Dark Knight III: The Master Race #7 - DC Comics

DARK KNIGHT III: THE MASTER RACE No. 7, February 2017

Focusing upon the disconcertingly disorientated Kryptonians and Quar’s efforts to help his people “regain their strength” from the formidable assault they recently received at the hands of Gotham City’s irate population, many of this comic’s 119,114 readers probably felt that Frank Miller’s portrayal of Lara Kent erred somewhat during this particular twenty-two page periodical. For whilst Book Seven of “Dark Knight III: The Master Race” manages to maintain the character’s momentum as a truly troubled adolescent whose misplaced allegiance to “the inhabitants of Kandor” is as much a rebellious gesture towards everything which her forth righteous parents stand for, as it is an extraordinarily poor choice in friends, it’s hard to imagine even the illogical, emotionally-crazed half-Amazonian being won over to abduct her own baby brother by the terrorist’s super-powered leader angrily smashing her across the face with a closed fist; “What are you? Are you one of them? Or one of us?”

Similarly, having experienced first-hand just how sadistically sick and immature the now facially malformed Baal can be, when he thoughtlessly tossed a family-filled car up in the air with no intention of rescuing its occupants in a previous issue, it’s difficult to comprehend Superman’s daughter would willingly stand by and watch the cold-hearted killer be given Jonathan Kent “as a plaything” by the murderer's father, let alone actively participate in the criminals’ demented raid upon Themyscira by spearheading the toddler’s actual kidnapping. Of course, such illogical behaviour, even for a young woman who happily beat her ‘boy scout’ father into submission, could all be part of some massive deception in order to outmanoeuvre a clearly psychopathic extra-terrestrial invasion force. But even so, the so-called super-heroine’s willingness to participate in such insane shenanigans somewhat grates upon the senses, especially when the “Leader of the Master Race of Kandorian cultists” is so clearly deranged.

Fortunately, alongside a rather less contentious sequence depicting Superman plunging Batman's body into a Lazarus Pit in order to save the Caped Crusader’s life, this publication also contains the far more enjoyable mini-comic “Dark Knight Universe Presents: Strange Adventures”. Pencilled by Frank Miller, this ‘short’ demonstrates precisely why Hal Jordan is truly a man “without fear” as he ‘wings’ an attempt to steal “his lost hand with the Green Lantern Power Ring attached to it” from a band of desert-dwelling arms dealers and ultimately “retrieves the ring and his powers” with “Hawkman and Hawkgirl's help”. Far more dynamically penned than this book’s lead story, it’s a pity editor Mark Doyle didn’t decide to elaborate upon this abbreviated tale within the magazine’s main body, and perhaps utilise the far more sedentary, multi-panelled Bat-signal based conversation between Commissioner Ellen Yindel and Carrie Kelly for the micro tome instead.

Story: Frank Miller & Brian Azzarello, Pencils: Andy Kubert, and Inks: Klaus Janson