the_mighty_monarch's Legends of the Dark Knight #8 - Carved; Unnatural Selecton review

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    Tooth and Nail

    Travis Moore's art is definitely unique, and I can easily see people not liking it. The cover's body proportions are a bit excessive even for me, but the interior art's not quite as screwy as the cover art. Overall Moore's art has an excellent sense of flow and dynamism. Fists and gunshot have some of the most intense impacts I've ever seen for a street level fight. Things get a little noticeably awkward when Bruce is at the party, and when Batman confronts the kidnapper the room appears to have no background, but overall the first story, 'Carved' looked really nice.

    I wish I could say the story was as well paced as the art, but it was just too much for 10 pages. The setup was really nice, and seeing Batman do solid detective work was really nice, but the conclusion came rather suddenly. When Batman has his epiphany, it feels completely out of left field because we had no context. We're just hanging onto Batman's coattails for the end, and he's trying to keep us at the same pace, but we missed a few landmarks along the way. The way the conclusion goes down is interesting and fairly deep, but not quite as much as some other stories in this series. Not bad, but not great.

    The final two thirds of the issue are taken up by the much better story 'Unnatural Selection.' The artwork was perfectly good, not the most unique but fitting for Batman. Nothing to complain about at all but nothing to gush over. But credit has to be paid to David Lopez and Santi Casas for the colors, because THEY make the atmosphere of this story more than the pencils in a very obvious way.

    This story thrives in pretty much exactly the same area that Carved lacked. With a full 20 pages, Sanchez is free to give us a complete image of the scene and the players, making the payoff much more satisfying. The whole story is very dark and macabre, fitting the artwork like a hand in a glove, but despite the specific improvements over Carved, the ending of Unnatural Selection was deep in a much more intense and unique fashion. I found it very touching in a very somber way.

    In Conclusion: 4/5

    Carved could've been better, but that's just in terms of execution. The core story was very solid, even if it was outshined by Unnatural Selection. But that works out fine because you go in with a decent story, and finish the issue strong after a spiral down into the darkness.

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