DC Universe Presents #13 – Review

By: Marc Andreyko (story), Robson Rocha (pencils), Oclair Albert (inks), Gabe Eltaeb (colors)

The Story: In L.A., what goes on in the streets beats what you see in the movies any day.

The Review: I read a lot of bad fiction in my college creative writing classes.  (Some of it, I admit, belonged to me.)  Possibly one of the worst critiques you could make a person’s piece was that you liked the title better than the actual story.  (To spare the feelings of others, I’ll offer one of my own short stories as an example: “The Underwater Panther”.  Great title, most people agreed, but ultimately a crap bit of writing.)

In a weird sort of way, the cunning title of “Black Lightning and Blue Devil” (emphasis added) sets the bar pretty high for this story arc.  It takes one heck of a tale to sell that moniker, and at first glance, Andreyko has the chops to do it.  This was the guy who wrote the critical darling Manhunter, after all, which managed to survive far longer than any non-mainstream series in a mainstream world could hope to do.  Unfortunately, little of the gripping storytelling he brought to a lawyer-turned-vigilante comes through between the stuntman and high school teacher.