Bruce Wayne’s just discovered he has a daughter only for Joker to have kidnapped her – Batman to the rescue!
I feel the same way about Enrico Marini’s second and final part of Batman: The Dark Prince Charming as I did the first part: the artwork is outstanding, the writing and storytelling is very poor.
Marini’s painted art is gorgeous and this is one of the best-looking Batman books I’ve ever read. The designs are derivative – if you’re familiar with the Batman films, as well as the Arkham games, you’ll notice Marini’s taken a lot from those – but it still looks amazing. The Batmobile is Chris Nolan’s Tumbler, Catwoman’s running across the rooftops as always and Batman’s beating up Joker’s goons – nothing new visually yet executed so beautifully.
Joker’s characterisation was very muted – kiddified, basically. He’s barely menacing and is all lovey-dovey for his Harley-warley – the reason he kidnapped Bruce Wayne’s daughter was to get a precious gem to give to Harley? Bleurgh!
Like the art, everyone’s behaving in ways anyone familiar with Batman and his world will have seen a thousand times before. Joker uses his toxin on a guy who laughs to death, Catwoman steals the gem, she and Batman do the chasing across the rooftops thing, she comes to Batman’s aid in the end proving that she’s not totally bad. It’s such unimaginative storytelling – Batman-by-the-numbers. There’s a twist ending but I doubt this story will become canon so it’s one big meh, who cares?
If you don’t mind a simplistic, almost Saturday morning kid’s show-type story, you’ll probably enjoy Batman: The Dark Prince Charming, but I was bored pretty much the whole time. At the very least you get a book full of amazing Batman art.
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