Batman: Dark Victory by
Jeph LoebMy rating:
2 of 5 starsI thought long and hard before giving two stars to this one. It's possible that I should have given it three.
It was long, and a decent enough read. In many ways it resembles Frank Miller's acclaimed
Batman: Year One miniseries. Much of the art closely resembles David Mazzucchelli's subdued, semi-realistic and oddly crumpled-looking style in
Year One. That's not a style I particularly
like, but I don't hate it either.
Many of the secondary characters from
Year One appear in
Dark Victory. But the storytelling style diverges more from Miller's, particularly in the latter half of the book.
In fact, that's the reason I ended up giving
Dark Victory only two stars; it starts well, with a promising mystery that seems as if it might
be a mystery - that is, that it might be a mystery which the reader could actually have a chance to figure out, rather than simply read and wait for a
deus ex machina. The characters are interesting. But as the book progresses, it goes downhill.
I don't like the way that the various supervillains are drawn, for one thing. Semi-realism goes out the window for them, and the effect doesn't work. Two-Face looks as if he's half Mafioso, and half Red Skull - but with a strange-looking nose that manages to be both weirdly long and pug at the same time (and not just on one side, which might make sense, but on
both). The Joker is drawn
so unrealistically that he might as well be from another universe; his head is twice the size of anyone else's, and half of his face is giant teeth. Again, the effect doesn't work. Robin looks as if he's drifting towards an anime look, of the typical "cute/frightened little kid with a tiny mouth" type.
The writing goes downhill even faster than the art. A major plotline involving betrayal is resolved in an unsatisfying, off-hand manner. The mystery, which began with such promise, sputters out with a whimper; no matter how I try to connect the interesting clues to the resolution, I can't make sense of it. Batman makes more stupid mistakes than he should, throughout; this is NOT a character who should often miss the obvious, and it's annoying when an author plays that tired old card to extend the story.
The addition of Robin to the story doesn't work
at all. This is the "dark" Batman, or purports to be, and adding a cutesy/spunky sidekick to that character is a tricky proposition at best. I don't consider Frank Miller to be infallible, but at least he handled the same issue far more skillfully in
Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In this book, Robin is just annoying. I can see what the author was going for, an attempt to make the sidekick issue
work with the "dark lone avenger" theme, but he simply fails to carry it off successfully.
I think I might have given this book three stars if it hadn't resembled a far superior work so closely in the beginning, and then failed so completely to fulfil its promise.
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Batman: Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb
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