| QUOTE (jamiearmour @ Feb 12 2005, 06:43 PM) |
| I'll make it unanimous Kendo. It's quite possibly the best piece of Batman w**k out there :thumbsup: You may not like the art w**k though, it's by Frank Miller, the guy you didn't like on Batman year one :unsure: So hope you're not paying too much for it just in case. |
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| A guide to the Essential Batman: The books that gave rise to director Christopher Nolan's reinvigorated version of the Caped Crusader. Herewith a list of the top titles for readers who want to impress their friends with their knowledge of the works that influenced Nolan and company. 1. Batman: Year One (1987). Writer: Frank Miller. Artist: David Mazzucchelli. The story of how young vigilante Bruce Wayne became a bat and Jim Gordon became a crusader against police corruption. Year One is thematically as close as you'll get to the world Nolan created for Batman Begins and Dark Knight. Gritty, grungy, brutal, this definitive epic features characters later used in Begins and Knight, such as mafia boss Carmine Falcone, bad cop Flass and a very different take on police commissioner Loeb. Year One also gives a peek into the home life of Jim Gordon, which was hinted at in Dark Knight. 2. Haunted Knight (1995), The Long Halloween (1997) and Dark Victory (2001). Writer: Jeph Loeb. Artist: Tim Sale. A Manhattan-phone-book-thick, satisfying trilogy that owes more to The Godfather than to Super Friends. This is the story of how crime dons such as Falcone and Sal "Boss" Maroni (played by Eric Roberts in Knight) got phased out by the masked freaks who came to define the Gotham underworld. Loeb and Sale, two of the creative forces behind NBC's Heroes, also explore how Batman, Gordon and district attorney Harvey Dent interact--in a way that foreshadows The Dark Knight--and present nuggets about how the mob launders and stores its cash, which presages subplots in Knight. 3. "The Joker's Five-Way Revenge", Batman number 251 (1973). Writer: Denny O'Neal. Artist: Neal Adams. Reprinted in Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told, The Greatest Joker Stories Ever Told and Batman Illustrated by Neal Adams Volume 3. After Batman became a joke in the wake of the Adam West Batman TV show, it was the team of O'Neal and Adams who made Batman cool, mysterious and scary again. This was the team's re-invention of the Joker, who'd degenerated into not much more than a prankster and a vandal. In this pivotal story, the Joker is restored to the vicious psychopath he originally was in the early days of Batman mythology. Without this gem, the Joker would still just be defacing art galleries. It's impossible to imagine Heath Ledger's Joker without this mini-epic. 4. Face the Face (2006). Writer: James Robinson. Artists: Don Kramer and Leonard Kirk. A really good whodunit that explores the complex relationship between Batman and Harvey Dent, who becomes the villainous, dichotomy-obsessed Two-Face. Harvey's cured (or is he?) and becomes a protector of Gotham (or does he?). But somebody is killing off Gotham's minor-league villains in a way that mirrors Two-Face's style. If you think Harvey's relationship with Batman is hard to figure out, check out his relationship with himself. The Dark Knight makes a lot out of Harvey's goodness and what it means to Gotham. Face the Face does, too. 5. The Killing Joke (1988). Writer: Alan Moore. Artist: Brian Bolland. The origin of the Joker, in which he's disfigured and driven nuts after a chemical bath, is retold with a twist in this, one of the most intense graphic novels to try to crack the psychology of the Joker. Featuring a plotline that had legions of fans stunned with "I-can't-believe-they-went-there" post-traumatic stress disorder. Never has the Joker been more sympathetic or vicious. Cited by Ledger as a basis for his Joker role. A classic that's still controversial after 20 years. 6. Gotham Central: Half a Life (2003) and Gotham Central: Soft Targets (2004). Writers: Greg Rucka (Half a Life) and Rucka and Ed Brubaker (Soft Targets). Artists: various. Collected in the graphic novels Half a Life and Unresolved Targets. Gotham Central was an award-winning comic book about the Gotham cops who work behind the scenes and clean up the messes major comic-book characters leave behind. The "real" feel of the books is just as director Nolan's reboot of the movie franchise. In Half, as in Face the Face, we see just how good Harvey Two-Face can be (when the coin decrees it) as he becomes an ally of cop Renee Montoya. Things get complicated from there. In Targets, the Joker is made sweaty-palm plausible as he lifts a page or two from the playbook of the real-life Washington, D.C., snipers, planning and executing hideously brilliant acts of mayhem and keeping five moves ahead of everyone else--a lot like Ledger's Joker is five moves ahead of Batman and the Gotham cops. The presence of actress Monique Curnen in The Dark Knight as Montoya-like cop Detective Ramirez seems to hint that Nolan and company are cribbing from this classic, lamentably defunct, series. 7. "The Crimes of Two-Face." Written by Bill Finger. Art by Bob Kane, Jerry Robinson and George Roussos. Detective Comics number 66 (1941). Reprinted in Batman: Featuring Two-Face and the Riddler. The first appearance by Harvey Dent/Two-Face, with art by the great Jerry Robinson, who acted as a consultant on The Dark Knight, and a script by Bill Finger, the guy who invented most of the Batman mythos. Worth reading just to note that the plastic surgeon who was supposed to fix the ravaged face of the character later played by Aaron Eckhart was ... Dr. Ekhart! Yes, the spelling is different, but the implications are too vast and profound for this to be mere coincidence. OK, maybe it is a coincidence, but what the heck ... |