Normally I wouldn’t venture into the realm of reviewing
books but this is by special request from an awesome fellow and I strongly recommend
you follow him over at http://justaddanchovies.wordpress.com/
As this is the eve of probably the biggest movie release of the
year, what better time to review this masterpiece.
This massive first KNIGHTFALL volume collects BATMAN:
VENGEANCE OF BANE SPECIAL #1, BATMAN #491-500, DETECTIVE COMICS #659-660, SHOWCASE
'93 #7 and 8 and BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #17-18, including chapters never
previously reprinted.
Being such a massive Batman fan it does feel awesome to
review one of the best ever written story arcs ever
Knightfall is an ARC of how Bane became to be and how he was
able to push batman to breaking point.
The story starts with Bane being born into death, he was a
child that was born in prison and would die in prison as the sins of the father
we past to the child to carry out.
The story shows the different aspects of his childhood and
the horrors he witnesses and also faces, plus the death of his mother.
The Character depth is amazing and the detail in the frames
really draws you in and you can kind of understand the lengths someone would go
to survive.
Bane, with the help of prisoners successfully because a Guiney
pig for the army's super serum and uses it to his advantage and executes a
perfect prison escape with his fellow prisoners to Gotham City, where he plans
to make a name for himself and to be the person to break the bat!
Batman and Robin at this point doesn’t realise how their
world and lives are going to change.
During Bane's initial time in Gotham he creates the usually
havoc to test batman and to draw him out- he does this to see what his opponent
is made of.
It isn’t until Bane plans a mass breakout at Arkham Asylum,
which allows all of Gotham’s worst to escape and do as they please.
This forces batman into a never ending battle to capture all
of those who escaped. Bane's cunning is to see what limit batman has and how
far he can be pushed before he reaches breaking point.
The battles that batman encounters especially with Victor
Zsaz and Joker and Scarecrow really show you even heroes can’t always win and
this really starts to get to Bruce. Tim Drake, who is the Robin at the time
really struggles to deal with Bruce as he thinks he can handle it all by him
and pushes Robin aside.
Once again the complex character depth that shows the
crumbling relationship between Master and Student is outstanding.
Tim has never seen batman like this as really starts to
worry, he confides in Alfred and Jean Paul (who at one time stepped in to fill Bruce’s
shoes) about batman pushing himself to hard and too far.
The Build-up to the Battle between batman and Bane is some
of the finest story telling I have ever read and is illustrated flawlessly to
match. You get to feel all the tension and all the angst that batman feels and
how each fight and each battle brings him that slightly more closer to defeat.
Bane realises that the time to strike is at hand and batman
is at his lowest. The fight scene really has to be seen so you can witness the
demise of the world’s greatest detective and crime fighter
The Frame which depicts batman's end and the frame to
follow where Bane is holding a broken and near dead batman above his head and
throws his body into the street left me speechless. How could this happen - the
hero never dies/gets hurt well this brings back into perspective the mortality
of the dark knight
I won’t go any further into the book because I want you all
to read it but I will say one last thing I cannot wait to read part 2 as it
does leave quite the cliff hanger.......
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