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A review by helpfulsnowman
Batman: The Dark Knight Detective, Vol. 1 by Klaus Janson, Jim Baikie, Norm Breyfogle, Alan Davis, Joey Cavalieri, Todd McFarlane, Jo Duffy, Mike W. Barr
5.0
I...loved this.
Now, I know that I would've hated this when I was 15. I liked BatGod at that time, the dark, brooding superhero who could plan anything, beat anyone given the time to plan it out. THE ONLY LIVING MAN TO EVER DODGE AN OMEGA BEAM!?
And I do still hold love for BatGod. There are some really good stories in the BatGod realm, most of which can be found in Grant Morrison's JLA run from the 90's.
The Batman in this book is...different.
He's still smiley, still sort of friendly and naïve?
The bad guys still do goofy shit. The Joker has a giant Joker-face fireplace, so the fire is in his mouth and his eyes, it looks so great. It's totally impractical, it'd NEVER work in a Christopher Nolan movie, but it's just a blast to see him throw papers in a Joker fireplace, make an escape in a Joker Jetcar with his face on the front.
I don't know, it's complicated, like there's this mid-period. The comics in this book came out right around the same time Frank Miller's Dark Knight came out and changed the game for a long, long time. This is just a little before Death in the Family and Killing Joke and Knightfall, all darker Bat stories, and it's a little before Tim Burton's Batman took put the Dark in Dark Knight. It's like at this point, a bunch of different creators were taking Batman in a new direction, but just with little baby steps.
I think this book is probably awesome for people who are interested in comics and comics history. I don't know if I'd recommend reading it before the others listed above, and I DEFEINITELY wouldn't suggest reading it if you're coming off the Christopher Nolan movies and looking for more stuff like that. But let's say you're someone who watched the show in '66, and then haven't paid a lot of attention, but then you saw Batman Begins and thought, "What the fuck is this?"
These comics are the bridge, the connective tissue between the POW!BIFF!BAM!KARANG! Batman and the Batman who was like, "Yeah, I'll kill a motherfucker if I have to."
Now, I know that I would've hated this when I was 15. I liked BatGod at that time, the dark, brooding superhero who could plan anything, beat anyone given the time to plan it out. THE ONLY LIVING MAN TO EVER DODGE AN OMEGA BEAM!?
And I do still hold love for BatGod. There are some really good stories in the BatGod realm, most of which can be found in Grant Morrison's JLA run from the 90's.
The Batman in this book is...different.
He's still smiley, still sort of friendly and naïve?
The bad guys still do goofy shit. The Joker has a giant Joker-face fireplace, so the fire is in his mouth and his eyes, it looks so great. It's totally impractical, it'd NEVER work in a Christopher Nolan movie, but it's just a blast to see him throw papers in a Joker fireplace, make an escape in a Joker Jetcar with his face on the front.
I don't know, it's complicated, like there's this mid-period. The comics in this book came out right around the same time Frank Miller's Dark Knight came out and changed the game for a long, long time. This is just a little before Death in the Family and Killing Joke and Knightfall, all darker Bat stories, and it's a little before Tim Burton's Batman took put the Dark in Dark Knight. It's like at this point, a bunch of different creators were taking Batman in a new direction, but just with little baby steps.
I think this book is probably awesome for people who are interested in comics and comics history. I don't know if I'd recommend reading it before the others listed above, and I DEFEINITELY wouldn't suggest reading it if you're coming off the Christopher Nolan movies and looking for more stuff like that. But let's say you're someone who watched the show in '66, and then haven't paid a lot of attention, but then you saw Batman Begins and thought, "What the fuck is this?"
These comics are the bridge, the connective tissue between the POW!BIFF!BAM!KARANG! Batman and the Batman who was like, "Yeah, I'll kill a motherfucker if I have to."