Woo 2:00am posting! I swear this seems to be one of my favorite hours to write at, and I really don’t know why. Maybe it’s because I’m the only one awake here and I’m weird and shy about my girlfriend hearing me type away about nonsense? That’s possible (and likely), but whatever. I suppose this is also free time to me, since I work throughout the entire afternoon and most of the night. Anyways, enough about my crazy posting hours, and more about this post.

As you can see by the title (and by the pretty picture that I’ve included), we’re talking about Batman: Knightfall today. I’m not going to lie, I’ve never read it. I know, I know. Shame on me, blah blah blah. I’m sure any comic book nerd that reads this will probably flame me for never reading this, but whatever. I wa seven when it came out in 1993, so shove it. And I never read Batman comics when I was younger…so I suppose that might have something to do with it too.

Anyways…

So being new to the Batman franchise of comic books, it seemed like an obvious choice to read this epic, especially since The Dark Knight Rises focuses around the comic’s main villain – Bane. It also helps that this was just re-released as a gigantic, 630 page trade that comprises of two trades that were released previously – Broken Bat and Who Rules The Night. And, from my understanding, it actually includes some stuff that wasn’t in either of those trades…so…it works for me.

The new trade – Batman: Knightfall Vol. One consists of a whole mass of early ‘90s Batman comics: Batman: Vengeance of Bane Special #1, Batman 491-500, Detective Comics 659-666, Showcase ‘93 7-8, and Batman: Shadow of the Bat 16-18. That, my friends, is a massive amount of material in one trade (24 total comics to be exact…assuming my math is correct), especially in comparison of what you usually get. That being said, given this behemoth of a book’s $30 price tag, it better damn well have a whole bunch of material to justify the price, especially as a paperback.

Anyways, before moving to my thoughts on it, I must preface that I’m not completely done with it yet. In fact, I’ve barely scratched the surface, as I’m only 130 pages in with 500 to go. So to say i have a lot of reading ahead of me at this point is a massive understatement. This bad boy is definitely going to take me a few more days to tackle.

That being said, I’m completely ok with this. Why, you may ask? Well, the answer is simple: Because it’s awesome. Every page of this book has been worth reading so far. Period. It’s that simple, really.

But I suppose you people might want some more specifics, huh? Well, it’s too bad for you that I’m not really going to get into them. I understand that this work is nearly two decades old, but there could be a lot of people new to the Batman mythos (such as myself) that haven’t read this yet, and I’d hate to ruin anything for them.

However, I suppose I could shed some light on this a bit. For those completely unfamiliar, Batman: Knightfall is centered around the man-beast of a villain known as Bane, and his quest to take down the Batman.

For those unfamiliar with the Bane backstory (like myself), fear not. The guys at DC were nice enough to include The Vengeance of Bane as the opening act to this massive book, and it does a great job of giving us information about Bane’s past and why he is the way he is. It’s definitely fascinating to see how they crafted his past and molded him into the monster of a man that he is now.

They also shed light on the experiments that turned Bane in to what he is. It also goes into very brief detail about Venom, the drug that was used to make Bane and the one that basically allows him to become the beast that he’s portrayed to be. That’s not to say that he necessarily needs it (as you find out in his back story), but it’s definitely a great weapon of his.

Once we get past the backstory, there’s a whole set of events that Bane sets in place involving the Arkham Asylum inmates that I won’t touch on at all. If you want to know what I’m talking about, you should read it yourself.

Outside of these tidbits of information though, you’re not going to get too much more out of me about the story. It’s definitely worth your time though, as I’ve found myself having a hard time putting this down once I start reading it. It’s made work especially hard, because I’d much rather read this than take phone calls. But, such is life.

Anyways, read it. That’s about all I can say. I haven’t even finished it yet and I can already tell it’s shaping up to be an epic that was definitely worth investing in. Each page makes me want to keep going, just so I can see how this ends, and how Bane pushes Batman like no one else has. It also makes me want to read Knightquest, the second part of this arc, which gets re-released in gigantic-as-hell-trade paperback form later this month.

Oh, and before I’m done here, I want to touch on a couple of other things that are generally important in comics: the writing and the art. First off, I’m actually enjoying the art of this quite a lot. While it’s almost two decades old now, it’s still very pretty to look at. Even though they lacked the color palettes that we have today back in 1993, they made this work well. It’s all very focused and consistent through the first 130 pages, and it does a great job of illustrating the story that the author wants to tell. Kudos to the art team (which is too large to rattle off) for that.

And the story. I feel like I’ve mentioned it already, but it’s fantastic. Chuck Dixon and Doug Moench have done a fantastic job with it so far. It has literally been a page turner for me, as I just don’t to put it down once I start reading it. The writing has been sharp and very well thought out, especially in it’s building of Bane. I can’t wait to see where they, along with Alan Grant, take the story. They’ve weaved a great narrative so far, and I can’t wait to get further in to it.

So yea…stop reading this…go to your local comic shop (or Amazon, or wherever you buy your stuff), and buy it. Right now. Especially if you’re like me and have never read this (again though, I was only seven when this arc took place back in 1993), because this trade makes it as good a time as any to do so. And with The Dark Knight Rises out on the horizon, it’s not a bad thing to dive into the mythos of the man that breaks the Bat before we see Tom Hardy become him on the big screen.

On that note, I’m off to dive further in to this epic.

Until next time.