A review by dozmuttz
Batman: Blink by Dwayne McDuffie, Val Semeiks

adventurous slow-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? Plot
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? No
• Flaws of characters a main focus? No

3.0

One of my favorite writers writes one of my favorite characters, and I am very split on how I feel about it. Blink is a storyline running in the ‘Legends of The Dark Knight’ series, or what I like to call, ‘The Bat-novellas’. This 7 issue storyline is split into two sections featuring a character by the name of Lee Hyland. Lee is a blind man who has an amazing ability to see through the eyes of others after he’s touched them. He first uses this ability to scam people, and get quick money out of their accounts, but after looking through the eyes of a crazy psychopath, he tries to stop him from murdering an innocent woman, but instead stumbles over the body and is made a prime suspect. After Batman gets involved Lee convinces him that he is actually blind, has special abilities, and is not a murderer. They then team up together to stop a group of snuff film killers who Lee had tried to stop the first time. The second story shows Batman going back to Lee to see if he can help him with a child-trafficking case. However when he goes to Lee’s home he doesn't answer the door, it’s instead Lee’s girlfriend, Karen. She tells him Lee has been gone for a long time after he had been approached by some sort of government agents. They wanted to test Lee and find out more about his powers. Batman goes in for a rescue mission as he sees they’ve been using him to spy on terrorists, and not in the best conditions for Lee. 

Dwayne McDuffie is the writer for this story, and I’ve heard mostly good things so my expectations were a little high. NowI found the premise of the 2 stories interesting. I liked the character of Lee Hyland and thought his ability was cool. I also liked McDuffie’s writing in the narration and dialogue, especially with Batman. However what brought it down a bit for me was the pacing of the book and the overall execution on how this 2 part storyline ended. The story never reeled me in as much as I wanted, and if not for McDuffie’s great work on writing, the plot of the story wouldn’t have been enough to get me to give it more than 2 stars. It wasn’t terrible, but in the middle it felt like it dragged, and there were some decisions made that felt silly for a Batman story. The 2nd part of the story was a little more well-paced, however there are a lot of unanswered questions from me, and as mentioned previously, I found myself thinking “why is this happening..why not just do this...how is this possible?” There were just some story plots that obviously needed to be a bit more thought out. Not bad, but not the best for such a well thought out writer. 

The artwork was by Val Semeiks with Dan Green on inks and I found the work to be very enjoyable. Semeiks has a really great look for Batman and I particularly loved his choice for costume design. Semeiks’s style feels animated and gives the vibe that it could be a great style for a Batman cartoon. 

Overall; I very much feel split on this story and although I think McDuffie’s writing was great, the plot and pacing weren’t as good of a match. The art was great though and in general the story wasn’t terrible but I was expecting more. So maybe it’s on me, but I still love McDuffie as a writer and wish he was still with us. FOREVER RESTING IN POWER.