Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, the celebrated creative team behind New 52 Batman, reunite for another Batman story for DC Black Label: the pun-tacular Last Knight on Earth. And, though this first issue isn’t as boring as their later Batman books were, it is a mess of half-baked ideas that make little sense.
Some people have described this storyline as the Batman version of Old Man Logan, which I can see in some parts, and it does seem to be an Elseworlds-type story, but it’s unfortunately nowhere near as good as Mark Millar and Steve McNiven’s book.
The first part is Bruce Wayne waking up in Arkham and being told that he’s a mental patient and has been living a delusion for the last twenty years - Batman, his rogues gallery, everything is all in his head. Ok - but it’s not. It won’t turn out to be that for obvious reasons and Snyder doesn’t even bother to keep up that charade for very long either, so it’s a waste of time basically. And it has nothing to do with the second half of the issue - even more pointless! But time does seem to have passed even though Bruce hasn’t aged somehow.
The second half is where the Old Man Logan comparison comes in. The world has somehow been destroyed by Brainiac and a mysterious villain called Omega. Green Lantern rings, by themselves and for no reason, are imprisoning any human wearers it can and giant green babies are terrorising the hellscape. What few superheroes that are left - all women, strangely - have been forced to survive in Gemworld. Oh yeah and the Joker is a living head in a jar that Batman just happens to conveniently stumble across in a desert somewhere.
Wonder Woman’s explanation for how the world ended is completely unconvincing ass and I just feel like the heroes are only in the position they’re in now because the plot needs them to be. Joker in a jar doesn’t make sense, particularly why Batman would feel the need to lug him around everywhere - just leave him in the desert and move on!
Even though the ideas don’t gel together they made for an unpredictable narrative that wasn’t totally unentertaining to read, albeit in the same way you can’t stop watching a car crash happen. And it was good to see Greg Capullo drawing Batman again. That said, I think whatever magic Scott Snyder was once able to harness for his better Batman books is still missing if this first issue is anything to go by - Last Knight on Earth is a heap of poorly developed “wouldn’t it be cool if…?” ideas jumbled on the page.
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