Batman: Black and White #6

Batman: Black and White #6 comic reviewThe latest volume of Black and White ends with a quintet of stories featuring Batman from different writers and artists in black and white. While the issue doesn’t include a stand-out story, perhaps the most interesting of the bunch is “The Abyss” in which Hugo Strange interviews three different people with recent interactions with Batman who are all left with decidedly different impressions of Gotham City’s vigilante.

“The Second Signal” offers up a pair of students who create their own Bat Signal in order to call on the Dark Knight Detective to help with a series of kidnappings committed by the Mat Hatter. The big-name team of Scott Snyder, John Romita Jr. and Klaus Janson deliver a solid story about a photographer who has made a name for himself taking black and white photos of Batman over the years in “A Thousand Words.”

Less effective are Batman rushing to save a child from a war between a pair of chess-inspired groups in “Opening Movies” and Batman and Clayface working together, sort of, to investigate the disappearance of young women in “Like Monsters of the Damp.”

[DC, 5.99]