Knightfall

DC's turnaround endeavor to cash in one of their flagship characters being strong-armed out of the business, shortly after Superman's... um... "death." Except that instead of dying, Batman's only incapacitated, him being a soft Earther and all.

XXXXXX-TREME '90s art, here I come. Blugh.

Batman 489
Issue starts with Killer Croc wandering his way through Gotham's underbelly, lashing out at random people because he's delusional and thinks they're calling him ugly. Maybe he thinks that he isn't? At the same time, Bruce is under massive exhaustion and takes a week's worth of sedatives while Robin and Batman (Jean-Paul) go and job to Croc until Bane! shows up to flatly prove that he basically has really big muscles.

Batman 490
Bruce is somewhat rested (but still worn down) and returns to his mantle while Bane gives Riddler a dose of Venom to "test" Batman and wear him down even more.

Spoiler:

Next issue is when shit actually starts happening.

Batman 491
Bane releases every inmate of Arkham Asylum and leaves them machine guns with which to cause even more bedlam in Gotham. So Batman being struck with extreme exhaustion (which Bane noticed, because he's smart like that) and struggling to fight against a juiced-up Riddler wasn't enough of a tenderizer, apparently.

I don't really know what to think of Bane's characterization so far. His motivation for defeating Batman is pretty generic and bland (proving himself as Gotham's #1 criminal), but he's at least not your typical one-trick pony when it comes to ability. Aside from the Venom, he's actually highly intelligent and an expert marksman. Not that any of that will matter after this storyline is over since no one ever really hears from him again.

Batman 492/Batman: Knightfall 1
Mad Hatter uses one of his mechanical trackers to confirm his suspicions about something or someone having broken him out of Arkham on purpose and plants a lesser known criminal around Bane's HQ to spy on him. Bane finds out and brutally murders the guy while Batman's tiring himself out even more, taking down the Hatter and all of his goons as the first step to cleaning up the mess that spilled out from Arkham. I guess Bane's plan is coming together.

...Also, did the '90s only have like three different art styles for comics? Between this and No Man's Land and Spawn and Spider-Man, everything looks damn near the same.

Detective Comics 659/Batman: Knightfall 2
Freak of the week this time is The Ventriloquist and some huge inbred-looking guy named Amygdala who tags along with him in the event of being released from Arkham. Batman and Robin are just realizing that, hey, maybe the new villain that made it clear that he's going to systematically take down Batman (Bane) may have been the one behind the mass breakout. Batman tracks down the bad guys and beats them up, getting more exhausted and blah. Robin took on one of Bane's underlings and was owned, but the guy didn't finish him off because Bane didn't want his hand to be revealed yet or something.

Batman 493/Batman: Knightfall 3
Same formula as last week, pretty much, except this time it's Zsasz who's the focus. He's taken a group of hostages in a women's school and only one man can stop him. (The bat one.) Zsasz is a fucking freak not only because of his weird scars but also there're those stupid things he calls eyes that look like they're part of a mask. Blah blah and Batman's being driven to his limit. Looking forward to a broken back soon.

Detective Comics 660/Batman: Knightfall 4
Sort of a fill-in issue, not really crucial to finish the story arc. Robin's tailing Bane and overhears him talking about his plan to defeat Batman by weakening him bit by bit and tails him into the sewers, where Croc reappears for the first time after having his arms broken at the end of 489. He wants revenge on Bane for obvious reasons and the destruction from the two fighting breaks a sewer arch and all three are sent flooding into Gotham's harbor. Oh, and Bruce declined to show up to confront Bane because he's still tired from the Zsasz deal.

Batman 494/Batman: Knightfall 5
Robin made it out of the sewers before being swept into the harbor, no word on Bane or Croc... but something tells me that they're safe and sound. Joker and Scarecrow are teaming up to scare the shit out of the Mayor because I guess that's what they do. Aaaaand Bruce is still worn down. At this point, Knightfall is a fairly solid mini-event. Nothing really great, but nothing really bad either. Kinda like The Death of Superman. The biggest benefit to most stories like this is what story follows them, since too much editorial emphasis is shoehorned into the writing as it grows into itself.

Detective Comics 661/ Batman: Knightfall 6
This arc is slowly picking up speed if there are more issues like this one ahead. In this issue, Batman fights Firefly, a member of his rogues gallery that stands out because he isn't obsessed with "The Batman" and would be just fine getting a boner from watching houses burn down all on his down. Their first encounter takes place in an amusement park that's been set aflame, which is the probably one of the more interesting backdrops for an interaction since Robin was facing down Bane high up in the sewers.

The short story is that Firefly gets away because he can, like, fly. Robin tries to track him down through some sister that they never knew about and eventually he's found at the end of the issue where he's about to be burned alive in some house with Batman because of clumsy fighting.

Batman 695/Batman: Knightfall 7
It looks like his ears have a raging erection going on here.

Anyway, classic Batman tale. To save both his life and Firefly's, he had to let Firefly escape, and later on that night makes an appearance as millionaire playboy Bruce Wayne. And here Bane displays more of his smarts when he deduces just from watching "Wayne" that he is Batman. He still watches and waits to make his move, however. Poison Ivy crashes the ball and Bruce does the drill where he pretends to be under her influence then goes behind a table or some bushes or something and reappears as Batman to foil her plans. I should really check to see which artists are doing what because every one of these issues so far looks identical to me.

Detective Comics 662/Batman: Knightfall 8
The Riddler gets some seldom seen facetime when his crew deserts him for convoluting all their crimes with his compulsive need to turn them into riddles first. The GCPD and Robin do the thing they do in Detective Comics and catch the bad guy in Batman's place (who had taken over a faux Sally Jessie Raphael show). Batman exposits after finally defeating Firefly that he's at his limit (best drinking game ever) even though guys like Joker and Scarecrow are still at large. AND BANE.

Batman 496/Batman: Knightfall 9
The whole "Batman just reached his limit and can't possibly go on anymore without rest" is getting lame. Here he picks up the pieces from his Firefly battle and immediately drives over to rescue Gotham's Mayor from Joker and Scarecrow. There was this part near the end that reminded me of Hush because he was punching Joker in the face for several pages straight (hallucinating from Scarecrow's gas), but there was no epic "Stop me if you heard this one" at the end of it. He just rescued the mayor, Joker and Scarecrow hightailed it out of there and Bane STILL has another gauntlet in store.

What started as a refreshing and semi-intriguing idea for a story arc is now degenerating into the waiting game.

Seriously the whole arc is based on batman is tired. Taht sounds like a drag.

Extreme 90s art is a drag to go through, but I like the writer of this story cause he invented Moon Knight for Marvel, and his Batman work is a pleasure to read

Superbuu3 wrote:

Seriously the whole arc is based on batman is tired. Taht sounds like a drag.

The whole story of Dick as Batman was based on Batman is seemingly dead, that didn't suck the fun out of the story

Superbuu3 wrote:

Seriously the whole arc is based on batman is tired. Taht sounds like a drag.

That's pretty much it. Luckily, it looks like everything culminates in on or two issues. Weary Batman was interesting to see for a little while, but it became a bit gimmicky once he reached his limits three or four times.

Quote :

The whole story of Dick as Batman was based on Batman is seemingly dead, that didn't suck the fun out of the story

Yeah, but that was more of a status quo change more than anything, since he's been Batman for almost two years now with no immediate looks to return to Nightwing. In this case, it's just literally one guy making a big deal out of how he shouldn't be able to cope with the Arkham breakout, and then coping with the Arkham breakout and then bitching about how tired he is.

Detective Comics 663/Batman: Knightfall 10
I couldn't tell if this was salt or sand or water he's supposed to be drowning in. Wtf?

Anyhow, things are FINALLY reaching their climax what with Batman rescuing the mayor and Bane's own gang of flunkies challenging him to his final round of their gauntlet. Because he's so tired and wiped out, he has to rely on KO gas for the first guy one and trickery for the next. See:

Spoiler:

The last guy he gets pissed at and just beats his brains out. Bane is found waiting for him in his mansion.

Since when did batman become such a whiney bitch? Is it the throat cancer?

Batman 497/Batman: Knightfall 11
Lol '90s.

Spoiler:

Welp, Bane's character was at least a hell of a lot more convincing than Doomsday was. He was methodical and patient, and realized that he couldn't win without weakening his prey first. That said, he's a total bitch for taking a guy out in that state. I guess next we'll see Jean-Paul Valley take over the Bat reigns since Tim is still too young and Jason is still too dead, but... throughout this thing, where the fuck is Nightwing at?

Ellis wrote:

Since when did batman become such a whiney bitch? Is it the throat cancer?

Exhaustion compounded with exhaustion can have that effect on you, I guess. We're supposed to believe that he felt compelled to track down every loose Arkham inmate by any means necessary, even though he was in pretty bad shape before Bane even put his plan into motion.

I read this stuff recently, all of it.
The good thing is, beside the covers, the art is pretty good, not the extreme 90s mess.
DC were smart enough not to hire Rob Liefeld.