Comicsphere: Batman, Daredevil – King Of New York

With the Batman and Judge Dredd team up I complained about the fact that the story was somewhat flimsy and that the great artwork lacked a narrative backbone or drive (well, I intimated that anyway). I like the ideas of these crossovers, hence the number I have bought, but there aren\’t many that have really satisfied, and while this gets closer than The Ultimate Riddle it still doesn\’t quite tick all the boxes.

So, what is the problem here? Well, the two main characters are really well delineated, and this is done efficiently and without too much preamble. It should be somewhat taken as a given that people know these characters. We have a great cast of villains too, drawn from the world of both characters. I like the fact that neither of our heroes actually like each other that much — instant chumminess can be a bit tiresome when you can see that though they both want to do good they have contrasting enough methods that they might have problems with each other.

So, where does this effort fall down? It is in the fact that there is so much potential, that what you get is that good, that it doesn\’t feel like you get enough. The story doesn\’t have enough breathing room to fully stretch out and get going. The book could have been twice as thick and that would still have felt like you were being cheated. For all the mechanics that must have to go on behind the scenes to get this project off the ground, couldn\’t they have let it have a freer reign than this small book? Again, it was inexpensive and it is short, but given that the shortness is part of the problem I can\’t give it any kudos for that. And again it is great to look at which smooths over some of the problems. Is it greedy to want more, is recognising what this book could have been a fair enough thing to do? Well, I  bought it and showed support and I am not trashing the thing so yeah … I think so.