Legends of the Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 1 [Hardcover]

Jim Aparo (Author)

Book Description

Release date: April 10, 2012 | Series: Legends of the Dark Knight

Jim Aparo was one of the premier Batman artists of the 1970s, working primarily on the Batman team-up title THE BRAVE AND THE BOLD. Now, DC collects Aparo's run on the series in hardcover for the first time from the beginning. Aparo portrayed Batman as a detective who operated in shadow, yet captured the action and thrills of the Caped Crusader.

These stories feature appearances by numerous DC heroes (and villains) including Robin, Green Arrow, Black Canary, The Teen Titans, Deadman, Wonder Woman, The Demon, The Joker, Aquaman, The Atom and many others.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 512 pages
• Publisher: DC Comics; First Edition edition (April 10, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1401233759
• ISBN-13: 978-1401233754
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 1.3 x 10.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.7 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #97,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Some of the best Batman stories ever October 6, 2012

By DJ Joe Sixpack HALL OF FAMETOP 500 REVIEWER

Format:Hardcover

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"Legends Of The Dark Knight: Jim Aparo Vol. 1"
Written by Bob Haney
Illustrated by Jim Aparo
(DC Comics, 2012)
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When I started reading comics as a kid in the early 1970s, I was mostly all about Marvel, and the handful of DCs that I picked up felt pretty exotic to me, an unknown quantity compared to the complete runs I began building up of Marvel mags. Among the DCs I read at the time, the Batman team-ups in "Brave And The Bold" (reprinted here) were some of the most alluring. There was a sophistication to Jim Aparo's artwork that stood in contrast to many artists of the era, a Madison Avenue/magazine ad sleekness shared by Gray Morrow and a few others that hinted at a "high art" possibility for the comicbook medium.

Looking back at these stories through the lens of nostalgia (and finding good stuff to share with my kid) I gotta say, these Brave And The Bold issues (#98-122) are better than most of the stuff I was reading back then, and they hold up really well. This was indisputably one of the best eras for Batman, when DC moved to reintroduce a more serious feel to the character after decades of kid-friendly, humor-oriented goofiness in the sci-fi '50s and tv-show '60s. Bob Haney and Jim Aparo's Batman was more of a procedural-cop detective in a gritty urban environs, but with a hip '70s edge. Some of the hippie-era slang seems out of character coming from Batman and Commissioner Gordon, but it's in keeping with the socially-conscious storylines, full of peace signs, sideburns, bell-bottom pants and protest signs. Admittedly, many of the minor characters are ridiculous stereotypes -- hot-tempered "Latins", volatile teen protestors, etc. -- but the politics of the time were also theatrical and self-stereotyping, so the reflections that kids saw in comics weren't that far off the mark. Indeed, Haney's stories tackled some issues that had surprising heft, such as the "Aquarians" story which focussed on how urban renewal impacted old neighborhoods -- a more mundane and in many ways more meaningful topic than the kids-doing-drugs stories that made big waves at the time.

In short, this is an excellent collection that not only brings back the feel of the early '70s, but is solid superhero stuff as well - great artwork matched to scripts that had high aspirations. The print quality and glossy, bright reproductions are very high-quality; this is a beautifully produced book, generously packed with nearly 500 pages of some of the best artwork of the era. The few flaws of the project are primarily editorial: because this was billed as a Jim Aparo retrospective, there are reproductions of some, but not all, the original comicbook covers (only the ones that Aparo did the art for) and it would have been less disorienting to see all the covers, regardless of the illustrators, as is done in most of DC's high-end archive books. Indeed, although Aparo is rightly celebrated here, I think it would have made much more sense to include this in the DC Archives series, which already has one volume of Brave And The Bold team-ups on the market. Also, the lack of an introductory essay sells Aparo short, but it's certainly not a deal breaker. Overall, there's no reason not to run out and pick this book up as quickly as possible. It's some of the best Silver Age material you'll ever read! (Joe Sixpack, ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A 4 and a half Star Rating -- almost perfect April 11, 2012

By BookLover59

Format:Hardcover

First, it should be noted that having Jim Aparo's "Brave & Bold" artwork collected, in color, for the first time (LONG overdue!) is reason enough for a four or five star review. Second, this review would've been a five star rave if DC Comics had put more thought into the package. Aparo's run on "The Brave & the Bold" took place during the height of is artistic powers. Unfortunately, when they display the covers to issues 112-117 (big, thick, extra packed comic issues, with reprints along with the original stories and artwork) DC chose to display them at the same size as the original comics. A terrific thing if you don't own the comics, because you'll be seeing Aparo's covers for the first time. But an absolutely dumb idea if one is putting together a book to celebrate the genius of Aparo: DC should have ENLARGED the covers, focusing specifically on the section that contains Aparo's artwork, especially since these issues were produced during the height of his artistic ability. (Aparo REALLY got good around issue 104 or 105 -- and he became great by issue 111, the one with the famous Batman/Joker cover that Amazon has displayed. That artistic ability remained strong right up until around issue number 136 or 137 of B&B -- after that, too many projects resulted in artwork that was rushed in quality and the layout of Aparo's design for each page -- when he was at the top of his game, few comic artists could come up with spectacular splash pages or layouts in the manner of Aparo).

DC SHOULD have enlarged the Aparo art section of those six covers, reprinting the entire cover on a separate page (or reprint all six covers in smaller versions on one or two pages). To see what I'm griping about, go to the following URL. You can check out each cover by changing the number, from 112 all the way to 117.
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They also should have produced, even in a smaller version, as mentioned above, the covers for issues in which Aparo did all of the interior artwork, but someone else did the cover, like issue 110 (featuring a team-up with "Wildcat"), so that it isn't confusing to the casual reader when two issues (sans cover) are presented back to back, as they are in this first volume of Aparo artwork devoted to "Batman"-oriented comics. Several pages in the beginning -- one inbetween a couple of issues -- are wasted with a bad attempt at an "artsy" layout (one page is completely black, except for part of a piece of Aparo artwork peeking through at the top of the page!).

On the plus side, there's the Aparo artwork: in COLOR! To borrow from another comic book creator, excelsior!

This volume stops with issue #122 (the Batman & "Swamp Thing" team-up). There are plenty more great "Brave & Bold" comics featuring Aparo, artwork, including a few issues here and there near the end of the run, including 178, with "The Creeper" -- a costar that often brought out the best in Aparo (heck, just for good old-fashioned strangeness, and because vampires are popular, DC should make sure to include issu 195, with "I Vampire" as a costar). The second volume alone could include issues between 123 and 144 or 146 which include Aparo's artwork (he missed a couple of issues), and DC could still do one more focusing solely on the "B&B" title. So let's hope that DC does at least two more volumes featuring Aparo's "Brave and Bold" artwork (correcting bad design and layout decisions) and BEFORE they move onto his equally stellar work on Detective comics (oft-times, jus the COVERS for that title were spectactular). In fact, Aparo did a cover for one of those giant Batman specials DC used to publish back in the '70s that is nothing short of spectuacular (it features Batman on a rooftop, surrounded by "spotlight" pictures of the joker, catwoman, etc.) -- I have a copy -- here's hoping they use that in one of the Aparo volumes.

And one hopes that DC might even spare a few pages for some words about Aparo and his artwork by one of his fellow artists (absolutely nothing was included this time out).

Finally, DC picked two fantastic covers for the dustjacket of this first volume of Batman-related, Jim Aparo artwork: for the front, they used issue 107 (Batmand and Wonder Woman); for the back, they used what I consider to be the BEST "B&B" cover Aparo ever did, for issue 119 (Batman & Manbat). It's a knockout, and if they couldn't use it as the cover, glad they used it on the back, blowing it up even larger than the original comic.

In any case, that the brilliant artwork of Jim Aparo has FINALLY been collected by DC Comics is cause for celebration. Anyone wanting a collection of one the finest comic book artists to put pencil and pen to paper need only buy a copy of this book.

10 of 13 people found the following review helpful

3.0 out of 5 stars They could have done a better job......... September 11, 2012

By Brian48

Format:Hardcover

I love the late, great Jim Aparo. If not for Neal Adams, his interpretation would have been represented as the Batman of the Bronze Age. I like this collected volume and would recommend it to any Batman fan, but I wish they could have done a better job in some areas. I have two minor gripes and one major one.

First, the minor ones: This was a straight, no-frills reprint of the Brave and the Bold run and "feels" like a quick cash-in on Batman's current popularity by DC. Being a straight reprint of only the BB run is not necessarily bad, it's just that the title of the book was not very clear about this. I was looking forward to some of the stories from his run in Detective Comics as well. Obviously, they are saving this for Vol 2 if this book is successful.

On that note, since this was a straight reprint, it would have been nice to have seen all the covers for these books whether they were drawn by Aparo or not. As it stands, some chapters have covers reprinted and some don't. I understand having covers drawn by Neal Adams or Nick Cardy may have taken a little bit of the spotlight from Aparo's work, but it would have been nice to have them included in some way for completeness, even if it's just a small section in the back.

Second, and by far, the biggest issue I have with this book is that there is no foreword or write-up of any kind. This is one of things I look forward to when I buy these collected editions. I think Aparo deserved a little more respect than that. Someone over at DC should have step up to the plate to write a few words about what made the run significant and/or Aparo's contributions to the evolution of the Batman character. Moreover, with exception of a short paragraph on the inside back of the dust cover, there is absolutely no credit or mention of Bob Haney anywhere. Love or hate this run of the BB, he was as much credit to it as Jim Aparo.