Swank-mo-tron and myself are going to be trying to review one Batman Graphic novel a day (rotating days) until the release of the The Dark Knight.  We both feel that these are required reading to get to the quintessential Batman story.

The first day of our countdown starts of with Batman: Cataclysm.

Mainly written by the late Chuck Dixon, this is a great book.

The premise: A giant earthquake fucks Gotham.

One thing that I like about this book is that it really lets the heroes, be heroes. For example, one of the issues, Nightwing is swinging through the city and he gets a radio transmission from a family of people that are buried under a flooding building. The rest of the issue is what goes through his head while he saves them one at a time, as time runs out, taking the women and children first.

It is quite good.

Essentially the entire book just goes to different parts of the city and shows you how everyone is dealing with this catastrophe, but then there is also one villain with a major arc through the whole book, calling himself the Quake master. I won’t spoil who it is, but he takes credit for the quake, and holds Gotham ransom, saying he can do it again unless they give him all the money, until Batman catches him, and exposes him as a fraud.  The other great thing about the book is that Batman has to learn that he can’t punch or outwit every villain in Gotham.  A natural disaster was the villain here and it’s great to see Batman struggle with helplessness.

This all leads directly into No Man’s Land, which I might review soon, if we keep this Batman thing going.