Batman: One Dark Knight

Edward M. Pressler is the supervillain known as EMP.  His claim to fame is that he blacked out Gotham City five years ago with an electromagnetic blast he generated from within his own body.  EMP spent the next five years in a sensory deprivation tank at Arkham Asylum, until tonight when the order was given by Rita Vasquez, head of the Prison Bureau of Gotham City, to move him to Blackgate Prison.  What should’ve been a routine transfer quickly becomes a recipe for chaos when it becomes clear that every gang in the city has been tipped to it.  So it isn’t long before EMP is free, hunted, and plunging Gotham into darkness once again.  Leaving Batman with the hard task of getting this character to Blackgate one block at a time.

I understand that the aim of the Black Label imprint at DC is to provide an avenue for mature-readers superhero comics that also serve as accessible stories that anyone can read without any prior knowledge of the character.  While that has resulted in some good reads, it has also served as a home for the kinds of miniseries that either feel like filler arcs in regular titles or the plethora of side projects DC used to publish in the 90’s and 00’s.  Despite coming from a great artist like Jock, “One Dark Knight” definitely feels like the kind of three-issue prestige-format series featuring the character that became hard to distinguish between after a while.

That doesn’t mean this is a bad miniseries, however.  Jock’s art is on form, giving us a wonderfully gritty and lively vision of Gotham whether the lights are on or off.  It’s also a pleasure to see how he choreographs the action as Batman fights his way downtown.  The story serves as a decent enough vehicle for this, even though it really only has its high concept premise of “Batman Fighting Through Gotham During a Blackout” to really distinguish itself.  What we’re left with is something that doesn’t feel like it’s worth the $30 hardcover price, unless you’re a really big fan of Jock’s work.