Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight [Paperback]

Scott Beatty (Author), Greg Rucka (Author), Ed Brubaker (Author), Bill Willingham (Author), Killian Plunkett (Illustrator), Serge LaPointe (Illustrator), Jose Villarrubia (Illustrator), Tom Fowler (Illustrator), Scott McDaniel (Illustrator), Rick Burchett (Illustrator)

Book Description

Series: Batman | Publication Date: June 15, 2005

Begins, the film by acclaimed director Christopher Nolan (Memento, Insomnia) and writer David Goyer (Blade), starring Christian Bale, Michael Caine, Liam Neeson, Morgan Freeman, Gary Oldman, Ken Watanabe, Katie Holmes and Tom Wilkinson, can now be read as a graphic novel! This colorful adaptation of Batman Begins explores the origins of the Batman legend and the Dark Knights emergence as a force for good in Gotham. In the wake of his parents murder, disillusioned industrial heir Bruce Wayne travels the world seeking the means to fight injustice and turn fear against those who prey on the fearful. He returns to Gotham and unveils his alter ego: Batman, a masked crusader who uses his strength, intellect and an array of high-tech deceptions to fight the sinister forces that threaten the city. This collection also contains four more tales featuring the comic-book version of the Dark Knight!

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Grade 7 Up–A graphic-novel adaptation of the recently released film. The comic-book version follows the film's plot directly and reveals the dark origins of the vigilante hero, tracing Bruce Wayne's inner turmoil and struggle with who he is and what his role is to be in the world. It also includes four earlier Batman stories: The Man Who Falls, Air Time, Reasons, and Urban Legend. Perhaps the best one is the last one, which has a twist that is hard to anticipate. The artists contributing to the work are accomplished. The movie mania will be a good draw to this title.–Joel Bangilan, Houston Public Library, TX
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From Booklist

Any big-budget summer action movie is going to be accompanied by scads of ancillary products, including books. The print tie-in to Batman Begins is, entirely appropriately, considering its hero's origins, a comic-book adaptation of the blockbuster flick. To translate movie into comics, DC called on experienced hands Scott Beatty, writer of many previous Batman stories, and Kilian Plunkett, who honed his movies-to-comics skills on a series of Star Wars titles. Their rendition deviates from the theatrical release only by trimming it a bit. Filling out the volume are reprints of four better-than-average strips from the various Batman titles. The standout, written and drawn by Batman veterans Denny O'Neil and Dick Giordano, retells the character's origin in a version close to that of the movie, but all four hark back to the tragedy in his childhood that led Bruce Wayne to adopt his life's mission. Consider the whole book as a sort of Batman 101 for viewers of the smash movie wanting more of the Caped Crusader. Gordon Flagg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics; Graphic novel edition (June 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401204406
• ISBN-13: 978-1401204402
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 6.6 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #499,570 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Trying to use "Batman Begins" to get more readers interested in the Dark Knight, September 7, 2005

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Lawrance M. Bernabo (The Zenith City, Duluth, Minnesota) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight (Paperback)

I think it is clear that the idea here is to get people who liked the movie "Batman Begins," which I have no problem seeing as being the best Batman movie to date, to read some of the Batman comic book titles put out by DC. The hook here is the official comic book adaptation of "Batman Begins," by writer Scott Beatty, penciller Kilian Plunkett, and inker Serge LaPointe," but the stories included in "Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight" are taken from those sundry titles and are intended to get young to pick up current issues to see what Gotham's caped crusader is up to (although DC really prefers that you check out some of the collections advertised on the last pages of this trade paperback). The movie adaptation is fairly faithful to the movie, but you will probably notice a couple of missing scenes, so that even at 60-plus-pages it could have been longer. One of the strengths of the movie was the depth it displayed, and that is sacrificed in this retelling. The artwork is certainly functional, although the brown and gray color schemes get to be a bit much at times. But it is a decent enough adaptation (4 stars), which will tide you over in terms of remembering what happened in the film before the DVD comes out.

After the adaptation of "Batman Begins" we get to read the origin of Batman from the comics, specifically "The Man Who Falls," from the "Secret Origins" trade paperback. Written by Denny O'Neil and drawn by Dick Giordano, you have the same basic structure with young Bruce Wayne falling into the bat cave, the murder of his parents, and then traveling to the Orient to be taught by a wise master on top of a snowy mountaintop. The story, which ends with Batman donning his costume for the first time and heading off into the night, is told entirely in captions (no word balloons). It would be interesting to have a collection of Batman origins (you probably cannot fit all of them into a trade paperback this thin), going all the way back to Bob Kane's original one and tossing in the relevant pages of Frank Miller's "The Dark Knight" returns just to see how the story has evolved and elements have been added over the past half-century plus.

The other tales of the Dark Knight are relatively ordinary Batman adventures. "Air Time" from "Detective Comics" is by writer Greg Rucka, penciller Rick Burchett and inker Rodney Ramos, takes place one night when the Lucky Hand Triad kills some cops making a grab for some drugs. In trying to get away the gang drives a SUV with a father, mother and son off a bridge and into the bottom of the lake. The question is how they can stay alive until somebody comes to rescue them, and that cannot happen until the Batman figures out what has happened. "Reasons" is a "Batman" story by writer Ed Brubaker, penciller Scott McDaniel, and inker Andy Owens, has our hero tangling with Catwoman and finding out something when she calls him on hanging out in the neighborhood of the Monarch Theater (where Bruce Wayne went with his parents before they were killed), along with his tendency to let bad guys shoot him while he is wearing his Kevlar armor. So this story actually fits the grand design here.

The final offering is "Urban Legend," written by Bill Willingham with art by Tom Fowler and inks by James Sinclair, drawn from "Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight." Basically Batman is beaten so badly that he does not remember that he is Batman. That means the great detective has to figure out what he was doing, because clearly whatever he was trying to do he has not finished the task. Fortunately the gang that ends up with an unconscious Batman believes that the enemy of their enemy is their friend. A minor story, but it does focus on what Batman means, as the twist at the end clearly indicates. So chances are that you will probably like the other tales of the Dark Knight collected here more than the movie adaptation.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A Nice Adaptation of a Superb Movie, August 9, 2005

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Grrrr "GWR" (East Coast,USA) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight (Paperback)

This is a very well done adaptation/collection inspired by what I consider to be the best movie I've seen this year. If you enjoyed the film, it's worth checking this out to see some additional dialogue that was left out of the film. The additional tales in the collection were well chosen. I highly recommend this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Cool adaption!, August 12, 2005

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Owen Carter "Please don't review my review, u... (Wales, UK) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Batman Begins: The Movie and Other Tales of the Dark Knight (Paperback)

Basically the comic book adaption of the movie does nothing more than tell the story of the movie through the medium of the comic book. But that is all that I was looking for in this book and it delivers that so it serves its purpose. Also though it does show some shots from the film as it would look in the comics so that is a pretty cool reason to buy this book. DC have chucked in some other Batman stories from the comics which all show elements of where Nolan must've researched for parts of his adaption. For example, one shows Bruce Wayne's journey to becoming Batman through travelling the world.

I'd reccomend this book to all bat fans and fans of the movie if not for the movie comic adaption itself, for the other stories showing the inspiration to certain ideas presented in the movie.