Volume 1
Written by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant
Art by Various
2012
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Volume 2: Knightquest
Written by Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant
Art by Various
2012
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Volume 3: Knightsend
Written by Dennis O'Neil, Doug Moench, Chuck Dixon and Alan Grant
Art by Various
2012
Available now from Islington Libraries
You can reserve this item for free here:
http://www.library.islington.gov.uk/TalisPrism/
Yes. This is the comic that first introduced Bane. Yes. That's the guy in The Dark Knight Rises played by Tom Hardy. Yes. That's the one with the mask over his face who says stuff like: "When Gotham is ashes you have my permission to die." (but sounds more like: "gmrrhahgahahamisashesmrrhahrraggrahtodie") and Yes. For a certain species of Batman fan that makes it the best Batman epic ever (check the nice Sean T Collins review below for a taste). And yes. Just like you I was itching to read it as soon as I saw it sitting on our shelves even tho I knew I knew that it was going to somewhat - well - bloated and long (640 pages!) and disappointing.
But - hey - I don't wanna sound too much like a trendy comics hipster (is there such a thing?) but me and Bane go way back. I mean - I know it's something that people don't really like to mention in polite society - but who remembers watching Batman and Robin (the film not the Grant Morrison comic)? You know - the 1997 one directed by Joel Schumacher (one of the few famous Joel's out there alongside: Joel McHale, Joel Coen, and - altho I don't know if this really counts - Billy Joel?): George Clooney and his batnipples, Chris O'Donnell as Robin (and wow - whatever happened to him?), Uma Thurman as Posion Ivy (who followed up that by playing Emma Peel in The Avengers Movie (no - not those Avengers) for which she recieved a Razzle as worst actress - so I guess it just wasn't her year) and Arnie Schwarzenegger as Mr Freeze who - damnit - manages to be a strange sort of amazing [1]: I mean - this is a film that is remembered (if at all) for torpedoing the Bat-franchise for eight frigging years (until Nolan swooped down and did Batman Begins [2]) but for me (one of those muggins stupid enough to go and see it at the cinema) the bitterest disappointment of the whole film (which as you can tell from that little list above is really saying something) was how they depicted Bane. Oh yeah - that's right - I'm not sure how many people even remember but (for some godforsaken reason) they decided to give Posion Ivy and for some unknown reason (why guys why???) they decided to make it Bane. (Wikipedia quote: "originally a diminutive criminal named Antonio Diego. Transformed into a hugely powerful "Super-soldier" by the strength-enhancing drug "Venom", he was seen assisting the main villains in several ways, including getting Mr. Freeze's suit back from Arkham Asylum, and fighting against the main heroes several times, eventually being defeated by Robin and Batgirl after they found a way to stop the venom flow to his brain.")
Now - sometime that year (or maybe a bit before) I had read Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 (the opening story in this book) in some collected Dark Knight magazine or something [3] and I thought it was the best thing ever (or at least the best Batman story that I had ever read that wasn't done by Frank Miller - yeah that's right I knew my apples (and comics creators) even way back then). I mean - this story was hands-down the best origin story of any Batman villian ever (even better than Alan Moore's and Brian Bolland's The Killing Joke yeah) - hell: it might just be the best origin story of any superhero character ever (and reading it the second time I was struck by how - if you didn't know what was coming - you could almost think that you were reading the making of hero instead of a villain). It's got meance - a great sense of place (which is pretty hardcore right from the start with small glimpse of a dark and dingy torture scene) and the narration manages to hit that lovely sweet place between being dramatic and wise without slipping over into portentousness (which is a trap early Alan Moore often struggles with): plus (which I think is a must for all good origin stories) it's got lots of stuff of human endurance being pushed to it's limits and then - being pushed way way way past them. Trust me - once you read this story you'll understand what a colossal waste it was to have Bane relegated to a background role was [4]. It was like watching a film with The Terminator in but only using him as a clothes-hanger - all that potential just... squandered.
So - yeah - another big screen shot for Bane? Bring it on.
Unfortunatly - there's a sense in which the rest of Knightfall is also a bit of a... well - a bit of a Batman and Robin.
I'm not sure how many people reading this already know the story of Knightfall - but for me and my cultural standpoint - it feels a bit like one of those stories that everyone already knows (through cultural osmosis or whatever) [5]- but I don't want to spoil it for anyone that doesn't already know the full story [6]. Suffice to say: Bane decides (pretty much on a whim - kinda like: "I don't have nothing to do with my life. I wonder what I could do to challenge myself? What's that? There's a guy in some city who likes to dress up as a Bat? Right then - I'm going to make it my mission to destory him completely."[7]) to break Batman and does so in such a way that - well - this is a big thick book for a reason.
The thing that makes the whole thing a bit of a grind as opposed to something that's actually - oh - I dunno - fun to read is the artwork which - frankly - is almost uniformly dismal. I remember at my old local library in South London back when I was a kid that there was a copy of Knightfall and I never managed to get through the whole thing because - damn it - the art was just so bad (and hey - why bother with that stuff that feels cheap and nasty when there's all those comic books with Frank Miller's name across them) and it seemed that growing up and travelling from place-to-place there was always a copy of one of the three Knightfall books knocking around in whatever library I ended up in - which just made it seem like one of those Batman books that was so cheap (yet so thick) that everyone could have a copy (although the problem for every other collected version of Knightfall up until this one is that they didn't include Batman: Vengeance of Bane #1 which I know realise is the best bit by far) and now that I come to actual read the stupid thing. Urg. Mainstream comics have tended to get a lot prettier has time as gone on (Matt Fraction and Salvador Larroca's The Invincible Iron Man comes to mind) but man - the early days of the 1990s sure looked like a sucky time to be a Batman fan. Every page looks like it took about 10 minutes to draw and the colour palate seems malnourished (it's like they filled everything in with crayon - but there were only 10 colours left in the box so they just had to make do - or is it just that everyone in Gotham owns the same pair of pyjamas?). And - man - this whole thing is supposed to be a major epic - but (and I guess this is a problem with all mainstream comics) but they keep making (small) references to other stuff that's happened before (and you can work it out - but still): so it feels a little - incomplete (and if you're wondering who that blonde guy with the glasses is (huh? Jean-Paul Valley?) - then you should maybe read Sword of Azrael before you start).
(I gave up after the first book - but (so you know) there is Knightfall 2: Knightquest if you're interested - and hopefully at some point soon - the third part too...)
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[1] And hey: if you want to give yourself something to smile about then please enjoy this montage of Mr Freeze's puns.
[2] Fun fact that I have only just learnt: but the producers of Batman and Robin were "so impressed with the dalies" (man - producers are stoopid) that they wanted to make a 1999 sequel called Batman Triumphant. The script had "the Scarecrow as the main villain. The Joker would return as a hallucination in Batman's mind caused by the Scarecrow's fear toxin. Harley Quinn appeared as a supporting character, written as the Joker's daughter trying to get revenge on Batman for the Joker's death. George Clooney, Chris O'Donnell and Alicia Silverstone were set to reprise the roles of Batman, Robin and Batgirl, it was unknown who would play the Scarecrow or Harley Quinn but Howard Stern, Nicolas Cage, Steve Buscemi, Ewan McGregor or Jeff Goldblum were suggestions for the role, Madonna could have been the choice for Harley Quinn but an actress wasn't hired, and Jack Nicholson was to reprise his role from the Tim Burton film." Unfortunatly when Batman and Robin came out and practically everyone in the whole world hated it then junked it. Oh well.
[3] Legends of the Dark Knight maybe? Something like that. I dunno - it didn't have this amazing Glenn Farby cover so it must have been a reprint of somekind or another - but whatever.
[4] Just to remind those of you who've grown up in an age where it seems almost natural to reboot the Spider-Man films only a few years apart: way back in the 1990s the feeling was that characters only ever got one chance on big-screen representation.
[5] "Wait a minute... Statue of Liberty...? That was our planet!"
[6] And if you do know the full story and fancy a little recap then I very much recommend COOKING WITH COMICS: Knightfall. (it's reenactment of the whole Knightfall thing and is pretty damns funny). There's also one they did for The Death and Return of Superman which is somehow even better.
[7] And hell - I mock - but that's kinda one of the most satisfying Batman villain character motivations I can think of. Bane's like the George Mallory of Batman Batman Rogues Gallery ("and why do you want to kill Batman?" "Because he's there.")
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Links: Sean T Collins Review, Comics Alliance Article: Breaking Down Bane, Mindless Ones Article: Rogue’s Review #4: Bane.
Further reading: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Batman and Son, Gotham Central, Batman: Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth, Batman: Sword of Azrael.
All comments welcome.
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