The Sound Of Fear
The Man-Bat saga of some undefined time before our main character joined the Justice League Dark continues. Has this wowed me the way that I wanted it to? No, not at all but it has done a decent job at taking the Man-Bat mythos and combining it into a greatest hits for this mini and the one new aspect that I do enjoy is that Kirk Langstrom is dying and his Man-Bat brain is telling him to go out on top and die the way that he would want to and apparently that way is completing his cure for deafness that would help his sister and everyone else he inadvertently hurt in the first issue to this series. It's just too bad that Amanda Waller and the Scarecrow both want the good doctor first. Let's jump into this issue and see where Kirk ends up next after his battle with the Suicide Squad in the last issue. Let's check it out.
When this issue started I was originally kind of angry at it because it seemed to want to go out of its way to retell what's been going on in the series so far in a strange way, but by the time that I got done the entire issue, this section where Harley Quinn is trying to psychoanalyze Kirk Langstrom before ultimately letting him go for no reason actually kind of worked for me and I found myself enjoying this chapter of the mini-series more than the rest because it finally felt at this moment that the story started making strides to being something compelling.
Not only do we have Man-Bat on the run from the law, we see him taking refuge with his estranged sister and seeing the way that he manipulates her to achieve his goals and the strength of this character when she sees right through him but still wants to have a relationship with her brother. Will this mean anything to everyone? No, but it was a nice moment for this story that has felt like it has been missing some depth, not to mention the Scarecrow coming off as menacing as he goes about trying to achieve his goals of getting Kirk Langstrom to repair the sonic cannon that he needs for the next level of fear.
All in all, this is probably my favorite issue of this mini-series even though I don't really think it's all that important in the long run and just feels like "Who's Man-Bat going to fight this issue" with each installment, but that being said this issue showed some heart in the way that it depicted all of the characters involved, even if it didn't show everyone in the greatest light. It's this personal touch that allowed this issue to stand out more than the rest and even having Harley Quinn just letting Kirk Langstrom go at the beginning of the issue felt so strange that it actually felt like it made perfect sense for the character to do it for no real reason. The art remains strong in this series and I'm happy that it finally feels like it wants to be its own thing beyond just being a Man-Bat greatest hits mini-series.
Bits and Pieces:
Having some time to see how the characters of this series interact with each other and even seeing how they think of other characters when confronted actually made this issue stand out more than the rest of the mini-series so far and I can only hope that the rest of this story continues to feel like this issue. It also didn't hurt that the art remained strong throughout.
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