Review: Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 4 trade paperback (DC Comics)

The Batman: Urban Legends series started well enough, with consequential stories for Red Hood Jason Todd, Grifter, Azrael, Robin Tim Drake, and others, often as lead-in to future series, plus ties to the “Fear State” crossover. But since Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 3, that sense of “consequence” hasn’t been as strong, and that continues into Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 4.

The end of Batman: Fear State also marked the departure of writer James Tynion (and his grand plans) from the Batman franchise, after which the Bat-titles went into something of a holding pattern in expectation of Dark Crisis. With Urban Legends Vol. 4, I tend to wonder if the abrupt change in Bat-plans didn’t take some of the wind out of the sales of this book, too, with the franchise no longer needing or having the big content for an anthology title. Urban Legends Vol. 4 is entertaining in its variety, but ultimately seems composed of a startling number of inventory stories, as if DC is quite simply padding out its pages with whatever’s available until the book can reach its end.

[Review contains spoilers]

I don’t know all the ins and outs, but there is clearly something unusual happening with Alex Paknadel’s Batman/Black Adam team-up story “Stagecraft,” set distinctly — but without clear explanation — in the space between Identity Crisis and Infinite Crisis. Batman’s quip that Hawkman might make him forget a conversation after they’ve had it is a throwback from out of the blue.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

The simpliest explanation — though not all that simple — is that this thing has been banging around someone’s desk drawer since 2004 (!) and now that Black Adam has a movie, it’s finally getting to see the light of day. Equally unbelivable would be that, commissioned to write a Batman/Black Adam story, Paknadel either saw fit to or didn’t know any better than to set it during DC events from 20 years ago (when the story would have been just as fine without such rooting, or could as easily have been set in the here and now) and no editor raised a flag about it.

There’s a lot of that taking place in Urban Legends Vol. 4. Mohale Mashigo pens a nicely spooky story of “Kid Eternity” Christopher Freeman, but I can’t help but wonder what prompted a very direct sequel to one single issue by Jeff Lemire and Cully Hamner, National Comics: Eternity, from 2012 that hasn’t been referenced since. Ryan Cady’s Question story pulls from the 1986 first issue of Dennis O’Neil’s classic run, while Henry Barajas' Etrigan story references an Alan Grant issue from 1992. Cady contributes a couple stories, as does Joey Esposito, both New Talent Showcase alum, and indeed all of this reminds of some of the New Talent books — stories not so much in the mainstream as perhaps inspired by treasured issues the writers had on hand.

Again, I don’t mean to be an “everything must matter” stickler, so much as, as I concluded in my review of Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 3, it does feel as though Urban Legends has betrayed its premise. What started as a very connected anthology series has now become just an anthology series (I’m reminded of Jeph Loeb’s Superman/Batman, which did much the same thing); not that there’s anything wrong with an anthology series, but I was reading Urban Legends and not the latest incarnation of Legends of the Dark Knight for a reason.

Among good ones, I liked seeing all the Batman 666 villains again in Tim Seeley and Juan Ferreyra’s story (even if again we’re pulling from a few issues 10 or so years ago) and the various takes on the Bat-costumes in Kenny Porter’s Batman One Million story. Christian Ward illustrates well his own Professor Pyg story, and Sam Johns' tale of Tweedledum trying to prop up his brother’s dying body is creepy fun, with art by Karl Mostert.

Possibly my favorite is Josh Trujillo (the new Blue Beetle writer) and Rosi Kampe’s Alfred Pennyworth story. It’s not complicated, but there was something touching about Alfred pretending to — but maybe also kind of for real — consider entering a nursing home, and then also taking the spotlight with some detective work. But again, there seems to be a disconnect between what the story is and how marketing is pitching it — the back of the book touts a team-up between Batman and “Alfred Pennyworth?!,” with the interrobang presumably because Alfred is dead but the story actually takes place well before that.

I also liked Ram V’s Wight Witch story, which is lyrical in the way that Ram V’s stories usually are. It seems unlikely that the Rhea Sinha character would have been introduced with a connection to Tynion’s Ghost-Maker without some follow-up being planned, so this seems a bit like a glimpse of what might have been; Ghost-Maker’s still around, but I don’t believe Ed Brisson’s using Rhea over in Batman, Inc.

At the same time, more than a few of the stories here demonstrate the relative newness of their writers (or lack of strong oversight here), with characters looking left while talking to someone on their right and etc. I had high hopes for the new Lady Shiva/Birds of Prey stories and so felt let down by such idiosyncrasies as Bruce Wayne keeping framed pictures of the Bat-family in costume in his brownstone living room or Miracle Molly’s really uncharacteristic villain turn.

2.0

Rating

So, I would rank Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 4 higher than its previous volume, but my overall dip in enjoyment of this series has surprised me; I liked the first two volumes and expected I would keep enjoying it. The next volume will be an interesting experiment, being four stories rather than this volume’s 17 or the previous volume’s two, and whether more focus but not too much focus makes a difference.

[Includes original and variant covers]