Batman: Urban Legends #18 [Part One] - DC Comics

BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS No. 18, October 2022

For those readers of Brandon Thomas’ “Signal And The Outsiders” who weren’t familiar with “the events of The Caretaker and The Fearful”, this opening tale to Issue Eighteen of “Batman: Urban Legends” probably wouldn’t have made too much sense until the twenty-two page plot is at least half-way finished. Sure, the narrative eventually suggests that Duke and his team-mates are primarily fighting for the planet’s future in some sort of three-battle competition against Vogel the Lord and his Subterranean Forces. But these scraps of context are only fed to the audience in a piecemeal fashion as the main narrative focuses upon the teenage vigilante’s obsession in finding his dead mother and difficulty in getting enough sleep.

Happily however, despite this uncertainty as to what is actually going on, Alberto Jiménez Alburquerque’s artwork more than manages to hold the attention until the adventure is played out, courtesy of some particularly well-pencilled set-pieces and wonderfully dynamic splash pages. Indeed, quite possibly this yarn’s best moment comes when the Spanish illustrator draws an adrenalin-charged chase through the streets of Gotham City as Batman tackles the evidently ‘mad as a March hare’ Wonderland Gang.

Far more straightforward, though a tale which simply doesn’t stop in its relentless drive to reach a somewhat succinct conclusion after only ten pages, is “Blood In And Blood Out” by Henry Barajas. Crammed full of depictions of the Caped Crusader battering away at a great mystical eye whilst the demon Etrigan confronts his adopted brother Lord Scapegoat, the pulse-pounding pace of the ensuing carnage begins just as soon as the “Latinx author from Tucson” quickly establishes that Bruce Wayne has bought the haunted Huitzilopochtli Statue so as to return it “back to Mexico’s Museum of Anthropology.”

Sketching all this chaos and insanely fast shenanigans is Serg Acuna, who does an excellent job of drawing both the Dark Knight in his prime, always one step ahead of his foe no matter how bizarre they may be, and the joy had by Jason Blood’s yellow-hued alter ego as he repeatedly batters his goat-headed sibling at the foot of a truly unholy-looking altar. Furthermore, the graphic designer impressively shows that there is much more to the character of Randhir Singh than just being a psychic-skilled ally of Etrigan; “This makes him your half-brother!”

The regular cover art of "BATMAN: URBAN LEGENDS" #18 by Liam Sharp

Batman And The Outsiders #1 - DC Comics

BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS No. 1, July 2019

Having been suddenly cancelled by “DC Comics” in November 2018, with the subsidiary of “Warner Brothers” promising comic book retailers that the title would be re-solicited “later in 2019”, fans of “Batman And The Outsiders” were probably hoping that writer Bryan Hill’s “tweaking of some of the script because of DCU events” was going to make this particular twenty-four page periodical truly stand out from amongst the myriad of other Dark Knight-related publications swamping the local store’s spinner rack. Yet whilst “Lesser Gods” starts off well enough, with a super-powered villain mysteriously targeting a single parent and his daughter as they innocently drive through Los Angeles, the American author’s narrative soon arguably gets badly bogged down in the doubts and fears of its leading cast; “Neither are you, Signal. That’s why I had to save your life. We have to work together. We’re a team.”

True, the super-group’s dynamically-paced battle against the homicidal shootist Saint John provides plenty of pulse-pounding action whilst it lasts, especially when it seems clear that Duke Thomas is intent on hurling himself against the gun-toting maniac simply to show comrade-in-arms Orphan that he is neither afraid nor feels he needs Black Lightning to tackle the mass of murderous muscle blazing away at him with a rotary cannon. However, just as soon as Katana cleaves the brute’s machine-gun and “Raijin” zaps the felon into next week, this book’s plot disappointingly degenerates into little more than a series of word-heavy, dialogue-driven scenes where everyone from Bruce Wayne through to Jefferson Pierce openly discuss some of their most innermost concerns about the freshly assembled team.

Debatably this comic’s biggest frustration though, is the fact that Batman is predominantly kept on the sidelines, disconcertingly directing his proteges to “find Sofia [and] bring her to Gotham” from the shadows, rather than directly leading the Outsiders himself. Indeed, the Caped Crusader doesn’t even appear in costume until the second half of the book, when he is simply depicted ruminating upon the Bat-computer’s suggested action for him to contact the Los Angeles Police Department for more information on Ramos’ disappearance.

Happily, what Hill’s script lacks in gripping drama is somewhat ‘put right’ by Dexter Soy’s marvellously energetic pencilling, which really helps imbue the plot’s more sedentary scenes with some much-needed gravitas and foreboding atmosphere. Black Lightning’s ‘friendly duel’ with Tatsu Yamashiro at her “little place in Gotham” is a good example of this, where the somewhat stilted dialogue between the pair is made all the more tense and enthralling courtesy of the Goodreads Choice Award-nominee’s incredibly thrilling artwork.

The regular cover art of "BATMAN AND THE OUTSIDERS" No. 1 by Tyler Kirkham & Arif Prianto