Batman Black & White (vol. 5)

“Batman Black & White” has been one of the most consistently successful anthology series in comics for a couple decades now.  There’s something about the appeal of telling a “Batman” story in black and white (and shades of gray) that tends to bring out the best in a lot of creators.  Vol. 5, however, isn’t quite on the same level as its predecessors.  While there aren’t any truly bad stories to be found between its covers, more than a few, like “Sisyphus” by Emma Rios and “Dual” by Dustin Weaver, come off as inscrutable and are memorable only due to the quality of their visuals.  Which are always fantastic.  Even if most of the stories within this volume don’t hit the heights of the ones that came before, they’re always graced with incredible art.

There is one, glorious exception to all this.  A story that stands right up there with the very best that this anthology series has produced.  That would be “The Riddle” by Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie.  Now, I know some of you may read that and think, “Whaaaaaaaaat?  Glick thought a Gillen and McKelvie story was really great?  What a shock…”  To which I’ll simply remind you that there’s a reason these two are considered to be one of the premier creative teams working in comics today.  It’s because in addition to producing consistently great comics together, they’ll also produce magic like this story here.

What’s “The Riddle” about?  It’s about Batman chasing the Riddler into a maze.  Killer Croc is also in it too.  It also shows the creators playing with the form of comics in a way that will likely be familiar to a lot of readers.  Though the way it’s done is quite novel, the best part about it is when you realize that the form is all part of the Riddler’s trap while the solution is pure Batman.  Some may find the execution to be a bit too clever for its own good, but not me.  I can’t say that this story alone is worth the cover price of this $40 hardcover, it just goes a very long way towards that.