Unleashing The Monster Within — Reviewing ‘Batman: Full Moon’ #3

As a nocturnal bat-themed vigilante preying on criminal fear and superstition, Batman is a kind of creature of the night. Thanks to the curse of the Lycan, well, he’s very much fully an actual creature of the night now.

It’s werewolf on werewolf action with a Man-Bat, two magicians, and all of Gotham along for the ride in Batman: Full Moon #3. The second to last chapter of this mini from Rodney Barnes, Stevan Subic, and Rus Wooton.

What I listed in that previous paragraph header is essentially what we get in this issue. Chaos, as the Lycan cursed figures unleash upon each other, the monsters within having no regard for anyone else. Batman is very much essentially off the table in this one, relegated to the very end, as the final quest to cure himself and Christian is laid out.

I like that Barnes uses the perspective of Constantine, Alfred, and Kirk Langstrom here. Each man has a specific process in regard to the overall Lycan curse, the men afflicted, and the effect on the city. Langstrom getting to become Man-Bat in service of saving the city and the men, a situation he feels responsible for, was a good call. It’s not often that Langstrom gets to move beyond the tortured soul who turned himself into a mostly mindless monster.

It takes a ‘monster’ to soothe the monsters.

Barnes really makes a mostly unlikeable version of Constatine here. As he spends most of his time recalling previous relational moments with Zatanna to seemingly trying to convince her to hook up with him again. Yet, he reveals a soft spot for those cursed with the Lycan strain because of what it does to people. He also offers Bruce a way out should things not be actually solved during their trip to Romania.

Subic truly was the perfect one for this series.

There’s just a really stark, moody, and atmospheric art style that gives everything a heavy yet light feeling at the same time. Reality and often details are eschewed in order to evoke a certain feeling or visual element. Fantastical imagery is the main goal with the backgrounds, often turning to just pure worn-out filtered colors rather than any actual set pieces.

Rougher textures with almost muddy or saturated, yet toned down, color palettes play into the very other worldly feeling the story embodies. Comic books are such a variety of styles, and I love when they allow for these artistic styles that are not generally seen as “superhero norm,” yet do so much. This gives things such opposing personality from what we normally expect to see while really delivering the pitch perfect tune.

As noted, there are a number of different voices at play here. Wooton makes sure they are very easy to distinguish between, pulling in a variety of colors to set captions apart. Dipping into things that are familiar with the characters but also befitting their particular POV in this situation, as well as their starkly different personalities. Overall, the lettering is handled so well to allow all the words on the page to flow genuinely and logically.

Hitting all the right tonal measures at any given point so that we are never pulled from the engaging tale, a lot of the issue has pages with very little dialogue. The ones that do, Wooton makes it count and resonate hard.

Batman: Full Moon #3 is now available from DC Comics.