In an effort to make its stories more accessible to new
readers, DC recently launched The New 52, cancelling all of its existing titles
and starting 52 new series with revamped and rebooted versions of its major
characters. But how will the New 52 affect the DC universe? Will new readers
actually be attracted? Will old fans still be interested? Will the new titles
be fresh and new, or disappointing and unfaithful to the original continuity?
After buying and reading all but a few of the 52 new #1s that DC released over
the course of a month, I have set out to review some of the major ones and let
potential readers know which new titles are and are not worth reading. So,
without further ado…
Batman: The Dark Knight #1
Writer: Paul Jenkins
Penciler: David Finch
Review by Samuel N. Harris
Batman: The Dark
Knight #1 contains a decent story. It starts off with a few pages of Batman
ominously patrolling the night. It goes into a stint with him as Bruce Wayne,
addressing the public of Gotham at an elegant social function of some sort.
Bruce meets a few interesting characters, such as a bold, attractive woman, and
a Lieutenant who is not too happy about Bruce’s involvement with Batman, Inc.
(something which Bruce made publicly known recently before the reboot
happened). Later, there’s a breakout at Arkham Asylum, and Bruce changes back
into Batman to contain it, going up against familiar villains such as Mr.
Freeze and Clayface. The comic’s cliffhanger ending has Batman encounter a
stronger, more twisted, and more depraved version of one of his classic foes
(whose identity I will refrain from indicating so as not to spoil the
cliffhanger). It’s an interesting and entertaining story—just not a
particularly original or amazing one.
Don’t get me wrong. I have no major complaints with this
particular issue, because it’s really not bad as a whole. But perhaps I do have
a minor complaint about how much money and popularity DC keeps trying to milk
out of Batman, who is clearly their biggest character as of now. Sure, I love
Batman as much as the next guy, but when he’s already starring in Detective Comics, Batman, and Batman and Robin,
as well as being part of both Justice League and Justice League
International, a title like Batman:
The Dark Knight seems just a little bit redundant and unnecessary to me. I
wouldn’t mind it so much if the plot was something original or new or daring,
but this one doesn’t seem to be any of those things. In fact, it doesn’t seem
to be a whole lot different from Batman #1, which also featured Bruce Wayne addressing the public of Gotham at an
elegant social gathering, and also featured Batman trying to contain a breakout
at Arkham. It seems to me like DC decided to add another Batman title to the
line-up of the New 52 just so they could make more money off of Batman, but
they did it at the cost of original storytelling or particularly high quality
content.
On the other hand, I am somewhat interested by the
cliffhanger ending I mentioned above, and I’d be interested to find out exactly
how this villain at the end came to be in his new, twisted condition, and how
Batman will manage to defeat him this time around. I’m sure those questions
will be addressed in subsequent issues of Batman:
The Dark Knight. Maybe it will actually turn out to be a fresh and original
take on this particular villain, or maybe it will just be another temporary
gimmick to sell more comics—but it’s too early to tell with just the first
issue. This first issue doesn’t give us a whole lot to go on, and the shocker
cliffhanger ending is the only thing close to an incentive to come back and
read the next one.
Batman: The Dark
Knight #1 is entertaining and enjoyable enough, but it’s nothing to write
home about. In my opinion, it was a slightly subpar imitation of Batman #1—although, since they came out
around the same time, maybe both comics are just imitating classic Batman
stories and not coming up with anything extremely original. Read this comic if
you really, really love Batman and will never get tired of reading his stories,
even when they do get a bit repetitive. Otherwise, you won’t miss much by just
sticking with Batman, Batman and Robin, and Detective Comics.
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