I’ve been reading a ton of old Batman comics from the eighties and nineties recently and I wanted you all to know that I think they’re great. I started around “A Lonely Place of Dying” and read through the entire “Knightfall” series.
I’ve always liked it, but I like it now more then ever.
One of the reasons I think that Knightfall is so great is because of the amazing build up before it even starts. At the beginning of Knightfall, Batman is in a really bad place mentally because of Jason Todd’s death several years prior. The writers (Alan Grant, Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and a couple of others) took that intervening time to slowly break him, descending him deeper and deeper into sickness, making the death of the Batman seem completely inevitable. Two years ago he started acting different because of the stress.
A year ago he had to see a doctor about it.
Four months ago he collapses and has to find a temporary Batman replacement.
Enter Bane,. The first thing you see Bane do is breaking Killer Crocs arms with his bare hands. This is how the writers introduced the man who would break the bat. This is a very telling way to introduce the new villain. The next step of the story is equally ingenious: Bane destroys Arkham, releasing Batman’s entire rogues gallery. This story is so well written that when you see Batman over-tired and over-stressed from the last six years of continuity, you know where it’s headed. But, as a reader, your faith in the character is such that you find yourself saying over and over, “Not Batman, Batman will pull through.”
It simply doesn’t matter how many times you read it, it maintains this effect. While you’re saving a ray of hope when you already know the outcome, the writers have some of the best criminal sub-plots playing out as well. My favorite? The Joker-Scarecrow team up. They kidnap the mayor with fear, and force him to make prank phone calls to the police making them go on wild goose chases across the city. Even though these are very sub-characters for this arc, you can tell that the writers still care about them. There are many story points that build the story in very good ways and make it better. They inject the Riddler with Venom and suddenly the biggest wuss of all of Batman’s foes becoming a competent fighter.
What I’m getting at is there were a hundred threads of plot moving throughout this story and they did it in such a way that made you believe it when Bane broke the Bat. They took the time and they did it right. Batman was beaten when he as at the very end of his rope. He was beaten but they made you respect the character more then ever before. And not by showing what he can do, but by breaking him you see his limits, and realize how great and beyond human he really is. He was actually broken, saying things that you can never imagine Batman saying. Admitting that he was like a baby to someone else’s power. Falling into the fact that he will never be the same again, thinking that he would never be Batman ever again.
Looking back at the scenario you think that this is the only way it could have been played out, and that is a hard thing to do.
This is a good story told well and I wish these guys would come back and show guys like Judd Winick exactly how it’s done. Because let’s be honest, Judd Winick sucks. There, I said it.
Dr. Cyborgs Prescription: Read Knightfall. If you’ve already read it, read it again. And try to start as far back into the continuity as possible, preferably “A Death in the Family.”
Next Time: Dr. Cyborg discusses Jean Paul Valley and the Mantle of the Bat.