DC Comics reviews 5/10/22 – I Am Batman #9, Blood Syndicate #1

Justice League vs. Legion of Super-Heroes #3

The thing that derails most of Brian Michael Bendis’ books is his incessant need to write characters too cute. Bendis won’t let the action or threats stand-alone without having a character make a joke to undercut the drama he spends so many pages attempting to establish.

Green Arrow confuses a villain’s name as Pokey instead of Epoch. Bendis’ humor fails to humanize the characters and instead makes them heroes attempting to be comedians that shouldn’t quit their day job.

While he wrote Batman on Justice League, Bendis still doesn’t seem to have insight as to how Batman talks. In one scene he asks Computo for access to its files. Batman isn’t a politely ask for permission kind of character in a crisis situation. He just acts and doesn’t apologize later.

Worse, Bendis has Batman say he doesn’t know what to do in another situation. Again, that’s not remotely in keeping with Batman’s portrayal over the last 20 years. On the plus side, Bendis seems to have gotten a better handle on the Legion characters, which would be a positive if the title wasn’t already cancelled.

It’s ironic that Bendis has the teams facing The Great Darkness. It almost reads like Bendis overheard that was the threat being conceived for the Dark Crisis event and wanted to rush to get his version out first. Nearly as amusing is Bendis revisiting Leviathan as a threat after his disastrous Event Leviathan storyline that went nowhere.

There’s some time travel involved here with some interesting cameos. Bendis utilizes the characters better in smaller groups raising the question of why he thought a team up of two massive teams played to his strengths.

Scott Godlewski’s art is for the most part solid although there’s a few pages where characters depictions are somewhat loose and poorly detailed. Ryan Cody’s color work is a highlight in balancing the various costumes to play off each other and using clever lighting to show power effects and time shifts.

This mini-series continues to show some intrigue, but Bendis’ knack for ruining the drama keeps ensuring this story won’t manage to reach its full potential.

Rating: 6 out of 10