“Bad Night, Good Knight Part 6”
Creative Staff:
Story: Darick Robertson
Art: Darick Robertson
Colors: Diego Rodriguez
Letterer: Simon Bowland
What They Say:
The conclusion to Darick Robertson’s epic story of a night gone wrong in Gotham City is here. Batman’s final chance to stop the deadly chemical sale forever.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
The final installment of this storyline is one that lets Darick Robertson go all-in on giving us a haggard and worn-down Batman. There’s always a kind of thrill that I admit I feel when we get to this level with him as he continues to fight on and push through the pain in order to achieve his goals, and good narration like we get here can help to take it a little bit further. Robertson had his work inked by Richard Clark in prior issues but in this one he handles things himself throughout and it feels just a little more intense and rounded in a way that I can’t quite pinpoint but works to good effect for the book. Especially with Diego Rodriguez’s colors as we get something that’s almost like a zombie-Bruce along the way.
Though framed with a bookend for the epilogue, the meat of the story gives us the final fight on the boat against the Scarecrow and his group of thugs as the boat gets underway into the bay. Batman’s clearly taken some hard hits prior to this and the Scarecrow’s thugs are those that Batman questioned earlier in the night, so they’re pretty intent on some revenge. The problem for the Scarecrow is that they’re a little more out of control than usual and using guns, which threatens him as well as what’s on the boat. This provides Batman with an opening of sorts as guns always bring him into focus to deal with what’s there and it helps him regain his footing. What throws absolutely everything off is that we get the Riddler leaving behind a little surprise that nobody knew about.
There isn’t really a good sense of closure to the storyline here, unless you accept the big explosion as enough, but we know Gotham PD does its job in bringing in those that they can from the bay and that sightings of Batman indicate that he’s alive, even if he’s ignoring the bat-signal. I like that it keeps them a bit distant from each other in a way and there’s a small layer of uncertainty. But really, I just thoroughly enjoyed watching as Bruce drags himself out of the bay and home to the mansion where Alfred is actually shocked to see how bad off he is. It’s a nice moment of slowing things down, some solid dialogue, and just a chance to see the mask come off for a bit, depending on your point of view of the mask of course, and the light touch to what motivates him to do what he does.
In Summary:
As an opening run for this series, Darick Robertson put in a good storyline that had some really fun moments when it came to Quiz and Riddler. The larger story is a little fluffy and didn’t register all that much but just watching as Batman goes through his role as detective and then vigilante made for some good pages and engaging moments. The wrap-up keeps things smaller and a bit more personal at times and delivers a decent end to it overall. I’m looking forward to seeing what’s next and just how much variety they want to introduce into this series, not just in creative but in the stories themselves.
Grade: B
Age Rating: 12+
Released By: DC Comics via ComiXology
Release Date: May 7th, 2021
MSRP: $0.99
