Enjoy fast, FREE delivery, exclusive deals and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Instant streaming of thousands of movies and TV episodes with Prime Video
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Other Sellers on Amazon
& FREE Shipping
90% positive over last 12 months
+ $3.99 shipping
99% positive over last 12 months
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Batman 1: Failsafe Hardcover – April 4, 2023
| Price | New from | Used from |
- Kindle
$14.74 Read with our Free App - Hardcover
$16.9922 Used from $12.97 42 New from $13.00 - Paperback
$16.991 New from $16.99
Purchase options and add-ons
Superstar writer Chip Zdarsky joins legendary artist Jorge Jimenez to define a new era in Batman! Bruce Wayne is at a turning point, haunted by dreams of a dark future, while Gotham City billionaires are being gruesomely murdered. With the discovery of an archenemy's involvement and a tragedy unfolding, the Dark Knight's nightmares are just beginning. And when Batman is framed for murder, a deadly protocol activates... and Failsafe begins!
This volume collects Batman #125-130.
- Print length176 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherDc Comics
- Publication dateApril 4, 2023
- Dimensions6.9 x 0.68 x 10.46 inches
- ISBN-101779519931
- ISBN-13978-1779519931
Frequently bought together

Similar items that may ship from close to you
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
Product details
- Publisher : Dc Comics (April 4, 2023)
- Language : English
- Hardcover : 176 pages
- ISBN-10 : 1779519931
- ISBN-13 : 978-1779519931
- Item Weight : 1.22 pounds
- Dimensions : 6.9 x 0.68 x 10.46 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #26,678 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #14 in Mystery Graphic Novels
- #41 in DC Comics & Graphic Novels
- #138 in Superhero Comics & Graphic Novels
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product, click here.
About the author

Straight up? I've never been scared of spiders. You come at me with a rubber spider and I'll just be, like, "so what."
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on Amazon-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
It makes sense that Batman would have a plan for if he ever needed to be stopped. Loved the references to Tower of Babel and RIP. Of course Batman would be able figure out how to survive a fall to Earth from the moon. Can't wait for the next volume.
Entertaining overall, story does not end in this novel. You will need to make additional purchases,
I’ve been off the main Batman book for awhile now probably since Tom King Batman #50 with Bats and Catwoman wedding not happening. James Tynion IV took over afterword and I’m a huge fan of his, but I thought his work was bad as if he reduced his writing to his old teacher Scott Snyder in making far too much exposition and Joker way too over powered. But with Chip Zdarsky coming on, this is an exciting thing to see hoping the writer would ground Batman again much like Chip has done for Daredevil over at Marvel. And to my surprise, he does and does not. Zdarsky makes for a roller coaster opening volume that has Batman fighting for his life as he fights a god-like robot in the streets of Gotham, outside of Gotham, to even outer space! Yes, Zdarsky shoots for the stars (literally) right out the gate in terms of scope, lore, big moments, and character writing.
Failsafe is a cold-calculated perfect machine that beats Batman at every turn, as Zdarsky ups the ante with various character moments that include SPOILER---------------the whole Bat-family, the Justice League, and Zur-En-Arrh------ that make for one hell of a long action scene. Zdarsky also puts in a lot of inner monologues of Batman and the various characters who I think are spot on. Far too often most comic writers now and days get this wrong. I’m happy to see Zdarsky has great character portrays here. One of those being Tim Drake. Drake follows along with Batman the whole story being his centerpiece and also feels like a stand-in for the reader as Tim reacts just like everyone else who will read this. Questioning what is going on and to process everything. Zdarsky does so quite compelling moments in-between Tim and Bruce while all this madness is happening that is well done that I haven’t seen in a long time.
I don’t want to give spoilers away, but those spoilers also have a massive hand in this for new readers and I should point them out. Lore plays a heavy hand here as I pointed out in my opening synopsis Zdarsky plays on work from 2016 like Tom King, James Tynion IV, and Joshua Williamson’s Batman work. Failsafe, a product of Bruce’s hubris, is based on Mark Waid’s famous JLA: TOWER OF BABEL story, a 20+ year old story. Add in one of the greatest, but also convoluted Grant Morrison Batman run. As a Batman fan, I do love the callback, but new fans will be lost.
The book also includes 3-part backup stories including a Catwoman: Two Birds, One Stone. Taking place after issue #125 with Selina looking into Penguin’s heirs(!). It’s decent story and leaves the impression the new characters might come down the pipeline while also answering a characters death. The other 3-parter is the Zur-En-Arrh: Year One story. Since Zdarsky brings in such a odd character lore exclusive to Grant Morrison’s Batman, Chip had to include his own redone story and origin of the mysterious third identity.
All issues are drawn by the incomparable Jorge Jimenez. It’s utterly kinetic and big and bold in his work and it doesn’t disappoint. Even a bad comic can be salvageable with Jimenez artwork and it never disappoints. Belen Ortega does the Catwoman 3-part backup stories as she looks into Penguins heirs. Leonardo Romero does the Zur-En-Arrh: Year One backup stories is exceptionally a great throwback artwork reminiscent of the great, late Darwyn Cooke.
While I did enjoy what is here with Zdarsky’s ideas and Jimenez artwork, I do have my problems. Zdarsky writes this book like a hardcore Batman fanboy that goes into fandom groups and when questioned how Batman would win, he never admit the character losing. It feels like the Bat-God answer to make Batman beat everyone because prep time and “he’s Batman.” Failsafe is the robot counterpart. The robot has no flaws, beats every and all who stand against it with no resistance, and is just a walking dues ex. The ways it plays into readers is just as dumb with too many conveniences like the Justice League plopping into a particular block of Gotham just to have every protocal inplace to take out the League. Utter nonsense. There’s even a scene where Hawkgirls wings get magnified to a building to which Martian Manhunter questions how that could be possible because Hawkgirl has Nth metal, making it impossible. And guess what? Never explained. The amount Failsafe attacks batman, the whole Bat-family is there within a few panels all in gear. How the blue hell did they get there so fast? Don’t think about it. And the crème de la crème of WTF: Batman falls from space, in his regular Batsuit, and manages to survive impact on Earth with little injury enough to walk it off. Seriously. Zdarsky even tries to use real world calculations to explain this mega Mcguffin plot point (which is decent I admit). But it’s so bad, there are numerous outlets online from mathematicians and physic majors proving it wrong. If this book was a Silver Age setting and vibe, I would buy into this. I would. That’s the craziness of the time period where Batman did go to space in the 1950s. But the setting here doesn’t call for this level of BS. To me, Silver Age tropes is great if it stays within the setting. Something like Mark Waid and Dan Mora’s current BATMAN/SUPERMAN: WORLDS FINEST feels like a Silver Age book with modern sensibilities. But far too many writers now use modern settings and when stuck in a corner, THEN they use Silver Age techniques to get out of the corner and that just bothers the hell out of me.
There are numerous flashes of brilliance in Zdarsky’s writing from character moments to in-character voices, yet hampered by foolish tropes past Bat-writers have done for the past two decades. Like Failsafe taking over Gotham after beating everyone. Seriously, every writer has done this now. Batman gets beat up, goes away to recover for a week or two, finds out main villain has taken city. Many Elseworld stories have come up with the idea of Batman over staffing like tyrannical city of Bat-drones patrolling Gotham and keeping it safe. If Failsafe has control of the city and drones, why would it just let crime run rampant just to get Batman? That is stupid. Where did Failsafe have time, intelligence to build drones? If it’s built to be Batman incase Batman goes rogue, why does it act like a cold evil machine? Wouldn’t it be like Batman in fighting crime and trying to do things better, abit more extreme? But Zdarsky has too many “don’t think about it, just except it” moments that I have so many problems with. Suspense of disbelief can only go so far in scenarios like this, and Zdarsky have gone waaaay too far here in my opinion to such a point where I can see people reader this and just wide-eyed on what is even going.
And as I mentioned the lore is a massive part of this book for new readers. I can see so many new readers shaking their heads as to how and when Batman got a third personality. Do they have to reader Grant Morrison’s Batman? Or Mark Waid’s JLA Tower of Babel story? Err no, but yes. Getting full context helps to explain so many borrowed plot elements here. That, and from what volume 2 sets up, it looks like it borrows from past writers before.
After reading it, BATMAN VOLUME 1: FAILSAFE by Chip Zdarsky is equal parts brilliant and horrible. So many extremes happened here. After I finished the book, I asked myself: “What the hell did I just read?!” It feels like it has so many borrowed story plots of past Batman lore to scream attention for readers. Yet I do not deny there many awesome moments, great character studies, and unreal level of artwork here is why so many people are raving about this book, yet there are so many bad off-the-rail aspects mixed together irked me beyond disbelief. The book feels like a Schrödinger’s cat; it feels like it works for and against itself. My rating is a 3 ½ star rating, but I’ll be nice and bump it up to 4 stars. I’m cautious of what Chip Zdarsky has for Batman in the future, if a bit optimistic.
Top reviews from other countries
A plot to frame Batman has unforseen consequences. The Failsafe is unleashed. This is Batman's own protocols to if he ever went bad, to put him down by any means necessary and anyone who stands with him. There are also backup stories staring Catwoman doing a bit of detective work while Batman is busy. Also, the origin of another Batman "Failsafe ".
The ending of the book let it down for me, but I artwork and action up to that point was great. I am hoping this is a building point to Batman getting back on track. There is a lot of potential here. The book finishes with an awesome variant cover gallery.
Reviewed in Canada on April 5, 2023







