Review: Batman: Urban Legends #4
[Editor’s Note: This review may contain spoilers]
Writers: Chip Zdarsky, Camrus Johnson, Meghan Fitzmartin, Matthew Rosenberg
Artists: Eddy Barrows, Eber Ferreira, Ryan Benjamin, Loyiso Mkize, Belen Ortega
Colorists: Adriano Lucas, Antonio Fabela,Andrew Dalheouse, Alejandro Sanchez
Letters: Becca Carey, Saida Temofonte, ALW’s Troy Petreri, Pat Brosseau
Reviewer: Tony Farina
Summary
The Penultimate chapter of the Grifter story is here! Grifter’s walking a deadly line between Lucius Fox and HALO’s plan…can he survive the endgame? Oh, and yeah, now Superman is after him!
As old wounds threaten to Sabotage Batman and Red Hood’s investigation into the Cheerdrop drug turning Gotham City upside down they run afoul of Gotham’s coldest criminal MR. FREEZE! And the force behind the Cheerdrops will be banking on the former dynamic duo’s demise…
TIM DRAKE has returned to the streets of Gotham City and is seeking a new purpose, but what he finds is a string of young adult kidnappings committed by someone known only as “The Chaos Monster” will Tim be able to get to the root of the kidnappings or will he fall prey to them? Critically acclaimed Future State Robin Eternal writer Meghan Fitzmartin returns to tell this Tim Drake story with rising star artist Belén Ortega.
Acclaimed creator and actor Camrus Johnson writes an action-packed story featuring Luke Fox—the character he portrays on The CW’s hit television series BATWOMAN!
Positives
Batman: Urban Legends #4 has TIM DRAKE!!! Fan boy over here. I mean, I would read a 10 pages story where Tim orders lunch, so seeing him in action here is a just special for me. The snark Babs gives him about the Drake name is excellent. Bendis is never going to live that one down and nor should he.
The Batwing story is excellent. What a clever idea having the actor who plays Luke on the show write this one shot. I am all for this book eventually turning into Tim and Luke on the road doing good deeds. I suspect that Jason’s story is going to spin off into his own series eventually or he will be the stand alone star of Gotham, but if he was part of the team, that would be a great dynamic.
Negatives
Once again, this book gives a lot of pages to Grifter. It wasn’t until this series started that I realized that if I never read another Grifter story again, I would be just fine with that. Oh man. It is dragging out. The artwork is quite good and the writing is snappy, but I just don’t care. I am not really interested in him. I know he is now part of the Bat Family, but why though?
Verdict
Batman Urban Legends #4 is good. Three of the stories are five stars. The development of Jason Todd in particular is amazing. This may be the best stuff since Judd brought him back from the dead. I did enjoy a lot of the Outlaws stuff, but it was trying hard to be funnier than it should have been. Jason isn’t funny. Dick is funny. Tim is funny. Jason is angry and confused. This book just nails it. I can’t wait to see what happens next.
