When I was 7 years old, Knightfall hit the comic world like a ton of bricks. Being 7 made it where I didn't understand comics all that well, but I was enthralled with the designs of Azrael as Batman and the monstrosity that is Bane. It was enough where my father would allow me to pick up the Knightfall issues every 2 weeks. I didn't pick up the entire Knightfall saga because of the hefty amounts of issues involved, but I have scattered issues to this day on the event. And if you're like me, you definitely have been looking around to one day getting the entire event for yourself in some shape or form, either it be single issues or trade paperback. Thankfully, DC has given fans the opportunity in the past 15 years or so in trade forms. But the thing is: it's never been complete.
Batman Knightfall is the first ever Batman event made and DC wanted to make one hell of an impact on that notion. Coming in the middle at the time of the famous Death of Superman story (specifically World Without Superman arc), Knightfall was unleashed to the masses that almost lasted 2 years worth. The event is made up of 3 made sections of the event, with sub-sections. Batman Knightfall the 1st main section, with sub-sections "Broken Bat" and "Who Rules the Night". Batman Knightquest is the 2nd main section, with sub-sections "The Crusade" and "The Search". And finally the last section Knightsend, with the sub-sections "Knightsend Aftermath", "Prodigal", and "Troika". In all 15 years or so, DC has had various reprints of Knightfall and Knightsend, with numerous issues being exempted in-between all the reprints. One of which being the "Prodigal" son trade (which is a small fortune), the "troika" arc, and most famous arc missing every issue: Knightquest. That's about to change.
With the up coming The Dark Knight Rises this year, DC is re-releasing material based off of the villain Bane (and to a certain extent, Ra's Al Ghul) for the films marketing. This includes
Batman: Birth of the Demon,
Batman Versus Bane, and the preempt story
Batman: Venom as buildup to the grand story of Knightfall event re-print. BUT...DC looks to have finally gotten the hint from the fans concerning the lack of incomplete issues and demand regarding them over the years. It looks like DC is actually going to release the entire Knightfall event in proper older and affordability. And from what it looks like, DC means business.
BATMAN: KNIGHTFALL VOL.1 NEW EDITION collects the entire sections of "Broken Bat" and "Who Rules the Night" arcs:
BATMAN: VENGEANCE OF BANE SPECIAL #1
BATMAN #491-500
DETECTIVE COMICS #659-666
SHOWCASE '93 #7 and 8
BATMAN: SHADOW OF THE BAT #16-18
[Aside from Vengeance of Bane #1, all of the other material comes from
Batman: Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat and
Knightfall: Part Two - Who Rules the Night [BATMAN KNIGHTFALL]. Please click on the links for far better and detailed reviews of the content. I will not go as in-depth as the other reviews since they do explain it much more.]
Batman Vengeance of Bane #1 shows an entire origin story of the Bane, including growing up at birth in a prison, his ideology, and training Bane endured his whole life to lead him to the beginning of Knightfall. For the longest time, this was a rare and expensive story to get a hold of, but is now included to help setup Bane. This is a phenomenal introduction of Bane and you really believe in his whole being to possibly being Batman's equal.
Batman Knightfall deals primarily with the introduction of Bane, a powerful and well-educated man from prison out to take the Batman and take over Gotham. Bane breaks out all of the Arkham inmates, causing chaos among Gotham. Batman gets put to the test of his very being fighting and re-capturing all the inmates, while slowly being worn out for the big fight with Bane. Bane does his famous "back-breaker" and decommissions Bruce Wayne as Batman. This leaves Gotham at the mercy of Bane, in which the possible Bat-replacement Jean-Paul Valley takes over the reigns as the new Batman. He goes on a savage take-back of Gotham his own way, which finally makes it way to the battle of Jean-Paul and Bane.
Batman Knightfall is big mainstay in the Batman mythos. We get the obvious introduction of Bane, the first real time Batman physically and mentally gets pushed and broken to the limit, the perils of working alone, and the theme of a Batman that embraces brutality and even possibly murder. And yes, all of this is here in this book (which tells you a lot, considering we still have Vol.2 and Vol.3 coming down the pipeline.) If you're a new reader that's reading Snyder's current run on
Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls (The New 52), then you have to see the first time Batman really fall hard and have epic scope at the same time. There isn't anymore I could say the other reviews can explain better, so look that up.
On the flipside of this book, the book does suffer from typical problems most comic events have: some filler material, possibly being too long, consistent change in writing and drawing, and various information leading up to the event that's not explained well for readers not caught up in the story. Most the problems listed are minor in my opinion and don't really affect the overall saga, but could disrupt some readers. The only thing readers could look into is the Knightfall prelude information. Characters like Jean-Paul having no introduction (checkout
Batman: Sword of Azrael (Prelude to Knightfall) for that), Riddler being high on Venom, Black Mask attack to Batman, Bane attacking Jean-Paul, Bane attacking Killer Croc, and Batman being mysteriously exhausted all the time (presumably after the death of Jason Todd with
Batman: A Death in the Family) are all information that's not explained at all in this book. It's all information that is explained before Knightfall, and hopefully if the entire 3 volumes of the Knightfall saga sell well and the fans like it...maybe we can ask DC to make a Knightfall Prelude trade collection that includes this information in the future.
Art is another big deal that has to be mentioned. If you're not accustomed to the older drawings of 1993, most of the art might seem archaic by today's standards. People who grew up and are more accustomed to this level of art will see no problem in the process, but again...new readers might really be turned off by 19 old art. I still think the art is fabulous for it's time and age, but again, it won't be for everyone.
Okay let's talk about this new 2012 edition. The book has colored paper, but the paper is more akin to the older trade paperbacks paper (but I feel the color stands out a bit more), has complete original covers before each issue, and has the original trade paperback covers and fold-out cover of issue #500. That's about it for extras, but it's insignificant to the rest of the trade. What I also have to mention and this applies for the upcoming Vol.2 and 3 editions, is the solicitation regarding the books. All editions have information of what DC has listed for the contents, and the all 3 don't have wrong information...but incomplete information. DC's solicitation of Knightfall has everything listed EXCEPT Detective Comics issues #661-666 and Shadow of the Bat #16 for example. It's collected here, but those that want the complete Knightfall Saga really need to know exactly what each book has and we all want the complete saga. So for Vol.2 and 3, you might want to wait until you get complete confirmation (Youtube, a friend, or go to your comic shop and look at the books description personally)about what each book has before buying. Just to make sure.
BATMAN KNIGHTFALL VOL.1 NEW EDITION is great start to what might be the true and complete collection of this sought after saga fans have wanted done right for years. At 600+ pages for the pricing that you can't beat, and combined with all the Batman mythos so strongly here...I gave this a 5 score, which I think outweigh the faults. The thing is most of this collection has been available for some time now in other trades...and the real test of the Knightfall saga will come with
Knightquest (Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 2) which will be available for the first time ever in trade form and
KnightsEnd (Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 3) which includes the "Prodigal" storyline at an affordable price. Highly recommended for the price and content.
