Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo, the celebrated creative team behind New 52 Batman, reunite once more for another adventure with the same character in Last Knight on Earth.
What’s it about? That’s a tough one. Nothing, really. It’s a mass of half-baked ideas thrown together that doesn’t add up to anything memorable or compelling. Snyder’s no longer capable of writing a coherent singular narrative - all he’s got are half-stories that go nowhere and mean nothing.
So the first part is about how Bruce Wayne imagines Batman and his life as the Caped Crusader because he’s an inmate of Arkham Asylum. It’s all in his head - or is it… ? That clumsily segues into a completely different Elseworlds-type story where an evil Batman calling himself Omega has taken over the world and the few remaining heroes lead a ragtag underground resistance.
I suppose the book’s never totally boring because some of the scenarios are so unusual and strange. I knew it wouldn’t stick but I wanted to see how far Snyder would take the delusional Bruce short story that opens the book. And it’s always nice to see Capullo drawing Batman.
But I couldn’t have cared less about the main post-apocalyptic storyline. All of the Superman/Lex stuff, once Snyder got into the details, was laughably bad, and the spot-the-reference barminess of that world only underlined how desperate Snyder was at trying to grab the reader’s attention.
Because that’s all Snyder’s got now: a series of WTF moments made up entirely of fan service to distract from the dull and unimaginative main story of Batman taking his time getting to fighting some one-dimensional baddie. Ooo, I wonder if he’ll beat him?!
Wait, why is Joker’s disembodied head alive in a jar in the middle of the desert that Batman conveniently stumbles across immediately upon entering said desert? Why is Scarecrow walking about on needles for fingers/toes? That seems very inconvenient! That ending - so what?! Ah, don’t think about it, don’t think about it - look, more lame fan service! Here’s Swamp Thing! Here’s The Spectre! etc. etc. Distraction, distraction.
Scott Snyder used to be a great Batman writer but now he’s just a hack. Last Knight on Earth is loud, unimpressive rubbish that only serves to highlight how far he’s fallen since his glory days of just a few short years ago.
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