Batman: Year One
Metadata
- Media: #Books #Books 2020 #Comics
- Author: Frank Miller
- Illustrator: David Mazzucchelli
- Status:
- Date: 2020-08-26
- Tags: #superhero #noir #batman
- Rating: ★★★☆☆
- Idea richness: ★★☆☆☆
Review
Disclaimer: This is my first Batman comic. I wouldn't classify myself as a Batman fan but generally familiar with the character and don't dislike him either. Picked this one up because of it's iconic status.
Overall, I can see how this was revolutionary: a gritty, 'realistic' (if you count Frank Miller's [[!Noir]] style of lots of surviving infinite bullet wounds and impossible karate as realistic) take on the [[!Superhero]] origin story with a flawed human, Gordon, to pair with the flawed 'super' human, in Batman. That said, reading it now it just seems fairly... standard. Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins film drew heavily from this take (in fact there are whole scenes which will feel very familiar if you've watched the film) and has become the modern vision of Batman. The bigger problem with this, though, is that overall Nolan's film did it all far better. Batman: Year One is worth a read, sure. The artwork is nice enough and it's interesting to see what cemented the darker take on Batman but if I had to pick, much rather take the same time to watch Batman Begins again.
Notes:
- Man, Batman has some fancy (and very difficult to read) handwriting.
- I liked the idea of putting more of an emphasis on Gordon but it got so cliche noir, right down to the blonde bombshell.
- Catwoman had some real promise but got very little attention.