Review: Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 6 trade paperback (DC Comics)

Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 6 starts off well but gets weaker as it goes, a metaphor perhaps for the series as a whole. If there was ever a thesis for this title, what seemed a launching point to explore the richer Bat-universe post Infinite Frontier, that’s long since been lost by now.

There are some bright points in this book, stories that are decent or that have decent points or suggest something worth following up. But nothing here rises to the level of really essential, and no one would be blamed for having checked out well before now.

[Review contains spoilers]

The star of this volume, and the one that merits top billing on the back cover, is a Nightwing two-parter written and drawn by Jamal Campbell. That’s a big name, and Campbell taking over all the duties by himself is a get for this book. If “Presenting: The Director” starts out in trouble — using the Seer character, one of the nonsensical aspects grafted on to the Fear State crossover to give the side titles something to do — Campbell quickly rights things in the second half.

[See the latest DC trade solicitations.]

By the end, we’ve got a cogent mystery with clues actually sprinkled into the art, something we don’t see as often as we should. Campbell’s story takes place in the here and now of Tom Taylor’s Nightwing run, with a large role for Barbara Gordon and a cameo by Haley the dog, such that it wouldn’t be hard even to think this was a Taylor Nightwing tale.

Similarly, Tini and Blake Howard also have a good one that’s equally convincing as a “lost” Tim Drake tale from the Chuck Dixon days. Their Batman is perhaps too sterotypically gruff, but artist Max Raynor is doing an impressive Tom Grummett imitation here, making it feel for a moment like those good old days. But this and the Campbell story are both shadows of other things, material you can get elsewhere and in greater volume, undercutting the actual value of the anthology.

A few other good ones: the Ventriloquist story by Into the Unbeing’s Zac Thompson and Hayden Sherman is wonderfully scary, and Anthony Falcone and Michael Cho offer a great high-speed romp with a new speedster I hope we see more of. I thought Greg Hahn’s story of low-level crooks had a good stinger in its intimation that Gothamites with trust funds, i.e., Batman, don’t understand the plight of the common person.

But while I liked the swords and sorcery Batman tale from frequent collaborators Jim Zub and Max Dunbar (and I’d be more than happy to see this reality intersect with our own as the ending suggests), that we’re into Elseworlds now is a real indication of trouble. Consider this from the announcement of Urban Legends' first issue: “… there are lots of other heroes — and villains — who will get a turn to shine in Batman: Urban Legends, a brand-new monthly series tying into the biggest events in Gotham City.” Not that there isn’t a market for this kind of Batman anthology — Batman Chronicles made it 23 issues, same as Urban Legends — but the promise of Urban Legends was to be much more tied in than where it ended up.

The book’s initial Killer Croc story is not particularly strong, and its rendition of an animalistic Croc feels dated. But it’s after the Ventriloquist story that Urban Legends really limps toward the finish line: a ho-hum Two-Face story with Mikel Janin art cramped to inscruitable; an Anarky story with clunky dialogue and a Batman who “had a feeling” Anarky was the culprit, with no actual clues to show for it. Nadia Shammas' piece is a weird imagining of Batman and Talia bonding over their love for Damian; I’m sure there’s romantic appeal to this, but it’s so far from how the characters actually relate in the mainstream comics that it feels uncomfortably like wish fulfillment.

I actually diverted to reading Urban Legends Vol. 6 because I realized there was a “Renee Montoya decides to be commissioner” story in here, having just finished John Ridley’s GCPD: The Blue Wall. The story by Julio Anta (author of the upcoming This Land is Your Land Blue Beetle YA graphic novel) shares even some key dialogue in common with GCPD, a nice touch whether purposeful or coincidental. But even as a 10-page comic of mostly Renee and Batwoman Kate Kane chatting sounds like perfection, the writer has neither character’s voices quite right, each rather too emotional and forthcoming than normal. In that way it does not unfortunately feel of a piece with Ridley’s work.

From Robin driving the Batmobile to Kid Flash driving the Batmobile, callouts to Seer to callouts to Roland Worth, there’s a lot in Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 6 and plenty that speaks to the Bat-moment that Batman: Urban Legends was born in, now ending. It’s replaced almost immediately by Batman: Brave and the Bold, certainly so named because of the upcoming movie. Interestingly, even with “Batman” in the title, that anthology doesn’t seem to be just Bat-family stories, but rather also the greater DCU; whether a larger variety of characters to choose from might forstall another anthology’s march toward entropy will be interesting to see.

[Includes original and variant covers]

Rating 2.0