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A review by billyjepma
Batman: Curse of the White Knight by Sean Murphy, Klaus Janson
4.0
Like its predecessor, I find myself wanting to love Sean Murphy's take on the world of Batman and frustrated that I don't. Don't get my wrong, "Curse of the White Knight" is an exciting, visually spectacular, and mostly unpredictable ride that I enjoyed very much. Murphy is an incredible visual storyteller, and Matt Hollingsworth's colors bring a gritty vibrancy to the pages that make each panel on each page absolutely sing . The mood, the seamlessly dynamic motion across the page, there's no arguing that "Curse of the White Knight is just as gorgeous a book as "White Knight" was.
But Murphy's writing still leaves me wanting. For starters, he writes women poorly. They're relegated to either romantic figures (there's a romantic tension at play in this series that is very compelling in theory but is so underdeveloped that it does the characters little good), victims, or stereotypes that feel dated and shallow. His dialogue is hit-or-miss, too, as there are moments where I genuinely had chills and moments that made me nearly groan. While I dug the villain(s) a lot, they're also underdeveloped and don't have many dimensions. They're fiercely effective at playing the role of an unstoppable, Terminator-like opponent for Batman (and again, the physicality they bring to the action scenes is nothing short of breathtaking). Despite the script's efforts, though, there's not much else to them than that.
The pillars of Murphy's plot are great, though, and I love the way he juggles different genres and moods in each issue. And since this exists in its own universe, Murphy gets free reign to do with the characters as he wishes, and he definitely takes advantage of that. You can never really predict who's safe and who's not, and Murphy does a good job at elevating the stakes. The problem is that the stakes lack an emotional center. All the pieces are there––art, drama, tension––but the execution misses the mark for me, leaving some of the series' bigger moments without the edge that they should've had.
I'm ragging on this a lot, but I did really enjoy this. I'm a sucker for a new take on the Batman mythos, and Murphy's vision of Gotham, Batman, his history, and his rogue's gallery is exciting and unique. And the artwork he and Hollingsworth create is a helluva thing to see and goes a very long way in elevating the moments where the script fails to live up to the plot's bold ambitions. If there are more entries to be made in the "Murphyverse," and there certainly seems to be, then I'm absolutely going to be checking them out.
If Murphy can play to his strengths as a storyteller and iron out the kinks in his writing, then I think he's capable of delivering a Batman story that could become a real classic. "Curse of the White Knight" doesn't reach those heights, but I hope a future installment does.
3.5/5, but since I'm a sucker, I'm rounding up to a 4/5.
But Murphy's writing still leaves me wanting. For starters, he writes women poorly. They're relegated to either romantic figures (there's a romantic tension at play in this series that is very compelling in theory but is so underdeveloped that it does the characters little good), victims, or stereotypes that feel dated and shallow. His dialogue is hit-or-miss, too, as there are moments where I genuinely had chills and moments that made me nearly groan. While I dug the villain(s) a lot, they're also underdeveloped and don't have many dimensions. They're fiercely effective at playing the role of an unstoppable, Terminator-like opponent for Batman (and again, the physicality they bring to the action scenes is nothing short of breathtaking). Despite the script's efforts, though, there's not much else to them than that.
The pillars of Murphy's plot are great, though, and I love the way he juggles different genres and moods in each issue. And since this exists in its own universe, Murphy gets free reign to do with the characters as he wishes, and he definitely takes advantage of that. You can never really predict who's safe and who's not, and Murphy does a good job at elevating the stakes. The problem is that the stakes lack an emotional center. All the pieces are there––art, drama, tension––but the execution misses the mark for me, leaving some of the series' bigger moments without the edge that they should've had.
I'm ragging on this a lot, but I did really enjoy this. I'm a sucker for a new take on the Batman mythos, and Murphy's vision of Gotham, Batman, his history, and his rogue's gallery is exciting and unique. And the artwork he and Hollingsworth create is a helluva thing to see and goes a very long way in elevating the moments where the script fails to live up to the plot's bold ambitions. If there are more entries to be made in the "Murphyverse," and there certainly seems to be, then I'm absolutely going to be checking them out.
If Murphy can play to his strengths as a storyteller and iron out the kinks in his writing, then I think he's capable of delivering a Batman story that could become a real classic. "Curse of the White Knight" doesn't reach those heights, but I hope a future installment does.
3.5/5, but since I'm a sucker, I'm rounding up to a 4/5.