A Look at Batman Knightfall
3 volumes. 1,932 pages. 30 dollars each.
That’s what you’ll be getting & spending (if you spend full price) on the “collected” editions of Batman: Knightfall series that DC put out in 2012, just in time for The Dark Knight Rises. A movie prominently featuring an altered version of main villain from Knightfall. Hmm… I wonder why they did that?
Now one would assume that since this is being released by said company to originally produced the individual issues that everything would be included in said “collected” edition of the series. Right?
Right?
Right?
NOPE! The collection that is out there currently is the not worth the 90 dollars (depending on where you buy it). It’s really not. Volume 1, which is over 600 pages is missing 1 thing. 1 MAJOR thing: Jean-Paul Valley, the man who would become Batman. He does not feature at all in the 600 pages of this storyline. Well.. that’s not true. Jean-Paul does show up. I think he’s on page 76. The guy I think is Jean-Paul is doing the same thing (working out) I know is Jean-Paul is doing on page 192 (He stated by name on that page). He is next in the background of a panel on Page 347. He is on page 353. Is seen for the first time in this volume in a costume in page 354 & 355. That costume is not his most recognizable costume & you don’t find out until over 50 pages later that Robin made him that costume. Jean-Paul shows up again in costume on pages 361 & 362. Jean-Paul is on Page 411 & 412. He’s on page 419. On page 421, is when Jean Paul assumes the male of the Batman & becomes Batman. He is in the majority of the rest of the series.
Now if you were just reading this collection without any other knowledge of who Jean-Paul is, I’d be wondering why this background character that just kind of shows up one day & continues to just hang around gets to be Batman. This “collected” edition of the story is missing most of the Jean-Paul’s backstory. Where is that happening? That is being told in a book that is/was happening concurrent to the main Batman book at the time, in his own book: Batman Sword of Azrael! Before becoming Batman, Jean-Paul was another capped crusader Azrael. Jean-Paul is/was the latest in a long line of Azraels, who are “avenging angels” who works for the Order of St. Dumas. They got a fiery sword, looking all bad ass. Azrael is cool. The Order of St. Dumas has some cool fashion sense for the Avenging Angels’. The Jean-Paul version of Batman (which many people have referred to as the AzBats) shows up for the last 200 pages but you can see why I’d think that Jean-Paul really isn’t “in” volume one. When he actually “shows up”, the book is half the way over.
There might also be a reason why The Sword of Azrael is not including in the “collection”. Almost every issue has the Knightfall banner on the top that has a number associated with it. That’s so you know what order the issues fall in. That’s all find & dandy. The extra numbers on comics to tell you what order to read them in is such a 90’s DC thing. Superman did it too! BUT…. that doesn’t explain why the seemingly pointless Catwoman interlude in Volume 3. There are few seemingly pointless interludes in the 1,932.
Now comes the point in the review where I explain what the second part of the title means…
As has been stated her on this blog in the past (see my Zero Hour retrospective) I started to read comics in 1991. I had gotten into Super Hero comics by 1993, which is the timeframe for Batman: Knightfall. I always chuckle a bit at the part in Zero Hour when Batman & Superman met up & have a moment that’s basically “It’s a been a weird few years for us. You were dead & then came back, I had a back broken & the Batman identity was taken over for awhile by a nut job. Good thing we got all that taken care before this whole crisis in time thing happened.”
What is even more funny is Knightfall ended just shy of Zero Hour. The final issues of Knightfall were coming out at the same time as Zero Hour. Yes, Bruce Wayne was back as Batman but if Zero Hour been moved up a few months or there was a few months delay with Knightfall, The Jean-Paul Valley armored up AzBats could have been part of Zero Hour & would have then thrown off the whole “Zero Month” thing DC was doing.
But as made mention in the Zero Hour retrospective, I didn’t read Zero Hour at the time & I did not read Knightfall until I had gotten the “collected” edition for Christmas a few years back (yeah… this post has been a long time coming). I do have fond childhood memories of Knightfall. How can this be?
2 words: Audio Book!
In 1994, BBC Radio 1 (of all people) broadcast a full cast adaptation of the series. This “radio play” was later released on 2 audio cassettes that then later made it way to my local library. I don’t remember what year I first found the “radio play” or as the box proclaimed as an “audio drama”, but it was still when I was in elementary school. It was still during the 90’s. Not sure what caused me to one day wander over to the audio book section of the library but I did & the world was better for it. Why? the audio book is Awesome!’
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| The cover to the "Audio Book" collection I had as a Kid. |
The audiobook is fully in grained into my mind. There are characters that when I think about them or when I read comics with those character in them: they “sound” like how they do in the audio book. The way I want to pronounce the name “Shondra” comes from the way Bob Session as Bruce Wayne says in this audio book. This all comes from checking out of my local library for years on end. During the 90’s, my family had the habit of during the summer to go on road trips around the country. There needs to be something to pass the time. Your in luck, Young Brian: the audio book is 3 & half hours long! Armed with your handy dandy yellow “sports” Walkman, you’d listen to Batman as the hours past by in the back of the family Suburban. You didn’t need to read the comics, You had the audio book!
I wanna take a moment to talk about the voice cast. When people talk about actors who have played Batman over the years, I’m a bit saddened that Bob Sessions, who as far as I know only played the roles twice, is an awesome Batman/Bruce Wayne! I’ll put him up with there with Kevin Conroy as “people who have voiced Batman & are awesome at it”. Pretty much everyone in the cast is awesome! They got Michael Gough, Alfred from the Movies, to reprise his role. Kerry Shale does a great Joker. Shale also does the voice for Jean-Paul Valley & unless I told that, I wouldn’t have guessed that. Same goes for James Goode, who voices both Nightwing & Scarecrow but those voices don’t sound like they come from the same person. The sound design is also top notch! It’s everything young me wanted in an audio book.
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| Cover to the CD collection I have as an Adult |
Eventually, when I’d go back to the library to look for Batman, he wasn’t there. This was most likely due to the fact that audio tapes were being phased out for CD’s. Years past but I never forgot about Knightfall. About 10 years ago, the “audio drama” was released on CD & It’s still awesome. It’s something I’ve listened to a few times on short car trips, which might because in my mind that’s where you listen to it: in the car, driving somewhere.
Now getting back to the book, what did I finally get out of reading the comics all these years later? I got to finally see what some of these characters only seen in 90’s Batman comics I had heard many times in my head looked like (Amygdala!). BUT that’s about it. I felt let down by the rest. I felt like the story was lacking parts. It does not include any of the Azrael backstory from Sword of Azrael (like the audio book does). Also in researching the book, the “collected” edition doesn’t not include a whole section of the Knightfall story.
There are 4 parts: Part 1 is Knightfall, which has 2 parts called Broken Bat & Who Rules the Night. Part 2 is Knightquest which has 2 parts called The Crusade & The Search. Part 3 is called KnightsEnd. Every trade paperback edition has left out the The Search part of Knightquest for some reason (The audio book included it). The “collected” edition does collection the 1st half of the Knightfall Aftermath called Prodigal, but does not include the 2nd part called Troika (The audio book does not include any of the aftermath). There is also a bunch of other comics that vaguely tie into the Knightfall but are not included.
so…. my final verdict is... well… I said It in the subtitle but thanks for reading the post. The Audio Book is Better. But that might just be nostalgia talking.
Until next time: Stay Jazzy Everybody!
- Brian
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