Immortal Legend Batman #1: Shadows Over Westworld

Defining a good Batman story is no easy task, as the character has seemingly traipsed across every line of literary convention since his creation in the 1930s. There are no limits to what DC’s fabled Dark Knight can be—a declaration proved by this week’s Immortal Legend Batman #1. Written by Kyle Higgins and Mat Groom, this new title weaves a Batman tale set against a pop sci-fi backdrop that absolutely prioritizes its cool factor over its cohesion as a brand-new Earth within the DC Multiverse. From western tales to sh?nen manga, the book tosses childlike imagination into a blender without any concern for the inevitable mess it will create—and for the most part, that works in the book’s favor.

This is, undeniably, a great time. The team has managed to create a kind of Saturday morning atmosphere that reeks of nothing but creative passion, with none of the typical goofy laziness of the “Character But X” approach that often plagues these kinds of projects. Instead, this grab bag of ideas feels purposeful and fresh. There’s a commitment to hard science that grounds the antagonists, a spiritualism that shapes the heroes, and a wild west danger that ties the world together across three distinct yet united concepts that mirror our own: the rules of science, the hope of religious story, and the unfettered freedom of a new frontier. All of it swirls into a tonal shock of brilliance that somehow fits, even when by all rights it probably shouldn’t.

That being said, this book does commit the cardinal sin most Elseworlds titles fall into—carelessly throwing around references when establishing its world, which come off more like easy Easter eggs than clever reinventions of a long-standing mythos. Not every character suffers from this treatment, however—the use of core Batman villains in this issue is incredibly exciting. Instead, it’s the dissemination of history regarding the core Bat-Family that doesn’t make much sense outside of existing solely as name-drops. Regardless, the actual narrative itself is quite intriguing, unfolding like an early issue of Detective Comics with a central mystery that initially plays on familiar Batman knowledge, only to set readers up for a completely fresh trajectory for this version of Bruce Wayne.

When initially previewed, a ton of excitement was drummed up for the art, as it promised to evoke the same action intensity found in Japanese sh?nen manga. Erica D’Urso and Igor Monti do not disappoint—the former’s pencils and the latter’s colors combine into a perfect swirl of expressiveness that lifts this narrative off the page and sets it in continuous motion around the reader. It excels in its balancing of tone and ideas, doing as much as it can to weave together dissonant concepts alongside a strong script.