Get this book, Kurt. 


www.amazon.com/dp/155521620X/ref=asc_df_155521620X3387285?smid=A3BW537I97UL63&tag=pgmp-1583-97-20&linkCode=df0&creative=395109&creativeASIN=155521620X

It's a great collection and presents the essence of the Tracy ethos, with its gangster movie roots, violence, and Dickensian plotting intact. The villains are excellent and eminently detestable. The Flattop series is superb. The comic strip at its finest.

It's been a very long time since I did a Batman review. If you're looking for my review of the first part of this story, it can be found here.


Legends of the Dark Knight #12



"Prey, Part Two"
writer: Doug Moench
pencils: Paul Gulacy
inks: Terry Austin
letters: John Costanza
colors: Steve Oliff
assistant editor: Kevin Dooley
editor: Andrew Helfer
Batman created by Bob Kane

grade: A+


This really is shaping up to be a perfect Batman story, tempering the darkness and severity of Miller's Batman with a character that has vulnerability and a soul. Essentially, Moench has taken my favorite part of Year One -- the awkward missteps Batman takes on that first night out -- and makes that a centerpiece of this story, showing a Batman who has grown more capable and more confident, but still has fears and doubts, and still messes up. You don't get it perfect after only a few months of crime fighting.

That's brought to life most clearly with the opening shot -- a majestic overhead depiction of Wayne Manor, and only in secondary focus do we notice the small and somewhat pathetic figure of Batman stumbling home as the narration explains that he couldn't use his iconic Golden Age Bat Glider because the wind was all wrong. Brilliant. In all my times reading those old stories, something like wind direction never would have occurred to me. Or to Batman. He's learning, and taking all those necessary awkward missteps along the way.

That this is contrasted with a severely demented Hugo Strange, wearing the cowl and celebrating its power, is one part genius and two parts hilarious. By the time he starts talking to the mannequin, ultimately dressing it up in lacy under garments and a bat cowl, he feels both sick and twisted enough to have been taken from a Wagner/Grant story, with maybe a tinge of Alan Moore's "Mortal Clay" from Batman Annual #11. I wonder if Moench read those.

Meanwhile, Gulacy's art, ably inked by Terry Austin and colored by Steve Oliff, looks gorgeous as ever. Bruce's face looks inconsistent from time to time, but everything else is a visual feast. Gulacy says so much with his eyes and faces.

And the fight scene in this issue is breath-taking. Once again, Gulacy makes the unique choice of portraying Batman literally, sans billowing cape or convenient menacing shadows. He's a costumed guy doing martial arts, and it works. Makes me hunger for a Master of Kung Fu story done by this full creative team on Baxter paper.

All in all, this story is doing everything right, and I'm positively hooked. Still curious to see what part Catwoman will play in it, though. She's still so incidental to the plot at this point.



Important Details:

- Origin of the Bat Signal (though it's still unclear whether or not LotDK stories like this one, meticulously planned to align with existing Batman continuity, actually count as part of that continuity)



Minor details:

-We get a scene in this issue where a potential love interest lectures Bruce that a man should be measured by his deeds, and that's why she respects Batman over him. This combined with Hugo Strange as a trusted psychologist gone inwardly twisted makes me think Chris Nolan may have had this story in mind as a reference when conceiving Batman Begins.

-Interesting that two of the three Bat titles are currently running stories about public sentiment being turned against Batman. I feel like this has become too easy a go-to story idea for superhero titles post-Watchmen. At least its done well here.

-Gorgeous as the rest of the story is, this is one terrible cover



plot synopsis in one sentence:

Batman limps back to Wayne Manor after a botched night out (last issue), he attends a party hosted by the mayor where he is captivated by the mayor's daughter (who supports Batman in spite of the media backlash inspired by Hugo Strange), the Bat Task Force is getting closer to Batman and Hugo Strange is getting closer to uncovering his identity, Catwoman is furious that she's been labelled Batman's side-kick by the media, Batman attempts to make a peace offering with the Bat Task Force, but Cort (the cop who hates Batman and is leading the Task Force) has them open fire on him instead, Gordon devises the Bat Signal as a means of summoning Batman without Cort noticing, Cort does notice and also figures out that Gordon has been withholding files from Strange that would lead him to figuring out who Batman really is, Cort brings this information to Strange, and Strange concocts a plan that seems to involve having Cort pose as Batman.

(Looking for A Brief History of the Development of Tim Drake? See the post above!)


Batman #457



writer: Alan Grant
pencils: Norm Breyfogle
inks: Steve Mitchell
colors: Adrienne Roy
letters: Todd Klein
asst. ed: Kelley Puckett
editor: Dennis O'Neil
creator: Bob Kane
special thanks to Kevin Breyfogle

grade: D+ (Breyfogle's art saves a lousy story from failing)

For their first few years on Detective Comics, Grant and Breyfogle were the red-headed step children of the Bat Office. O'Neil had little to no concern with what they were writing, his letter columns occasionally revealed a complete lack of awareness of what their run was doing, and he even failed to let them know Marv Wolfman was creating the third Robin while they had been led to believe they could do so themselves with the Lonnie Machin character. But there was a benefit to this exclusion. It liberated the two to tell the stories they wanted to tell.

But now that Wolfman has departed, and Grant and Breyfogle have become the Batman A team by default, they're getting all of O'Neil's attention, and the quality of their work is utterly neutered as a result.

This is as phoned in a conventional script as you can get. Beyond the logic gaps, mischaracterizations, and all out cliches, this issue essentially steals every possible convention and plot point from previous Bat stories. The idea of the new side-kick proving himself by rescuing Batman from a certain death situation that a surprisingly helpless and incompetent Batman has inexplicably gotten himself into just in time for his/her debut was abused twice by Doug Moench (once to introduce Jason Todd as Robin, and once to try to sell Batman and the readers on Nocturna as a superhero), and the big moment at the end about Bruce asking Tim if he's afraid of the legacy of the costume? That's straight out of Moench's Batman #368, where Jason first puts on the costume and is overwhelmed by the responsibility.

it truly seems as though Grant was told to make this a generic introduction story and then went out of his way to make it as cliche and derivative as possible.

Fortunately, Breyfogle still does an impressive job on art (he's always Grant's saving grace). I'm not sure what part of the art was done by brother(?) Kevin Breyfogle, but it all looks solid and consistent to me.


Possibly the one aspect of this issue that I respected was the parallel drawn between Tim's cliche/derivative rescue of Batman in #442 and his cliche/derivative rescue of Batman here. Batman's point the first time around had been that Tim's adopting the Robin identity on a whim showed disrespect to the legacy. Thus, his rescuing Batman without the costume this time, as well as the fact that he gets a different costume instead, shows some semblance of substance/meaning to an otherwise mindless story.


Important Details:

Tim Drake becomes the third Robin



Minor Details:

Tim acknowledges in this issue that, if his identity were discovered, people would connect it with that of Bruce Wayne. We still haven't established the situation behind Tim staying with Bruce, but assuming he's living there now, and the public would associate one with the other, then isn't someone going to figure out that Bruce has a kid staying with him, that kid dies, Robin disappears; Bruce gets a new kid living with him and a new Robin appears?

Either that or they're just going to think he's some kind of pedophile.



plot synopsis in one sentence:

Tim defies Batman's orders, saves the day without the costume on, and assumes this means Batman will never let him be Robin now, but Batman lets him be Robin now.




And, in case you need the nostalgia:




What was with that hair, anyway?

I think Prey is the best "Year One era" story. It captures the mood of Miller's work but is also a flat-out great story in its own right. Strangely, though this is one of my favourite LotDK story arcs, I really don't care much for Moench's later run on Batman with Kelley Jones. He seems to take up a completely different writing style to accommodate Jones' artwork, and while a lot of fans love it, I'm not one of them. My favourite issue from that run (I've read about half of it) is one not drawn by Jones, Batman 520.

The Suicide Squad story is three reviews away.

Yup. I'll be covering the Dixon Robin limited series as well.

The Batman 3-D special is coming soon, too.


No idea how I'll handle this once the Nightwing and Robin ongoing series begin. I doubt I'll follow Catwoman.

Hey, don't take my word for it! It's a popular run among many fans, it just wasn't for me. I personally don't care for mid to late 90s Batman comics in general, but many will disagree. IMO the Batman Adventures comics based off the animated series were a lot more entertaining than the "proper" Bat comics from Knightsquest etc up until Rucka and Brubaker arrived.

I think Robin looks tuff and cool flailing his arms and prancing about with ruffled "wings" and fairy boots.