From: jordan@castor (USENET's Chuck)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc
Subject: Re: Legends of the Dark Knight #39 (no spoilers)
Date: 13 Oct 92 23:19:32 GMT
Organization: University of Georgia

In article <1bctcuINN7c0@pollux.usc.edu> akhale@pollux.usc.edu (Abhijit Khale) writes:
>morrow@fnalo.fnal.gov (Albert Elmostein) writes:
>Actually, its Mask. 
>>	Basically, it sucked.  Nice coloring on top of reasonably tolerable
>>Talbot art.

I wouldn't go as far as "Albert Elmostein" (try not to dislocate your shoulder
there, patting yourself on the back, Elmo... 8-) to trash a book that
someone just gave a great review, but personally, I didn't like it much
either.  The art is the biggest problem I have with this issue (and with
Talbot's earlier LOTDK story which I got suckered into buying because of
the way cool cover.)  It seems like stuff by an art student -- it's not
straight comic book art, which would be better, because these are after
all comic books; but it's not particularly distinctive or attractive in
any way.  It basically looks to me like an adolescent trying to draw 
realistically.  There was one panel with a big Catwoman that was kind of
neat, but the rest was pretty dull and uninteresting, IMHO.

>I thought the art was pretty good, especially the use of the nine panel 
>format.

Yes, there's certainly a novel idea.  Groundbreaking.  I haven't seen that
used since last week, when LSH came out.  I also liked the completely novel
idea of using first-person diary-style narrative for a Batman story.  (Sorry,
my sarcasm regulator seems to be on the fritz today.)

>>	But the story, oy!  Trite is the word of the day, as someone tries to
>>convince Batman that Batman is a fantasy figure and Wayne is an alcoholic bum.
>>YAWN YAWN YAWN.  We've only seen that plot done a thousand times, and Talbot
>>doesn't ring any new changes in on it.
>
>I agree that the plot isnt new. Nevertheless, I cant remember it being used
>in a batman story before, although there has been a story or two that is
>somewhat similar. There has been a Flash storyline and a Superman storyline
>with the same plot, but I wouldnt say that its been overused.

I can think of AT LEAST one similar story in Detective Comics, by Milligan,
about a villain who is hooked up to some kind of mind-altering device and
imagines he's Batman; the whole story is narrated in his first person, so
we're supposed to believe that we're seeing Batman, until the end...   Of
course Milligan had the decency to keep it all in one issue.

>Heck, if I didnt know better, I'd swear Bruce was living a fantasy. (which is
>why this story should have been done as a possible  Elseworld story, so the
>reader would have been more in doubt as to the outcome. )

That's another reason (I'd forgotten about it) that this story seems very
trite -- we've seen lots and lots of stories about possible "alternate
realities" for the Batman. 

>As for who it is : it cant be any of the Batman's regular foes since they dont
>know his secret ID. 
>So, I'm at a loss to guess who the villain might be.

Well, it could be any of the villains you mentioned.  I think you're giving
Talbot too much credit to think that he has to come up with a plausible
story.  Obviously, this is all going on in Batman's mind, since all the other
stories with the same plot were going on in the hero's mind as well.  A
device to plant suggestions in someone's brain is really simple to build,
comics-wise, we've seen dozens.  So, the villain doesn't need to know Batman's
secret identity; they can just click on the devious machine and let Batman's
mind do the rest.  Remember "The Mud Pack" storyline; Clayface (x: x>0 & x<5 --
sorry, I forget which one) tied Batman up to this chair in a theater and
fed him his worst fears, which I believe had something to do with failing
his parents.  Clayface didn't need to know his origin story (although I don't
know how he could've missed it...) for his insidious plot to work.

So, I  don't mean to trash this story too much.  It's not horrible, it's
just really really nothing particularly exciting or innovative, IMO.

Chuck


-- 
                  Chuck Jordan | jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu
SPY Magazine's 1,000 Reasons Not to Vote for George Bush:
   NO 15: In January 1992 he said, "I will do what I have to to be reelected."
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.misc