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13th out of 231 books
—
291 voters
Batman: Knightfall, Vol. 1: Broken Bat (Batman: Knightfall #1)
by
Doug Moench,
Chuck Dixon, Jim Aparo , Norm Breyfogle , Graham Nolan , Jim Balent , DC Comics
This riveting book sets Batman on a path that will change his life forever. A mass escape from Arkham Asylum and the emergence of Batman's most threatening foe, Bane, sends Gotham City spinning into chaos and takes Batman to the limits of human endurance! These volume is required reading for every Batman fan. Graphic novel format.
Every Man Has a Breaking Point...
EVEN THE B
Paperback, 268 pages
Published
September 3rd 1993
by DC Comics
(first published July 1993)
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..and I thought I was excited for The Dark Knight Rises before.
I seriously had no idea that Bane could be this awesome. When he was announced as the villain in the new Batman film, I was really hesitant to get my hopes up. I mean, Bane?! That loser from Batman & Robin (note to self: never base anything on that garbage movie)?? All he did was grunt, scream and smash stuff. Other than brute force - he didn't seem like that much of a threat.
So when I was given this graphic novel for Christmas,...more
I seriously had no idea that Bane could be this awesome. When he was announced as the villain in the new Batman film, I was really hesitant to get my hopes up. I mean, Bane?! That loser from Batman & Robin (note to self: never base anything on that garbage movie)?? All he did was grunt, scream and smash stuff. Other than brute force - he didn't seem like that much of a threat.
So when I was given this graphic novel for Christmas,...more
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What is wrong with me?! Why do I not get the whole comic book thing? I'm trying!
Sigh. Okay, so I liked the artwork in this better than Batman: R.I.P., though Joker looks a lot more...joker-like than SCARY AS ALL HELL. I get why people like Bane as a Bad Guy. And I can see why this would be good to read as each comic book came out (who will Batman face this time? How will it turn out? Will he ever catch a break? When will he finally face Bane? Oh, the anticipation!). But! If you're reading it in...more
Sigh. Okay, so I liked the artwork in this better than Batman: R.I.P., though Joker looks a lot more...joker-like than SCARY AS ALL HELL. I get why people like Bane as a Bad Guy. And I can see why this would be good to read as each comic book came out (who will Batman face this time? How will it turn out? Will he ever catch a break? When will he finally face Bane? Oh, the anticipation!). But! If you're reading it in...more
This grapic noval batman knightfall: part 1 is in my top 10 of all time, Jim Aparo makes the story line unbelievable incredible, the art work could be done with a little more detali and some more moden colors, but it was writen in the 1990s so can't complain, on a positve it is easy to follow and the lay out is clear. The one main fact I love about this book is it isnt to long nor to short, however there or two more installments to the series but i havent got the chance to have a read of them ye...more
I love it when I read a Batman book that's both well written and brilliantly drawn. Knightfall is one of those. Hurrah! It's taken me a while to find one in the last couple of years.
I loved The Dark Knight Returns and the Hush/Dark Victory/Long Halloween books. My favourite Batbooks are when Bats has to be the detective, when he's really up against it and dig deep to fight the villains.
Knightfall has a great set up where Batman is due to come up against his toughest physical opponent – Bane, an...more
I loved The Dark Knight Returns and the Hush/Dark Victory/Long Halloween books. My favourite Batbooks are when Bats has to be the detective, when he's really up against it and dig deep to fight the villains.
Knightfall has a great set up where Batman is due to come up against his toughest physical opponent – Bane, an...more
Jul 24, 2012
Zach
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
People who love Batman, people who hate Batman enough to want to see him beat to a pulp
Been reading this not in the trade format, but in single issues via Comixology (which is simultaneously the best thing to happen to my comics reading habits and the worst thing to happen to my credit card bill in quite some time). I remember reading a few issues back when I was 10 or 11 and being a little weirded out by the violence...reading it now, I'm more surprised by how tame it is compared to contemporary superhero comics. Also a bit jarring is Jim Aparo's art for the "Batman" issues, whic...more
Classic DC arc from the 90's, where superheroes are shown to be fallible. It's not fun to watch Batman like this, run-down and ill and throwing batarangs all wrong. But it does make for a great story, of course. This first volume is 'broken bat' and yeah, he pretty much gets broken. It doesn't really compute - because he's BATMAN - which is why it works so well. You kind-of can't believe what you're reading.
Typical of the character, Bruce Wayne keeps going when he should be resting. Something a...more
Typical of the character, Bruce Wayne keeps going when he should be resting. Something a...more
It's really a shame the prelude that provides the backstory for Batman's condition at the beginning of this story arc wasn't in any way included in this trade paperback. This begins with Bruce Wayne as a bit of a mess, and since it can be pretty difficult to track these things down in order (especially relying on the spotty selection at the library), I had to jump in with only some information online to know what was going on. There's some random characters in here that I had no clue who they we...more
I like the idea of having a copy of the graphic novels the recent Nolan movies are based off (Year 1 for Batman Begins, The Killing Joke for The Dark Knight), so, Knightfall seemed like a good investment to make. I only got Volume 1 because I'm frankly not interested in the subsequent Azrael storyline, though I might end up picking up Volume 2, since Broken Bat ends rather abruptly. Spoiler: the bat gets broken.
Aside from being a little dated (the robot that appears on the first fucking page jus...more
Aside from being a little dated (the robot that appears on the first fucking page jus...more
In the 90's DC decided it would be a good idea to have their two main superheroes defeated in two different ongoing story arcs. Superman was killed by the completely new and totally lacking in depth of character Doomsday. Batman got his back broken by the just introduced character of Bane. Bane is a criminal who breaks out of prison with the sole intention of defeating Batman. Which in this case is not killing him, but merely breaking his back (superheroes never die).
Bane, like Doomsday, has no...more
Bane, like Doomsday, has no...more
Batman: Knightfall vol. 1: Broken Batman by Doug Moench.
This Batman story is not everyone, actually it brings everything you love and hate by the Caped Crusader in to one volume for a two volume story.
First of all, you need to read to the lead up comics to understand it which I admit that I didn't do because most of the Batman stories I read is that you don't need to read surrounding stories to get it. However its a good read, a bit trashy and less thought provoking than other Batman stories (...more
This Batman story is not everyone, actually it brings everything you love and hate by the Caped Crusader in to one volume for a two volume story.
First of all, you need to read to the lead up comics to understand it which I admit that I didn't do because most of the Batman stories I read is that you don't need to read surrounding stories to get it. However its a good read, a bit trashy and less thought provoking than other Batman stories (...more
I missed Knightfall the first time around, because the series began right after I left for college and temporarily gave up my comics habit that was born from and raised on Batman. Nowadays a craving for superhero books boils up in me about twice a year, and the last one hit its peak just as I rewatched The Dark Knight Rises, giving me the irresistible urge to examine its primary source material. Turns out it's the first comic collection in years that made me embarrassed to be reading it. The lig...more
I really did like this one.
Some drawbacks: Some of the characters and situations this one starts off with are kind of confusing if you don't know the back story on them. I really didn't understand some of what was going on until I looked up the prelude stuff on Wikipedia's Knightfall page. But it IS a comic book series, so that's probably to be somewhat expected. Also, some of the dialogue is a little too cheesy, to the point that I occasionally couldn't suspend my disbelief or felt that a line...more
Some drawbacks: Some of the characters and situations this one starts off with are kind of confusing if you don't know the back story on them. I really didn't understand some of what was going on until I looked up the prelude stuff on Wikipedia's Knightfall page. But it IS a comic book series, so that's probably to be somewhat expected. Also, some of the dialogue is a little too cheesy, to the point that I occasionally couldn't suspend my disbelief or felt that a line...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Excellent art, the story becomes repetitive at times. But overall really good.
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
click here.
Originally spanning from several of Batman's ongoing titles, Knightfall features the writing talents of Doug Moench, Alan Grant, and the fantastic Chuck Dixon. Their script focuses on the character of Bane who is obsessed with breaking Batman both physically and psychologically. Raised from birth as a prisoner in a Latin American prison, he survives sadistic torture and gruesome experimentation to eventually escape. His survival was based in part on his obsession with the mythical Batman rumored...more
Bane’s a calculated villain, which is sort of like the weirdest form of insanity in Gotham. Patience isn’t so much a virtue as it is a weapon in a city that’s sort of run by supervillains that can’t sit still. So, to have one that waits for the perfect moment to strike is unnerving in its own fractured sense of focus.
Anyway, Batman is tired as hell and is run down after Bane breaks loose every unstable criminal and Batman and Robin (Tim Drake in this round) have to round them up like feverish co...more
Anyway, Batman is tired as hell and is run down after Bane breaks loose every unstable criminal and Batman and Robin (Tim Drake in this round) have to round them up like feverish co...more
I finally got a chance to read who Bane breaks the Bat and I have to say for when it was made its pretty good. Batman has to run an amazingly tough gauntlet as Bane terrorizes Gotham. He is pushed beyond his limits and isn’t relying on any kind of support system. Here you see how crazy Bruce Wayne actually is but its clearly a different kind of crazy than Bane, Joker, or Mr. Zsasz. There were some dated parts, like Bane’s goofy henchmen, the G.C.P.D.’s ineffectiveness, and the TV spots but this...more
As a teen I read O'Neill's novelization of the Knightfall storyline at a local library and was amazed by the epic scope and tragedy. But after finally geting through the first trade of this fairly seminal ’90s story arc, Batman seems like a self-pitying whiner and Bane is simply a jock juicing it a little too hard. The whole thing reads like geeks across the country licking their wounds after gym class; it's kind of Frank Miller Lite or grimdark with some bright candy coating. If you want darkne...more
While breathtaking in scope, the entire saga of KNIGHTFALL feels like one elongated retread of a work done far superior elsewhere. Many of the events occuring throughout the year-long tale are irrelevant to the overall impact of the story. While it was interesting to see another person wear the mantle of the Bat for a time, the urbanized Batman grew cliched rather quickly in his vicious responses to Bat's Rogues Gallery of criminals. That and the noticeable absense of Nightwing from the majority...more
Read this without remembering that the latest Dark Knight movie is based off this...but this was a total throwback (it was right around this release date that I dropped out of reading comics in high school) and pretty OK for what it is.
Not a lot of back story (why is Batman so run down right off the bat?) and some pretty old-school/poor artwork (though I always love Norm Breyfogle's Batman). I never really liked the idea of Bane - a badly-costumed, hyper-violent bad guy who came out of nowhere (...more
Not a lot of back story (why is Batman so run down right off the bat?) and some pretty old-school/poor artwork (though I always love Norm Breyfogle's Batman). I never really liked the idea of Bane - a badly-costumed, hyper-violent bad guy who came out of nowhere (...more
This was a great story and to be honest I did pick it up because of interest in The Dark Knight Rises to see how the story develops in it's original format. Firstly the 2 things I didn't like - Robin - what is the point of that guy, he's like a fretting housewife, I much prefer stories where he is absent! and secondly, I think they should re-release the Broken Bat trilogy with updated art work. I think the comics were published in the early 90's and it shows and so it has a very cartoony feel to...more
i'm not sure what i was expecting on this book. I guess i wanted to be wowed! blown away! I have to say that maybe the low rating i gave the book wasn't because of the work itself, but because i was excepting something totally different to come from it.
there is one panel in the comic that i absolutely love, where batman is standing beside mad hatter, and hatter is yelling at him. It is quite badly drawn, but in that way that makes it awesome! the color choice on the panel, like the purple backgr...more
there is one panel in the comic that i absolutely love, where batman is standing beside mad hatter, and hatter is yelling at him. It is quite badly drawn, but in that way that makes it awesome! the color choice on the panel, like the purple backgr...more
I finished the first of three volumes of the Knightfall Saga. Overall, it was well done and ambitious, but I felt like it was lacking that special quality. The concept is solid, but I don't necessarily believe in the origin of Bane or why the hell he has out for Batman or wants to control Gotham City. It was hard to suspend disbelief a bit for me. Also, I found the multiple shots of Batman pushed to his limit became somewhat laughable and ridiculous at some point. The reader is just hit over the...more
Classic. Arkham Asylum's entire criminal population is set free by the drug-enhanced giant Bane (one of the villains in the upcoming movie). His purpose? To utterly wear down and fatigue Batman so that Bane can destroy him and cast Gotham City into chaos. Bats, already ill from a previous storyline, has to take on pretty much his entire rogue's gallery over three days while Bane watches from the sidelines. Then Bane breaks Batman's back over his knee. Literally. A rapid-fire tale of psychologica...more
You can find the full review over at The Founding Fields:
http://thefoundingfields.com/2013/05/...
My original intent was to read the first volume of the entire Knightfall arc, but then I found out that the arc was divided into two separate volumes, Broken Bat and Who Rules The Night. And the two arcs covered, respectively, 12 and 8 issues across the Detective Comics and Batman titles. Suffice to say, that was extremely hefty reading, even for me, and I ended up reading only Broken Bat, which cove...more
http://thefoundingfields.com/2013/05/...
My original intent was to read the first volume of the entire Knightfall arc, but then I found out that the arc was divided into two separate volumes, Broken Bat and Who Rules The Night. And the two arcs covered, respectively, 12 and 8 issues across the Detective Comics and Batman titles. Suffice to say, that was extremely hefty reading, even for me, and I ended up reading only Broken Bat, which cove...more
The masked villain Bane arrives in Gotham with a plan to destroy Batman - release all of Batman's prisoners from Arkham Asylum and once he's gone through them all, he'll be at his weakest and then... then he will break him!
The first part of the Knightfall trilogy is overlong and a bit dull to be honest. It's a good storyline, Bane setting loose a ton of villains into Gotham and then sitting back, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but all it means is that Batman has to go through each and...more
The first part of the Knightfall trilogy is overlong and a bit dull to be honest. It's a good storyline, Bane setting loose a ton of villains into Gotham and then sitting back, waiting for the perfect moment to strike, but all it means is that Batman has to go through each and...more
3 likes · like · see review
Not as good as I remember it from my childhood, but still pretty good.
The main gripe I have is that I remembered more Azrael in the background, and that apparently happened before this story arc? Also, Bane wasn't introduced here, there was some kind of side-story with the Riddler, Killer Croc and Bane before the action of this collection, so there are some blanks which this book doesn't cover. The complaint I'm making is that this is not the "comprehensive" Azrael/Batman/Bane story arc I though...more
The main gripe I have is that I remembered more Azrael in the background, and that apparently happened before this story arc? Also, Bane wasn't introduced here, there was some kind of side-story with the Riddler, Killer Croc and Bane before the action of this collection, so there are some blanks which this book doesn't cover. The complaint I'm making is that this is not the "comprehensive" Azrael/Batman/Bane story arc I though...more
A pivotal Batman book that was a big influence on this Summer's blockbuster The Dark Knight Rises.
I read Batman: Knightfall with hopes to catch up with origins I had always known about but had never read myself, like Azrael and Bane.
The results: mixed. You can't deny the importance of the story but the collection could be a lot better. It seems like the story starts off in the middle. You do get Bane's origin story but Jean Paul Valley is already in Gotham and known to Batman. The story progress...more
I read Batman: Knightfall with hopes to catch up with origins I had always known about but had never read myself, like Azrael and Bane.
The results: mixed. You can't deny the importance of the story but the collection could be a lot better. It seems like the story starts off in the middle. You do get Bane's origin story but Jean Paul Valley is already in Gotham and known to Batman. The story progress...more
Knightfall shows Batman at a very peculiar stage, pushing himself to take down all of Gotham's criminals after a massive Arkham breakout, orchestrated by the criminal mastermind Bane. Tension builds as Batman crumbles more and more with each apprehension, climaxing in one of the most shocking showdowns in comic book history.
This was quite a page turner, storywise. I thought the way Bane was prtrayed, as this cool and calculating genius, but also as this unstoppable Michael Myers-esque killer was...more
This was quite a page turner, storywise. I thought the way Bane was prtrayed, as this cool and calculating genius, but also as this unstoppable Michael Myers-esque killer was...more
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Doug Moench, is an American comic book writer notable for his Batman work and as the creator of Black Mask, Moon Knight and Deathlok. Moench has worked for DC Comics, Marvel Comics, Dark Horse Comics and many other smaller companies; he has written hundreds of issues of many different comics, and created dozens of characters, such as Moon Knight. In 1973, Moench became the de facto lead writer for...more
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