This volume is a mixed bag. It contains, without a doubt, some of the most poorly-written comics (of any kind) I have ever read. But it also contains some really great stories (The Code, featuring the Joker and Harley, was lots of fun, and Underground Railroad was superbly written). The art was also incredibly spotty: some of the minor characters were almost unrecognizable from one scene to another, but then you have some really great surprises (did anyone else know Michael Zulli did a Batman story???). The editors at DC clearly had a plan: if the stories had both bad art and bad writing, it would be easy enough to skip to the next issue in the collection, but they seemed to be deliberately pairing their weaker writers/artists with stronger counterparts. So nothing was so bad that it was completely skippable, but it wound up leveling out to a generally "blah" book. Which is disappointing, when you consider the names getting writing credits for about half the book: Rucka, Dixon, O'Neil...all of them do well with their parts--it's the unknowns who fumble the dialogue and narration.
And, once again, we have evidence that DC did a terrible job of collecting this arc. At the end of the book in the extras section, there's character profiles for some of the recurring roles in this arc. The profiles mention background info and stories that I certainly haven't seen collected here. On the plus side, DC seems to be reissuing this arc, so I hope they're taking a page from Knightfall and doing a more comprehensive edition.
No comments:
Post a Comment