Batman: Year One [Special Edition] [Englisch] [Taschenbuch]

If "The Dark Knight Returns" comes down to Batman versus Superman and the world's finest realizing they must be on opposite sides, then "Batman: Year One" from start to finish is about Batman and Jim Gordon coming to the realization that they need each other. Miller and Mazzucchelli develop stories that are not really parallel, but which are heading to the same end point. Gordon arrives in Gotham City for the first time by train while Bruce Wayne flies back home after twelve years abroad, each thinking they should have picked the other mode of transportation. Gordon is a cop and Wayne wants to be a vigilante, Gordon is married with a pregnant wife and Wayne's only real relationship is with Alfred, and Gordon is learning how things work in Gotham City while Wayne is simply waiting for the missing piece, the one thing he can use to make the criminals afraid of him.

Miller and Mazzucchelli tell the story in four acts. In this deluxe edition Chapter One, "Who I Am, How I Come to Be," is captioned: "He will become the greatest crime fighter the world has ever known...It won't be easy." The point is to get to the pivotal moment when Bruce Wayne declares "I shall become a bat," but leading up to it having Wayne experiencing familiar that put his mission in doubt. Meanwhile, Gordon shows that he will not submit to the corrupt or violence inherent in the system in Gotham City. His final line in the story is equally important when he thanks bad cop Flass by saying, "You've shown me what it takes to be a cop in Gotham City."

"Chapter Two: War is Declared," notes: "He had trained and planned and waited eighteen years. He thinks he's ready..." The implication is that he is not and there is a key scene when Batman appears in costume and stands there on a balcony holding on to a fifteen year old burglar while a couple of others whale on him because he refuses to be a killer. Batman and Gordon cross paths for the first time, and the lieutenant is told to bring in the vigilante or else. But before Gordon can do that, the commissioner decides to fire bomb the slum building that Batman is hiding in.

"Chapter Three: Black Down" is where the power shifts: "They've got him CORNERED. They've got him OUTNUMBERED. They've got him TRAPPED. They're in TROUBLE..." Significantly, Gordon has been ordered to stay out of it while the Gotham City P.D. tries to take Batman, who has clearly become a hero to the common people. But the character development of Gordon in this chapter is more important, because he comes to have reason to hate himself equally in his professional and personal life. By the end of this one Gordon has framed the equation: Batman is a criminal and he is a cop, but a cop in a city where the mayor and commissioner use cops as hired killers and the criminal saves an old woman, a cat, and pays for a suit he has technically stolen. However, what is key is that Bruce Wayne has already come to the conclusion that he needs an ally and an inside man. That is to say, he needs Jim Gordon on his side.

"Chapter Four: Friend in Need," declares "He's out to clean up a city that likes being dirty. He can't do it alone." The question is simply what will be the event that brings Batman and Jim Gordon together. Miller and Mazzucchelli come up with something that is at the nexus of several of the key subplots that have been developed in the story, and although Selina does don a Catwoman costume for the first time, that fact that there the story avoids villains in costume until a telling bit of foreshadowing in the final panel helps keep the emphasis on Batman being a new idea as far as the denizens of Gotham City are concerned. Still, this story comes down to not just how Bruce Wayne became Batman, but how Batman and Jim Gordon ended up on the same team.

In the back of the deluxe edition you will find Mazzucchelli's four-page comic book afterward, promotional and early drawings, marked-ed up copies of Miller's script paired with rough layouts, and looks at the final results. All told there is over 40-pages of such sketches and art in the back of the book. Denny O'Neil writes the introduction and Miller has a postscript of sorts at the end, so there are plenty of reasons to have this special hardcover edition even if you already have the original four issues of "Batman" salted away in your comic book collection and are actually willing to take them out of their plastic bags.

Miller's Gotham City is a corrupt and festering cesspool, much as he would later depict in his Sin City series. Two good men come to town to clean things up: Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon, a new detective on the Gotham police force fresh from his role in cleaning up another police department.

Wayne himself has returned to his hometown after a long absence, during which he trained himself to become a vigilante. Wayne's first foray into crimefighting nearly ends in disaster, but leads him ultimately to adopt the Batman motif to frighten criminals. Gordon becomes his unlikely ally as he strives to clean up Gotham's police department.

The writing remains more mature and gritty than the typical comic book fare of the time. Batman is not the invincible denizen of the dark we've come to know and love, but an awkward guy in a goofy costume who seems always to be within an inch of death. Gordon is no paragon of virtue either; the main subplot deals with his affair with another cop while his wife waits to give birth to his son.

The result is a gripping, gritty, and ultimately redeeming tale which once again reinvents the familiar figure of the Batman.

All of that changed when Dennis O'Neil took over the writing chores and returned the character to the dark roots laid out by the late, great, Bob Kane and Bill Finger. Dennis O'Neil brought Batman comics into and through puberty. Frank Miller brought them into adulthood.

Along with the brilliant "Dark Knight Returns," "Year One" bookends the saga of Bruce Wayne by re-interpreting and sometimes redefining the character's roots. In so doing, Frank Miller laid the foundation for the character that today populates the monthly titles. Although not as grim as "Dark Knight," "Year One" nonetheless hits closer to home and is, in my opinion, the best introduction to the character for anyone unfamiliar with it outside of film and TV.

The parallel struggles of Bruce Wayne and Jim Gordon to "clean up a city that likes being dirty" are brilliantly rendered by Miller, possibly the finest comics writer EVER. Miller's Jim Gordon is a far cry from the incompetent beat cop shown in movies and TV. He is a passionate, crusading man, the sort of cop Bruce Wayne might have been in another reality.

Opinions have always been strong one way or the other about the art in "Year One." For my money, you couldn't ask for more. Mazzucchelli's pencils work wonders even beyond what he did in "Daredevil: Born Again," and the coloring is particularly striking in its subtlety, even more so when you consider the "beat you over the head" standards of late-'80s comics.

All in all, this is the definitive Batman origin story. That Miller, Mazzucchelli and Lewis also manage to turn it into one of the finest Batman stories ever told is evidenced by the lasting impact it had on all subsequent interpretations of the characters involved. An all-around winner.