Looks like we oopsed up and called it too early before, but this time itâs really the last issue of the new volume of Legends of the Dark Knight. This issue features two shorts:
âThe Ghost and the Knight,â written by Che Grayson, drawn by Belen Ortega, colored by Alejandro Sanchez and lettered by Aditya Bidikar.
âHealing,â written by Yedoye Travis, drawn by Nina Vakueva, colored by Ivan Plascencia and lettered by Ariana Maher.
A metahuman prisoner transfer goes very wrong, and things are looking awful dark in Gotham City in Batman: One Dark Knight #1, written and drawn by Jock and lettered by Clem Robins.
In a story of Robinâs early days, we see Batman taken Robin to the Justice League satellite for the first time, his first meeting with the kids who will become the Teen Titans and his closest friends, and a twist that, well, weâll get to that in Robin & Batman #2, written by Jeff Lemire, drawn and colored by Dustin Nguyen and lettered by Steve Wands.
Will Nevin: Artists who take up the âwriter and artistâ challenge sure are a mixed lot, arenât they? For every Jock â who for my money fucking kills it in this first issue of One Dark Knight â it seems we get a dozen Sean Gordon Murphys â visually talented types (this is me being generous, by the way, I think Murphy is about as good at coloring as a really high-achieving canine) who have no idea how to tell a tight, compelling and worthwhile story with words on the page.
Matt Lazorwitz: The true auteur writer/artist is few and far between. For every, say, Darwyn Cooke, there are three people who just vomit words onto the page that completely obscure their visual storytelling. The best ones learn over time to show not tell, but many donât have the time to do it, since that first attempt is so painful.
Will: Weâre already spoiling our BatChat super premium audio edition talk on White Knight, arenât we? (Goddamn that book is wordy.) Reckon we oughta get to the books of the week with prominent artist/writers that feature ⌠uhh ⌠varying levels of success.
The Final Issue of Legends
Matt: Alas, poor Legends of the Dark Knight. How many times can we see this book end? We got one more issue than we thought we were going to get out of it, I suppose.
Will: I hope this is the last time because I donât need to see DC trot out a beloved title only to see it get this kind of treatment. Iâve said it before â I remember so vividly the day this book was announced (primarily because I got my ârona shot) and it was super great news. But between the iffy quality of most of the stories and the companyâs willingness to shuffle it off so quickly, I am thoroughly disappointed in how this turned out.
Matt: Itâs a shame. I donât know why they treat this title as a tryout book. Or if they were gonna do that, make something of it. Make it a big deal that these are the creators of the future. I canât imagine itâs great for the creators to get their chance to work on Batman, only to have it shuffled off into a book that DC doesnât even push.
Will: I guess it falls into their yet-again aborted focus on digital-first books â remember when almost every character had a digital book that cannibalized those Walmart exclusives? Fun times. But like the whole damn endeavor, we have two mostly uneven final stories, with one not managing to say much of anything and another that tried to take up something incredibly complicated with only a handful of pages.
Matt: Both of these, conceptually, needed more pages. The first story has some nice ideas, but because none of them are fleshed out, they come off as a bit trite. The second probably would have done well to be more removed from âFear State,â as it comes off as so similar in its concepts that it just feels derivative, despite knowing it must have been produced well before that event.
Will: You wanna know exactly how much of a shit DC gives about this book? Legends of the Dark Knight Ch. 16 â the digital version of âHealingâ â dropped on July 16. So, yeah, just a wee bit before âFear State.â Itâs interesting you point out the connection here, though, since Scarecrowâs idea here to remove a personâs trauma, thereby enabling them to live a life without that pain, was the central premise of what the Unsanity Collective was trying to do.
But that narrative similarity is a bit beside the point: This series simply wasnât set up to succeed. And thatâs on editorial.
One Dark Knight, One Great Issue
Matt: So, this? This might be one of my favorite first issues of 2021. If I had read this before Mondayâs WMQ&A best of 2021, this would have definitely made honorable mention status because this hits all the right notes.
Will: As usual, we are of one mind â I get the sense that weâre not going to get some deep exploration of what makes Batman Batman in this series, and thatâs fine â not every book has to be a Bat Treatise. What we are going to get, however, is some tight-ass action in a beautiful damn book. Jock draws the hell out of this thing and gets out of his way in the scripting. The dimensions make for perfect edge-to-edge reading on an iPad. Really, I canât say enough good things about this book.
Matt: This first issue is cool, slick and action-packed, and sets up the rest of the series. What we are going to get moving forward is Batman meets The Warriors: Batman having to make his way across Gotham with a knocked out metahuman while avoiding every gang in the city, who want to either save or kill this guy. And that is a great concept.
Will: It also reminded me of the Samuel L. Jackson/Colin Farrell/Jeremy Renner S.W.A.T., which is probably really unfair to One Dark Knight, but that movie hit at a formative time for teen Will. Sorry, Jock.
Matt: There is some depth here in the subplot, with Jim Gordon and the head of Gotham Corrections, but Iâm not sure how much is going to come of that. Rita Vasquez is a new character, and Iâm a little worried weâre getting a kind of one-dimensional ACAB thing with her, as she is seriously harsh about imprisonment; there doesnât seem to be much thought of redemption for Director Vasquez. She just believes people need to be locked up. When Jim Gordon is telling you to slow your roll, you know youâre going down a dark path.
Will: You know what we say when it comes to Gotham pols: Theyâre either incompent, on the take or both. Maybe Vasquez will come around. Or maybe sheâs behind the whole damn thing. In either case, I think Batman is going to kick a fuckton of ass.
Matt: And I love that! So many of these Black Label books try to be serious comics and deep meditations. But as you said, this book doesnât seem to be trying to do that. Itâs just trying to take that Prestige Plus format and run with it to create something that is a visual feast. And I am here for that.
The Comic That Finally Broke Matt
Matt: Will, I donât think itâs unfair to say that part of why we work as a team is that you tend toward sarcastic, dark humor and a level of curmudgeonliness, while I am generally lighter and more of a pollyanna who âlikes stuff,â yes?
Will: Thatâs a really long way of saying, âWill, youâre an asshole,â but I concur in the point, Brother Matt.
Matt: Well, get ready, readers, because if thatâs the turn of phrase weâre going with, this section is Matt the Asshole on full display. Because I have rarely read a comic that has made me so singularly angry as this one did.
Will: I am motherfucking strapped in.
Matt: Flat out, folks, I am going to spoil the end of this comic. After the last issue ended with Batman and Robin having an argument about Batman invading Robinâs privacy, Batman takes Dick on a very special birthday trip. He brings him to the Silver Age-era JLA Satellite headquarters, then goes off on a JLA mission while leaving Robin with the kids who will form the original Teen Titans (and Hawkman, who is on monitor duty). Robin and the kids slip out and have a series of fun adventures.
This sounds like a great little adventure story, right? I liked it. Until we get back to the Batcave. In front of Alfred, Batman asks Robin for a mission debrief. My better instincts are like, âAw, Bats knew Robin was gonna sneak out with the kids, and heâs caught him and weâre gonna have a nice moment with Robin telling Batman about it.â But my warm fuzzies are quickly squashed when Robin rattles off his analysis of how to take down each of the sidekicks.
Batman has weaponized friendship and forced that weapon onto a 12-year-old. In audio BatChat, weâll soon be covering âTower of Babel,â the story where we learn Batman has plans to take down the JLA. And Iâm OK with that story, because Batman is an adult who views the League as coworkers, with the exception of Clark (and Diana and Jâonn, but that wasnât really the case when that story was written). But here he has made a 12-year-old, one who is still traumatized by the death of his parents, spend time with the few kids who might understand him, and asked him to figure out how to beat those kids senseless.
This version of Batman is a goddamn monster. And when Alfred sees this and calls Bats on it, Batman again talks about Dick like heâs a child soldier, something that bothered me in issue #1 of this book. Alfred calls Bruce a bastard and storms off. Any Alfred who is written properly would have taken that kid away from Batman and threatened to out him to the public if he tried to stop Alfred, do not pass Go, do not collect $200. Alfred is negligent, and Bruce is monstrous.
Will: You made the case, and Iâll provide the summation: This is motherfucking vile. Black Label or not, editorial should be ashamed of this, and I really have no idea what Lemire is thinking. This is not a Batman who can be redeemed in the final issue. He canât learn a lesson. He canât be saved â at least not in any meaningful way since this is the moral equivalent of Anakin killing the younglings. (Well, without the actual murdering). I mean, what the fucking fuck, Matt?
Matt: You got me. This is all the child cruelty that various people criticize Batman for that I usually roll my eyes at because they donât understand Batman and Robinâs relationship. If you want to see the way Batman should think about Robin, watch this clip from Young Justice. Batman takes in Robin not to make him a soldier but to give him someone who understands him, and gives him the Titans so he has friends who he can be his full self with. This Batman is no better than the Talia and Raâs who tried to indoctrinate Damian into the League of Assassins as a child.
And I hate it all the more because itâs beautifully drawn and the sequences of Robin and the Titans are fun! This could have been a story that redeemed the Batman of issue #1, but instead it sinks him so deep there is no coming back from it. No matter what he says or does in issue #3, Iâd never trust him near a Robin again.
Bat-miscellany
- Cliche watch: âgreener grassâ and âweight lifted from my shouldersâ in Legends. Boo.
- There have to be Batman miniseries titles aside from [Something] [Something] Knight, right?
- This week in BatChat audio, itâs our Very Special Christmas episode featuring three heartwarming (?) holiday tales from Gotham. Next week, weâre back on our Elseworlds bullshit as we move from the Civil War to the turbulent â60s to a simple question of what would have happened if Bruce would have picked up Joe Chillâs gun.
Matt Lazorwitz read his first comic at the age of 5. It was Who's Who in the DC Universe #2, featuring characters whose names begin with B, which explains so much about his Batman obsession. He writes about comics he loves, and co-hosts the podcasts BatChat with Matt & Will and The ComicsXF Interview Podcast.
Will Nevin loves bourbon and AP style and gets paid to teach one of those things. He is on Twitter far too often.
