Hello my sensational readers, I hope you all had an amazing weekend, and an amazing Free Comic Book Day. Today I thought to myself, man, I really want to read a Batman book that I have never read before. So, I went to my ever-growing collection of bookshelves, scrolled down to the Batman section, and realized something. I have a gigantic backlog of Batman books I have not read yet. I won’t give the full list of what still needs to be read, but I will say that Batman Hush is sadly on that list (I know I suck). I then thought it would be fun to read the Batman books I haven’t read yet in chronological order of when they would happen in DC continuity. That meant that the first book to read was Batman the Knight, written by Chip Zdarsky and art by Carmine Di Giandomenico. First things first, this book was a lot of fun, and if you are reading Zdarsky’s current Batman run, this is a phenomenal supplemental story to read as well. Zdarsky nails the voice of a young Bruce Wayne, who is still a young man figuring out his path and his mission to become Batman. There are so many great monologues and inner thoughts being used throughout the entire story that it felt like I was reading Batman’s actual thoughts. Regarding the story, this is a retelling and streamlined version of all the training Bruce Wayne received before becoming Batman. We see familiar faces in Batman lore such as Henri Ducard, the magician Zatara, and Ra’s al Ghul. But we also see new editions to the Batman mythos such as Ghost Maker, who serves as Bruce’s first crime-fighting partner. While I do not care for Ghost Maker all that much in present-day continuity, I must say I really enjoyed having him as a foil to Bruce in this story, and I thought that their dynamic was fun. While we’re talking about Ghost Maker, I feel like I should address the already-forgotten elephant in the room. While this book was coming out people on the internet got mad because there was a scene where Bruce seduced Ghost Maker to steal something from him to impress their mutual teacher. The scene was very clever, and perfectly showed what Bruce has learned in the art of seduction. However, it still upset people on the internet, who most likely did not read this book, and had people clamoring that DC and Chip Zdarsky made Batman gay, even though all Batman did was flirt with someone to steal from them. The whole controversy was stupid, and it probably put people off from reading a fantastic book, but I feel obligated to bring it up in hopes this review could help sway people from that idiotic frame of thought. Before we wrap things up, I would be remised to talk about the art in this book which is great. The way Carmine draws Bruce hiding and mastering the shadows throughout this book is magnificent. He perfectly draws Bruce growing up from being a sad orphan who does not know what he wants from life to the strong confident person who will eventually become Batman. Seeing Carmine draw that transformation was a sight to be seen that should be seen by all. So overall, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book, and I recommend it to fans of the current ongoing Batman run, or anyone looking for a pseudo-Batman origin story.
Thanks for reading and make sure to read a comic,
Andy