Batman Knightfall : Part One currently available for $12.23 at Amazon

This was a huge thing back in the day. When you think of the setup, who wouldn’t read it? All of Arkham Asylum is let out to destroy Gotham. A newer supervillain, Bane, organized all of it in an effort to break the Bat. It sounded so awesome when I was younger! Shame that I didn’t read it back then, I think I would’ve enjoyed it more.

The main problem is it’s too damn long. The whole event is 68-70 issues. That includes Knightfall – Knight Quest – Knight’s End. Oi. The next problem is there’s a lot of backstory involving Bane/related characters that they don’t bother explaining. It’s not essential, but when you’re dealing with an event this long, there should be some short one-off page that explains what happened in the year prior to the event. Anyways, on to the Knightfall run.

It starts a little cheesy. Batman’s villains don’t usually work in a giant gangbang like this, but you know what? About two issues in, I started getting into it. Bane’s plan is pretty cool, if not ridiculous in concept and execution, he turns out to be a solid character. When my previous opinions of him were based on the cartoon (awesome) and the live action movie (barfo), I wasn’t sure what I’d get in comic form.

It gets better and better as Batman gets worn out and desperate. He knows he can’t rest long or put others at risk. These are by far the best parts of this event. Eventually, Batman is broken. Azrael has to take over his role. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s like Batman. BUT ANGRY. WITH CLAWS.

In the 90s, that seemed like a winning formula. Big surprise, like almost every other edgy attempt in the 90s, it starts sucking pretty quick. Azrael is tolerable until about the end of Knightfall, but it was getting rough to read.

Now you’re probably thinking, damn this is long for a dr_teng comic review, I bet he’ll split it up for the other parts of the event. WRONG. I was reading the rest and it becomes intolerable. I had to skim a good 40 issues of crap. Sometimes I would stop and give an issue a whirl just to see if it improved. It didn’t. It focuses on uninteresting storylines, Azrael’s descent into madness isn’t written in an interesting way, I honestly wasn’t sure how they could’ve taken a mostly fun event and turned it into such dreck.

I won’t even get into art since I found it disappointing all around, even at the best of times it was average.

3.5/5 for Knightfall. There’s some great moments and it’s well paced. 1/5 for the rest. I consider it almost unreadable.

Dark Knight Returns for $10.19 currently at Amazon

One of the classic Batman comics, considered a must-read, and I gotta say I agree, but Frank Miller goes over the top here.

You’ve got a unique art style that works well for the comic, even if some of the illustrations of people look ridiculous. They sometimes don’t make any sense and look like someone took a hammer to their faces/bodies. Some of the other illustrations really knock it out of the park and they’re gorgeous. So yeah, the few crappy parts don’t take away too much from the rest of the art, it’s just a mixed bag.

Now we’re on to the story and writing. Batman is in his mid 60s and has been in retirement for around a decade. Superheroes for the most part have retired. Gotham’s gone to shit, there’s tons of crime, and a huge gang of mutated dudes are getting ready to attack Gotham. It’s a pretty good start and a solid enough reason for Batman to get into the action. The story develops well and it’s an interesting idea, which is why I’m sure the premise was somewhat used in Batman Beyond (though obviously, he’s even older in that and fully retired).

Writing wise, I thought Miller did a much better job on Year One. It seemed for Dark Knight Returns he was let loose and the impression I got was he really hates : the media, the government, criminals, liberals, Superman, basically everything except Batman, since he’s the only voice of reason. It’s not so bad at first, but he keeps hammering away at it for pages on end. Yeah alright, Batman is great, without the strong moral authority of Batman the world has went to shit, blah blah.

Fortunately, it’s not difficult to get past that and enjoy this for what it is.

3.5/5.

I want to make clear that the slight lean seen in the pictures, as well as some of the paint issues I don’t talk about (scrapes, etc…) were because I bought this as a heavy discount due to it being damaged. I’ll be repairing it to mint condition later, so ignore any paint problems I don’t specifically mention in the review.

The cape has a clear seperation from the rest of the body, which I thought was a little strange. He’s in a very strong pose. Standing up straight, fists clenched at his sides, and a stern look on his face.

Everything is sculpted rather nicely, especially the face. It has a simple paint job, but for what it is, it’s done fairly well. The black parts are done the best, there aren’t any brushstrokes that I noticed. However, on select parts of the grey paint, and the flesh colours on the face, there’s some brush strokes visible if you give it a bit more of an indepth inspection.

I suppose one issue would be that due to his size, he doesn’t fit in with most of the other Batman animated maquettes. I don’t mind mixed scale pieces, but I know it bothers some people. There are a few other WB Store exclusive pieces, such as Robin, Harley Quinn, and Joker, he’d probably fit with those. There are some custom maquettes available that I believe are scaled to this piece as well, but they’re very expensive.

Overall, I’m going with 4/5. Well-done sculpt, but as a maquette, it’s geared less towards collectors and more to artists. The paint could be a little better, and the price is very high on the secondary market. But this is my favourite Batman animated maquette, and it’s a good size. Pros and cons!

Buying Options : This sold out about a decade ago. Ebay time