Thursday, January 16, 2014

LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT #62 - July 1994


Devils
Credits:  Chuck Dixon (writer), Ron Wagner (penciler), Ron McCain (inker), Willie Schubert (letterer), Digital Chameleon (colors)


Summary:  Robin and Nightwing follow Bruce’s trail, while he’s being ambushed by another group of ninjas.  Their master, a man twice Bruce’s size, soon appears.  After defeating him in battle, Bruce declares the only way to end Shiva’s game is to kill the master.  Robin and Nightwing walk in right after Bruce delivers the fatal blow.  Meanwhile, Jean-Paul’s search for his father’s killer leads to another gunrunning ring.  Their enforcer is a large cyborg that Jean-Paul eventually defeats by triggering a box of explosives.


Review:  I hope you wanted more ninja fight scenes, along with even more pages of Jean-Paul beating up gunrunners.  (This time aided by a cyborg that looks oddly reminiscent of the McFarlane Toys action figure “Overt-Kill II.”)  This chapter is at the very least nice to look at, as the dependable Ron Wagner is paired with a Janson-esque inker, but for the bulk of the issue we’re stuck with even more repetitive fight scenes.  Dixon tries to break the monotony by having Bruce and Jean-Paul’s fight scenes parallel each other, which does lead to a fairly shocking cliffhanger.  We all know Jean-Paul is so far gone he’ll kill an opponent, but having the true Batman kill probably drove fans overboard at the time.  Thankfully, it all turns out to be an elaborate ruse, although I now wonder how many readers of Legends who didn’t pick up the next chapter in Robin were left believing that Bruce really did kill this guy.  Outside of that cliffhanger, which turned out to be a fake-out anyway, it’s another dull chapter.

4 comments:

j said...

This is the LODK issue that pretty much killed the premise of LOTK isn't it? It's hard to keep a book self contained when it's crossing over with things like Knightfall.

G. Kendall said...

It's odd that LotD was able to avoid Knightfall for so long. I wonder why exactly this was the first issue chosen to participate in the event.

Anonymous said...

IIRC, Zero Hour was looming and they wanted to finish up Knightsend before the next crossover, so they pressed titles like LOTDK and Catwoman into service.

Steven said...

The previous three issues of LOTDK were part of KnightQuest, and had been scheduled to be since Knightfall had ended, as far as I can remember.

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