Batman: Urban Legends Vol. 1

A good book. It contains the six issues of the Urban Legonds mini seties. The main story is the now and then between Jason/Robin and Bruce/Batman and the now relation between Red Hood and Batman. A new drug is hitting the streets of Gotham it will force Red Hood to face issues he long thought buried.Jason always felt second best as Robin now the rebel the bad boy of the Bat family he needs once again prove himself again and also punish and help some people along the way.The second story, (I am glad the separated them two so each one could be read as a whole), is about Grifter. I was surprised to see Grifter in the main DC universe. I did not follow Wild C.A.T.S but he seems to be a great fit. Big thing to come.A good book with two good story arcs and both can be built on in the main books. Good artwork and good character development.

“Batman – Urban Legends 1” collects the Red Hood /Batman stories from issues #1-6 and the Grifter/Batman stories from issues #1-5 of this king-sized comic, as both stories are 20+ pages for each episode, and the Amazon listings for the individual issues show them to be over 60 pages long.I call this a ‘mainstream’ title as both stories are set in the current mainstream continuity for the main (Batman & Detective) titles – post “A-Day” and with Grifter apparently working for Lucius Fox as his bodyguard.Anyway, these – complete – stories are by two superb writer/artist teams, the first dealing with the Red Hood’s relationship with Batman, and although the Red Hood doesn’t quite seem to have the same personality that he was showing in his late, lamented, solo(ish) series, he’s been hanging around Gotham since and that’s bound to have had an effect on him.The second deals with Lucius Fox’s incredibly tolerant relationship with the Grifter, who is supposed to be his personal bodyguard, but seems to get caught up in an awful lot of unrelated activity.The Red Hood story sees yet another new drug on the streets of Gotham, yet another derivative of the Scarecrow’s fear gas, as well as an old villain and a brand new one, who seems to be looking for trouble with his choice of make-up. The drug sends the user into an euphoric state of happiness, until they go into a coma and starve to death. There is an intercut flashback dealing with Jason’s time as a Robin, and the story ends with us getting a look at what Batman’s happy ending would have been, and, like the Killing Joke, there is an ambiguous final panel with Batman clutching the Joker, though possibly a bit less ambiguous than the Killing Joke.The Grifter story has a number of hints at what is really going on (he is nominally working undercover for Leviathan), but Hypertime is at work, and unless you remember Grifter’s deep backstory, you will be dumfounded as I was by the final, final finale.Batman: “Lucius… what happened here?”Lucius: “I have no idea…”These stories are both by top-of the-line writers, and ably supported by artists who are at home with excellent ‘new look’ old style of artwork that the main Batman titles have adopted.