Bitty Review/Opinion/Nitpick - BFTC: Underground.
I finally got round to having a look at this comic yesterday after dragging my heels on it for a wee while. Truth be known, having read so many negative reviews regarding the BFTC event itself, I decided to avoided it.
Money’s a bit tight right now and I had neither the time nor the inclination to spend it on a mediocre storyline that for the most part had been done before. However, since the majority of my favourite characters were in Underground, I thought to myself why the hell not?
And it wasn’t bad at all. It wasn’t great, but it wasn’t awful either.
Despite Riddler being the central character in this one-shot, I felt that Underground was primarily a Catwoman story and that Yost did a solid job of conveying Selina’s feelings over Batman’s disappearance, the direction of her life, and most importantly; her reaction to seeing Black Mask again. This coupled with constant references to continuity and the confrontation with Jason, imho, saved it from being a bad comic.
As for the rest of it…well, in addition to the uneven art, I couldn’t really get a feel for the other characters.
Yost’s Riddler was passable if not a little on the mediocre side. Whether the art was putting me off or not, I can’t say. But there was something missing from the portrayal. Not enough flair maybe? I’m not entirely sure. As I said before, though, Eddie was passable so it’s not a major complaint.
Now. As for Harley…she was nothing more that a plot point, and she fulfilled the point well. It was obvious, for me at least, from her first panel that Yost doesn’t have a great grasp of the character. Which is fine. Few outside of Dini do. In those instances I’d rather have a little of a bad thing than a lot of a bad thing. At least then it isn’t standing out like a sore thumb. Again, Harley’s characterisation and usage isn’t a major complaint as I’ve seen a lot worse during her time in DCU.
Okay, so here’s where the comic started to grate a little for me:
First up is Holly Robinson. Granted, she was only in it for a couple of panels, but when a psychopath like Ivy turns up at your door and starts attacking the man who’s questioning you about your best friend, I expect you to do more than just stand there with a drink in your hand looking nonchalant. She could at least tagged along with the others in the hunt for Selina. I think that Yost misfired here.
Which brings me to my biggest bugbear about this one-shot: Ivy. You know in many ways Underground can be considered a starting point for Gotham City Sirens, and for the life of me, I can’t understand why Ivy was in this one-shot at all.
One minute she’s happily going along with whatever Black Mask says, despite not having to. Next minute she decides that bringing nasty chemicals into Gotham is bad m’kay, despite not really being shown to care about the whole eco thing in her most recent appearances. Then she randomly decides to go and visit her old pal Harley, the same pal she hasn’t hung around with in years. Threatens Riddler, backs down when Harley asks her to, and then tags along with her old pal and Eddie to help them find Selina. You know, one of her most hated rivals?
Reading this I couldn’t help but wonder why Ivy cared. As I said before in canon she hasn’t starred in a comic with Harley for years. She’s been written as a pure black-hearted villain for a while now. She doesn’t care two shits about Catwoman. Why was she there? It just seemed so forced.
Anyway, with the exception of Ivy’s presence, some bland writing in places and some dodgy art, I liked Underground on the whole. Everything clicked into place; everything made sense. We got a decent set-up to take us into GCS, with the likely added bonus of Eddie being a recurring character.
I just hope that they expand on Ivy’s motivations more.
Rating: 3/5.
Anyone else read it?