The award-winning Batman: Black and White is back for another limited run of Batman short stories, but, unfortunately, true to its name, it is a very colourless book, both literally and in terms of story quality.
Considering the abundance of short stories in this anthology, only three stood out as half-decent. Tom King and Mitch Gerads’ The Unjust Judge tells the tale of Batman failing to rescue a dying preacher and kneels by his side as he passes - it’s a quietly moving piece, and was interesting to see Batman not save someone for a change.
Dustin Weaver’s Dual had good art and a fine nightmare atmosphere to it, and Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie’s The Riddle was a clever choose-your-own-adventure-type short with great art as well.
And that’s it - nearly every other story in this collection is instantly forgettable crapola! What it does have in abundance though is superb art. Some of the biggest artists working today contribute pages here and I especially enjoyed seeing art by Gabriel Hardman, David Aja, Olivier Coipel, Nick Bradshaw, Terry Dodson, and Greg Smallwood.
What this collection seems to be is a testing ground for artists making the transition to writers but, despite these artists being immensely talented illustrators, they’re not writers for a reason and have a long way to go before they produce anything worth reading, judging by their contributions here. I’m looking at you Emma Rios, Bilquis Evely, Nick Dragotta, JH Williams III, Lee Weeks, Jorge Jimenez, Jamal Campbell, and Nick Derington!
This latest collection of Batman: Black and White might be worth a look only if you’re an art fan as the stories here are an unimpressive and instantly forgettable bunch that really aren’t worth the effort to read.
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