Time for DC to throw out another Batman title to the already absurd amount out there right now because those are the only books they publish that sell! The series concept for Urban Legends is limited arcs featuring lesser characters with Batman somewhere in the background. This book’s characters are Batman first pairing up with Red Hood and then in the second half mixing it up with Grifter.
The Batman/Red Hood story isn’t unreadable, it’s just not very interesting. A new drug has hit the streets called Cheer and Red Hood has taken it upon himself to remove it. Along the way he picks up an orphaned kid - orphaned because Red Hoo’s temper got the better of him and he shot the kid’s stepdad! The story plays out predictably but with some decent scenes exploring Bruce and Jason’s complex relationship.
The problem is there isn’t any real mystery or tension over the story - the villain of the week is putting this drug of the week out there and we know who it is early on and, of course, we know the threat will be neutralised after the six issues are up - so all we’re doing is treading water while what we know is going to happen, happens.
Chip Zdarsky might not have any surprises up his sleeve but at least his story is coherent and not wholly boring. He even manages to make Jason’s behaviour understandable given his own troubled childhood and where it ended up - the sequences referencing A Death in the Family are drawn differently too; not exactly like Jim Aparo’s style but a 21st century equivalent.
Compared to the second and final arc in this book though, Zdarsky’s effort is the greatest comic ever written - that’s how bad a writer Matthew Rosenberg is! (And please nobody message me to check out We Can Never Go Home or 4 Kids Walk into a Bank - I’ve read those and they’re garbage, just like everything else I’ve read by this guy.) Worse, he’s picked one of the dreariest characters DC has to write about: Grifter. What’s special about Grifter? Nothing. He’s a douchebag with guns who wears a hanky over his face. Send him back to the trash-heap of crap characters where he belongs forever, DC!
The Long Con should be called The Long Yawn. It’s an unnecessarily convoluted mess of a story about Grifter being Lucius Fox’s security chief, or something contrived, which is why Batman’s there. And it’s all in service of bringing back even less popular characters than Grifter for a series I’m not even going to bother looking up to see if it’s materialised or not, but I’m betting if it did, it’s already cancelled - that’s how little appetite I’m certain people have for that bunch of cheesy ‘90s dross.
There’s nothing noteworthy about Batman: Urban Legends, Volume 1, a book that only further undermines the word “legend” by applying it to such forgettable rubbish. Not worth checking out, Batman fan or otherwise.
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