Batman’s had more than his share of crossovers over the years and at this point DC are scraping the bottom of the barrel with this latest one. That’s right, it’s the crossover nobody asked for, featuring a character most English comics readers will be thinking “...who?”: Dylan Dog.
I’m not gonna pretend I’m all that familiar with the character. Dark Horse put out a Dylan Dog omnibus some time ago, largely because I think Mike Mignola’s a fan of this Italian comic (Hellboy’s basically a better version of Dylan Dog), which I read a few pages of and put down pretty quickly (corn-ee). And I feel like most Batman readers didn’t even do that so this will all be new to them - a first and likely last experience with this blah character.
So Dylan Dog is a “nightmare investigator” which means he’s a PI whose cases involve the undead, whom he shoots, and that’s that. Rinse and repeat for however many years he’s been doing this. Fascinating. In this crossover, Catwoman is kidnapped by Professor Xabaras, one of Dylan Dog’s rogues and who apparently had something to do with Joker’s physical appearance post-Red Hood, and Batman goes to save her, with Dylan Dog.
Later, another Dylan Dog rogue, Christopher Killex, is back from hell somehow and back doing his thang: cutting people up to see if he can see their souls in their bodies. Batman and Dylan Dog, etc. etc.
The story is often vague, meandering, lacking any real tension or purpose and things seem to happen for no reason or get discarded without a second thought. It just feels like a lot of confused nothing being thrown together to make it seem like an exciting narrative is happening. It isn’t - it’s always a boring, unengaging read.
There is something to the stylish art of Gigi Cavenago and Werther Dell’Edera that I liked - a European flair that you don’t always see in American comics - but Roberto Recchioni’s dull script made Batman/Dylan Dog an utterly pointless crossover.
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