Customer Reviews

Batman: Bruce Wayne - Murderer?

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(3)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

... and I can't tell you how thrilling it is, for a change, to deal with a story that is primarily about what the Batman does best: detection.

BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER is about many things, but on the surface it only poses one question: how far is faith worth following?

After a long night of chucking bad guys, Batman and Sasha Bourdeaux (his latest in a growing list of sidekicks) return home ... Sasha a few moments later than her mentor. However, in one of the upstairs rooms, Vesper Fairchild -- one of Wayne's many conquests -- is found shot to death. A 911 call circumstantially points all fingers to the billionaire-playboy, and, thus, Batman is thrust behind Blackgate Prison's slim bars ... a place where he's housed so many of the city's treacherous underworld.

In the interim, all of the principles in the Batman universe -- Robin, Oracle, Batgirl, and Nightwing, primarily -- are left to explore the possibility of whether or not the man who has meant so much to them in their lifetimes COULD have committed the deed. Bruce Wayne's not speaking. He's not declaring his innocence, leaving second-guessing to overcome second nature, and the merry band of Batfamily members will be forever challenged and possibly changed by the graphic novel's climax.

Once again, DC Comics has produced evidence that graphic storytelling can be so far advanced than what it has long been considered: folly best left to juveniles. This book explores adult themes in an entirely adult reality, and the consequences of a single act may irrevocably change the world of Gotham, for better or for worse. Smartly, the storytellers let the reader decide, and they don't force feed morality down the throat.

While BRUCE WAYNE: MURDERER isn't a complete tale (it's only a set-up for a series of events to follow), it could be read as a stand alone tale ... the paradigm has shifted in the Batman universe, and Bruce Wayne -- long considered the true 'mask' character in the playboy/crimefighter duality -- is gone, leaving our hero to face the grim reality of his never-ending battle to free Gotham from the clutches of pure evil.

Includes Batman 599,600 - Robin 98,99 - Birds of Prey 39,40 - Batman GK's 25,26 - Batgirl 24 - Batman 10 cent adv - Detective 766,767 & nightwing 65,66.

At 264 pages, you can settle down to a nice read. The timeline is post-No Man's Land, and you get to revisit the Batman rebuffing everyone's help even when he is thrown into Blackgate Prison. A coupe of new costumes are thrown at us, including a new side-kick, and that is surprising.

Bruce Wayne/Batman is the conflcited Dark Knight again, more believable than if he were a cheerful happy trooper. But he's misbehaving even more than even in No Man's Land, sharing little and leaving his colleagues little to go on in his defense.

The media clamours about his overwhleming guilt, although I didn't feel it was conclusive enough. Apparently Bruce Wayne is fair game in this town, so his alter-ego has been well camouflaged. As the fathful crew gathers, you gather that Batman has been acting a little odd recently and they are left to grapple with their doubts.

This volume (August 2002) is followed by a much thinner Bruce Wayne: Fugitive Vol 1 (Dec 2002) and Vol 2 (out in March 2003).

The drawings and impact of the storyline do nont rakn amongst the Batman classics but I enjoyed the book and how can you miss this!

This is my FAVORITE Batman comic I've ever read.

Some people have told me that they could see the ending coming, but I didn't and therefore really enjoyed the book the whole way though.

The art and the storyline are by far my two favorite things about the book.

If you want to want a great Batman TPB, DEFINITELY give this one a try. I don't really read, but I have read through this 3 or 4 times, and every time I finish, I want to start it again.

This is one of the finest stories of Batman ever told. I can easily add this to my favourites Knightfall and Hush. Bruce Wayne: Murderer? is a pure detective story and focuses on Batman's sidekicks more than the knight himself.

I believe every Batman fan should have this work in their collection. It is a strong story and readable for both Batman fans and anyone who will just read it for the fun.

This collection has a couple of its moment and the story starts off great but sadly, dwindles in the middle due to the appearance of too many players. All of a sudden, Spoiler, Canary and many other memebers of the Bat-family jumps in and causes major confusion of a great story. But despite that, the stories are decent, particularly the ones where Bruce Wayne is in jail and has no more masks to hide behind. And the final story is any comic-readers dream when Batman goes toe-to-toe w/ his former partner. This story takes a disturbing look at the man behind the mask and despite all the problems that he has faced head-on, Batman decides to run from this one.

This is a fabulous Batman story from the early 2000's. Bruce is accused and arrested for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Vesper Fairchild. It starts with a great recap of Batman's origin story, and chronicles how he and his fellow crime fighters deal with this tragedy. Plus, Batman's confidants are most concerned by his unwillingness to prove his innocence.

The Highlights: Lots of great writing and art. There is a big variety, since this collection only reprints parts of the Batman comics that deal with this story. I enjoyed the variety, but that may not be for everyone. The story also includes a variety of bat-family characters, especially Alfred, Robin, Nightwing, Oracle, Spoiler, Black Canary, and Sasha Bordeaux. It's a great mystery that makes each character examine their relationships with Batman.

Things to Consider: There isn't a lot of action from Batman in this book, since he spends most of his time in jail. There aren't even appearances by any villains in this point of the story. I still enjoyed the stories and seeing how Batman deals with being locked up.

The mystery is not solved in this volume, so be prepared to want to read more!

This thick, involving compilation of the various installments in the "Bruce Wayne: Murderer?" event that stretched across the family of Batman comic books a few years back has much to recommend it, but has a few flies in the ointment, too. On the plus side, there are plenty of pages to keep you busy (more than 250), the various artists do a nice job, and the story is decent, delivering solid mainstream superhero melodrama, no more and no less.

Chief among the negatives, however, is a kind of cut-and-paste quality to the whole affair, as this book doesn't compile full comic books that furthered the plotline, but only the specific pages within the original comics that spotlighted the story. So, while you get the occasional full issue of "Batman", "Detective Comics", "Robin", "Nightwing", etc., in this collection, you more often get small snippets from those issues, amounting to five or six pages each, before we move onto- more often than not- another small snippet. Things aren't as choppy as they could have been, but I wasn't crazy about the whole editing process employed here.

Also lacking is any kind of set-up at the outset... you know, one of those two-page text prologues peppered with drawings of the various players that most trade paperbacks now include to orient the reader, instead of just throwing us into the proceedings cold. I eventually figured out who all the various obscure characters were (just how MANY sidekicks and former sidekicks has Batman accumulated over the years?), but that could have been taken care of with a few short paragraphs at the beginning.

Finally, after 250-plus pages, there's no resolution. The central murder mystery is still unsolved, and the fate of Bruce Wayne is still very much up in the air. To learn more on those fronts, you'll have to pick up the various "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive" trade paperbacks. Good news in that area: they're cheaper than this volume (though thinner).

So, there you have it. You get a decent story that shows us a few things that we haven't seen a million times before (chief among them, Bruce Wayne in prison fighting off thugs), polished art of various styles, and facinating supporting cast members (once you get to know them). Just be aware of the shortcomings- which are somewhat annoying but not dealbreakers- and you should enjoy this novel-length comic book epic well enough.

"Bruce Wayne, Murderer?" is an incredible story with several twists and turns. It really puts Bruce Wayne outside of his regular element, and really shows some depth of the character development that Batman/Bruce Wayne has undergone in recent comics.

Just a really great story, and I would recommend it to anyone!

Bruce Wayne - Murderer? is something that I've always wanted to see. Will Bruce's secret be revealed? Will he give up the cape and cowl? And, did he really murder Vesper Fairchild?

Greg Rucka has always been one of my favorite authors. His work on the No Man's Land saga was incredible, as well as his novelization of it. Although I have not read Rucka's non-Batman mysteries (Finder, Keeper), I hear they are excellent as well. The plot of Bruce Wayne - Murderer?, coupled with Rucka's writing style was a perfect match.

I'm not going to give anything away, but the great thing about this story is it really makes you believe that Bruce could and would kill Vesper Fairchild. The conclusion (Bruce Wayne - Fugitive?) has yet to be put into Trade Paperback, but I will be first in line to get it when it does.

Overall, you shouldn't miss this great twist in the Batman mythos. Rucka's writing (and lest we forget the other writers, such as Chuck Dixon and Ed Brubaker), with the excellent artistic talents of Scott McDaniel, Rick Burchett, and others, make this an excellent read.