Among fans of mystery fiction, Mickey Spillane is well known and highly revered. Following in the footsteps of other authors such Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler, Spillane's work carried on the hard-boiled tradition. His creation Mike Hammer is one of the most iconic characters in the genre, and Spillane's work spawned many TV, movie and…
The Shadow is arguably one of the most influential and essential characters in pop culture. Despite his more obscure status today, from the 1930s through the 50s, the Shadow experience massive popularity appearing in everything from novels, Movie serials, comics and Radio. Originally conceived as a character to narrate Detective Story Magazine stories in radio adaptions, The…
The late Bronze Age was a time of stagnation for the Caped Crusader. However, one of the more innovative and influential developments of the era came in Batman and the Outsiders. Born out of the ashes of The Brave and the Bold, which had been cancelled, creators Mike Barr and Jim Aparo decided to have Batman leave…
Grant Morrison and Dave McKean's Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth has etched its place as essential reading in the lore. Batman's surreal nightmare journey into the heart of madness proved to be a hit both with fans and critics becoming the bestselling graphic novel of all time. The book has remained in print since…
Marv Wolfman was one of the most influential and essential creators working DC Comics in the 1980s. His work on The New Teen Titans became an instant fan favourite, and Crisis on Infinite Earths forever changed the company. It would only make sense that with all this success and acclaim, he would be put on Batman at some point,…
The 1990s was a significant era for the Caped Crusader. Massive crossover events, various bat-related titles and massive changes were all a part of a decade that saw the character continue to thrive in popularity. Taking over editorial duties in the late 80s, Denny O'Neil looked to continue defining the Dark Knight for a new…
The Knightfall saga finally concludes with the final chapter KnightsEnd. After completing falling off the rails with Knightquest: The Search, the crossover finds itself on firm footing with its conclusion. With tighter storytelling and pacing more resembling the earlier parts of the story arc, KnightsEnd ends up being a satisfying conclusion to the years long epic. The events find Bruce returning…
Knightquest: The Search is easily the low point of the Knightfall saga. Uninteresting and unnecessary, the story explains what Bruce and Alfred were doing during Jean-Paul Valley's time as the Dark Knight and shows how Wayne could recover from his injury. The black sheep of the crossover had remained uncollected for years and was forgotten about…
With this volume, we reach the end of The Crusade storyline, and with it, we get a return to a focused narrative. While overall, both Knightquest has felt meandering and aimless, things come together quite nicely, setting up the events for the final chapter of the Knightfall saga. Though many of the problems that had plagued the…
With Knightquest: The Crusade, the mega event turns away from a focused overarching narrative into loosely connected self-contained stories. On the one hand, this allows the writers more freedom to put their spin on the Jean-Paul Valley, and some of the tales work very well. However, there is also a sense of things dragging out. Gone…
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