Customer Reviews

Batman: Vow from the Grave

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The negative reviews posted here all seem to deal with a completely different book. This confusion isn't the reviewers' fault; Amazon somehow imported reviews of that other book to this page. Anyway, the book called "Batman: Challenge of the Man-Bat" is exactly what the Amazon listing says it is: a black and white trade paperback, published by Titan Books in the U.K., that reprints four Batman stories from the 1970s with Neal Adams art. The stories are pretty great, by the way; but I'm mainly posting this to try to clear up the confusion.

The story in this book is predictable, unexciting and is simply not worth the time or money. The first part is a story about how Green Arrow and Green Lantern try to beat a very colorful and prdictable and rather cheesy villain. The second story is where Green Arrow teams up with Batman in order to defeat the same cheesy villain who have accumulated more wickedness (rather cheesiness) over the years. The writing is very dated and more suited for comics from the 80's. For the modern reader, it is ill-suited and they will not enjoy it, especially when compared to the quality of recent stories. It is simply not a good Batman, Green Arrow or Green Lantern story.

The first thing that a person notices when seeing the book is that it has Batman's name written on the cover when in fact he does not appear until later in the book.

The book is a collection of two stories, both appearing in previous issues of Green Lantern and Legends of the Dark Knight in comic book form. The first has Greena Arrow teaming up with Green Lantern and the second one has the Green Arrow teaming up with the legendary Dark Knight, Batman. The stories have nothing to do with one another, so it would seem strange that a book has the mantle of the Bat on it, when in fact, the main character through both of them is Green Arrow. This is the main misleading theme in this and one can wonder why would DC do such a thing, excepy knowing full well that a book with Green Arrow is not going to sell as much than having the Bat on the cover and in the book.

How about the stories? Both feature the Green Arrow, an extremely arrogant and obnoxious character that is extremely self conceited, you sometimes root for the villain to beat the heck out of him. He resembles Marvel's character Hawkeye in terms of having those same character flaws, but in the latter, you understand where he comes from and you can never go wrong with Hawkeye as he is considered the spirit of the Avengers where Captain America is the hear.

In the first story, he teams up with the original Green Lantern, Hal Jordan and the story is a mundane one where they have to save a nation from utter destruction from the clutches of a tyrant general.

The second one has him team up with Batman and the story still has the same tyrant in it, but now he's living in asylum in another rogue nation. Both stories are truly not worth the read and are very poor compared to the rich texture of how Batman has evolved through the years and what he is right now.

In all, the book is not worth reading as other great works that feature the Dark Knight. Batman simply is too dark and foreboding to work with Green Arrow.

You need to ignore the title of this book. Batman is the featured character only in the second part. Green Arrow is the continuing character in the whole collection.

This trade paperback was put together from 3 issues of "Legends of the DC Universe" and a 5-issue run of "Legends of the Dark Knight."

In the first storyline, test pilot Hal Jordan (Green Latern) and wealthy industrialist Oliver Queen (Green Arrow) investigate a rebellion in a fictitious far-eastern nation. It takes us back to the first meeting of these two heroes, early in their careers. They discover the ruler of the nation may be friends with the U.S., but has only his personal interest at heart. We get lots of Hal being heroic and stolid. Ollie moves from a go-for-the-gusto kind of adventurer to realizing there's more to the world than beating bad guys. The green heroes eventually side with the rebels and take down the dictator.

In the second and longer story, we finally get to Batman, though not till the end of Part I. Oliver Queen is completely disenchanted with the corruption he finds in his rounds as Green Arrow. He literally heads for the hills, dumping his multi-million dollar businesses. An attempted assasination draws him into a mystery and another first meeting -- with Bruce Wayne.

Green Arrow and Batman uncover a coup attempt in another fictional far-eastern nation. We get a brief return of the petty dictator from the first story (now as a flunky). Then we meet the three real villains, a Fu Manchu-like prime minister, intent on rule, the powerful leader of an assassins-for-hire cult, and a Joker-like parody of Green Arrow.

Batman investigates and Green Arrow loses his nerve. Finally, Batman faces down the ultimate assasin; Green Arrow gets back his bow-slinging chops, and justice is served.

The collection is not great, but does have a lot of strong points. Writer Dennis O'Neal focuses on character, with nice insights on the three leads and some very good secondary players. Artists Land, Cariello, Giordano and Ryan give us some great layouts, powerful poses and flashy explosions.

Though from the late-nineties, the sensibilites of these tales are neo-seventies. G.L. and G.A. begin the social consciousness trip that writer O'Neil first took them through in that era.

The best point of this book is the retro-history of the three heroes. Besides setting the stories early in their career, O'Neil gives a nice intro and afterword on the life and times of the Emerald Archer.

Overall, Batman fans will be disappointed by his limited role. This is really a book for Green Arrow followers and afficianados of the work of Dennis O'Neil.

This black and white british trade paperback features Batman reprints from Detective Comics #395, 397 and 400 and 402. All with fantastic Neal Adams artwork. The tales are from the 1970s so are somewhat dated in terms of dialogue, but are entertaining. However, the artwork is not dated.

As the previous user Chris Weber said, Green Arrow is the only character that appears throughout the story. I won't bother going into the details of the story because that has already been done. Green Lantern and Green Arrow appear in part one while Batman and Green Arrow appear in part two. I guess the misleading title was the major turnoff for most readers but give this book a chance anyway. I found it to be a good read. Cover price is $19.95 but you can get it for less even though it's out of print. It seems that Dennis O'Neil loves to write about ruthless foreign dictators(Nightwing: Ties that Bind) and I happen to like those kind of stories.

This graphic novel is actually quite well-written - and from Denny O'Neil no less! I've read some other reviews that imply the graphic novel is disjointed and nothing could be farther from the truth.

The book is about Green Arrow - and do read the Intro and the Epilogue folks, to get the full rundown on this secondary character, made popular in the past by Neal Adams and others who further developed Oliver Queen from rich playboy Batman copycat into a fine Justice League hero in his own right. But I digress!

Story and Plotlines:

The story ran pretty nicely - The Arrow finds himself in a foreign country and finds that someone is out to kill him. The Green Lantern (only in the first story) meets the Arrow and according to Denny O'Neil, this is an origin story of sorts where the two meet up for the first time.

I did enjoy the rebel anti-Establishment attitude of Ollie Queen and his sarcastic commentary on the Lantern and his conflicting concepts of law and order. GL: "Yeah, someone told you that you were funny - they lied!" Great scripting.

Most Shocking Moment: Where Arrow falls for a medic nurse, and the tasteful yet shocking method of her death when she accidentally steps on a landmine. Pretty horrific.

Funniest Moment: When Batman turns out to be one of only seven men who know the defense for the Death Cobra Defense. Kind silly but that's Denny for ya!

Recommendations: Overall, worth the read. I enjoyed the evil dictator, the archer assassin (but I did NOT like the art in the second half - too cartoony) and the Arrow's evolution from a guy who wants to toss it all into a real hero for the people.

Originally published in the Legends of the DC Universe 7-9 and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight 127-131.