty great reveal at the ending that ties the Bobbsey Twins into everything going on with the Hardys and Nancy Drew, which is still REALLY weird to say. The romance element is unnecessary but it isn't super intrusive. Yet. I'm giving Nancy Drew & The Hardy Boys: The Death of Nancy Drew #3 7/10 stars. The story is still interesting, but there isn't much world building or character development at this point in the story.
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