Batman: Knightfall
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Batman: Knightfall is the title given to a major Batman story arc published by DC Comics that dominated Batman-related comic books in the spring and summer of 1993. It is also the umbrella title to the trilogy of storylines that ran from 1993 to 1994. They consisted of "Knightfall", "Knightquest", and "KnightsEnd". On the comic book covers, the title of the third part was written in CamelCase though the names of the first two parts were not.
| Issues: | Storyline: |
|---|---|
| Batman #492-500 | (parts 1,3,5,7,9,11,15,17,19) |
| Detective Comics #659-666 | (parts 2,4,6,8,10,12,16,18) |
| Showcase '93 #7-8 | (parts 13-14) |
| Shadow of the Bat #16-18 | (parts 16a-16c) |
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
[edit] Prelude
The prelude to Knightfall began with the introduction of two characters key to its storyline:
- Azrael, introduced in Batman: The Sword of Azrael (October 1992) by Denny O'Neil and Joe Quesada
- Bane, introduced in Batman: Vengeance of Bane (January 1993) by Chuck Dixon and Graham Nolan
The two characters were quickly added to the cast in the monthly Batman titles. Azrael became an apprentice-in-training. Bane began a series of encounters letting Batman know of his presence and his intentions. This culminates in an assault on Arkham Asylum where Bane broke the inmates free.
[edit] Knightfall
Bane frees all of the maximum-security inmates of Arkham Asylum, planning to weaken Batman by forcing him to deal with his deadliest villains at one time. Batman faces every villain in Gotham, from the small-time ones like the Mad Hatter to the Joker and Scarecrow, refusing assistance at every step of the way and becoming weaker and weaker in the process. Bane finally makes his move, presenting himself in Wayne Manor to an exhausted Batman (his Venom-enhanced logic deduced that Batman could be no one except for Bruce Wayne) Bane overcomes Batman easily and breaks his back so that Batman must live with the pain of losing. With Batman out of the way, Bane assumes control of Gotham City's underworld.
After his defeat, Bruce Wayne enlists the aid of Dr. Shondra Kinsolving to rehabilitate him and asks Jean-Paul Valley (Azrael) to take up the mantle of Batman so that Gotham has a protector. Tim Drake (Robin) argues with Bruce to allow Dick Grayson to become Batman because he is more experienced and mentally competent, but Bruce says that Dick is his own man now, with his own responsibilities and would only do so reluctantly (Dick later expressed resentment at not being asked to stand in as Batman). Secretly, however, he doesn't want Dick to have to face Bane. Bruce gives Jean-Paul strict orders never to engage Bane in combat.
Soon after, Kinsolving and Tim's father Jack Drake are kidnapped, and Bruce and Alfred leave the country to find them. Seeing himself as the true Batman while also following his "avenging angel" programming installed in him by the Order of St. Dumas, Jean-Paul creates a new Batman costume, confronts Bane in a vicious battle and defeats him. Jean-Paul leaves Bane broken mentally and physically, just as Bane had left Bruce Wayne. He continues to watch over Gotham, but grows increasingly unstable.
The massive story was quickly collected into two volumes of trade paperbacks. Volume one was subtitled The Broken Bat and the second was Who Rules the Night.
[edit] Knightquest
"Knightfall" was immediately followed by "Knightquest." "Knightquest" is divided into two storylines, one following Bruce Wayne and the other on the new Batman. The stories are not treated as crossovers and the Batman titles continued as they had before Knightfall where the creatives teams each pursued their own storylines. The overall saga however can indeed be read in a certain order to flow better as a complete story however. This reading order is as follows:
Justice League Task Force #5-6, Detective Comics #667-668, Robin #1, Detective Comics #669, Batman #501-502, Shadow Of The Bat #19-20, Detective Comics #670, Shadow Of The Bat #21-23, Catwoman #6, Batman #503-504, Catwoman #7, Shadow Of The Bat #24, Detective Comics #671-673, Batman #505, Shadow Of The Bat #25, Batman/Punisher: Lake Of Fire(not officially marked as a Knightquest issue, but features the Jean-Paul Valley Batman during this time period), Batman #506-507, Shadow Of The Bat #26-27, Detective Comics #674, Batman #508, Shadow Of The Bat #28, Detective Comics #675, Legends Of The Dark Knight #59-61, Robin #7
These issues are much sought after by completists as they were never collected into trade paperback format.
[edit] The Crusade
"Knightquest: The Crusade" follows the story of Jean-Paul Valley as he becomes increasingly violent and mentally unbalanced. He drives Robin away because he believes Gotham post-Bane to be so tough that only violence can answer it. He repeatedly redesigns his Batman costume, adding more gadgets and lethal weapons, including a laser, razor-sharp Batarangs and a flame-thrower. Eventually, he also adds a Bat-symbol, matching the one used for the series' logo. His questionable actions culminate when he encounters the serial killer Abattoir, who is keeping an innocent prisoner in a secret torture chamber. Jean-Paul purposely lets Abattoir die, thereby condemning the prisoner to death as well.
The "Knightquest: The Crusade" storyline appears in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #19, #20, #24-28; Batman #501-508; Detective Comics #667-675; Robin #1, #7; and Catwoman #6, #7. Notable villains Jean-Paul faces include Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Joker, and Clayface.
[edit] The Search
"Knightquest: The Search" follows Bruce Wayne's search for Jack Drake and Shondra Kinsolving, with whom Bruce Wayne falls in love in the midst of his rehabilitation sessions. Kinsolving's brother-by-adoption Benedict Asp kidnapped her to use her special powers to kill people at a distance. Asp demonstrates this new form of mass murder on an English village. When Bruce Wayne finds Kinsolving, he finds himself caught in the middle of a telekinetic tug-of-war between Asp and Kinsolving. The battle climaxes with her refocusing her energy to defeat Asp, with a side effect of the battle being that Bruce's broken spine becomes healed. However, the drugs forced onto her by Asp, not to mention the effects of the fight with Asp, reduce her mind to that of a child, and Wayne puts her into a mental institution.
Bruce eventually leaves England to return home to a civilian life in Gotham, but Alfred Pennyworth, his longtime butler, remains in England for a sabbatical. He would not return to Gotham until a while later, when Dick Grayson persuades him to do so.
The "Knightquest: The Search" storyline appears in: Justice League Task Force #5-6, Batman: Shadow of the Bat #21-23, ' and Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #59-61.
Detective Comics #670 and Catwoman#6 are misprinted to read "The Search" on the cover, but are actually part of "The Crusade".
[edit] KnightsEnd
Jean-Paul Valley sees visions of his dead father, who had programmed him at birth to be a deadly weapon. The visions tell Jean-Paul to avenge his father's death, and Jean-Paul searches Gotham for his father's killer. Though the killer, Carlton Lehah, had already been encountered and defeated in Sword of Azrael, Jean Paul's conditioning had warped his mind to the extent that he no longer remembers this. He eventually comes to believe that Selkirk, a Gotham mobster who has taken over the remnants of Lehah's organization, is his father's murderer.
When Robin tells Bruce of Abattoir's death, Bruce sneaks into the Batcave and demands that Jean-Paul step down. Jean-Paul refuses and threatens to kill Wayne if he ever returns.
In response, Bruce asks the deadly assassin Lady Shiva to retrain him. Since Bruce had once been the only person capable of surviving a fight with her, he figures that nobody could better prepare him to fight Jean-Paul. Shiva pits Bruce against several expert martial artists after killing their master in what would become Bruce's disguise, the Mask of Tengu (a bat spirit).
Shiva continues to send assassins after Wayne, with the caveat that these attacks will continue indefinitely until Wayne breaks his solemn vow to never take a life. Finally, in the midst of another attack, Wayne uses the deadly Leopard Blow Shiva had taught him, leaving his would-be assailant dead and Shiva finally declaring him worthy of fighting her (at some point in the future). Unbeknonwst to Bruce, Robin and Nightwing had tailed Wayne and had seen the whole thing. As Shiva departed and Wayne was left to hear Nightwing chastise him over how everything Batman had ever taught was a lie, the man struck by the Leopard Blow came back around, as Bruce had merely struck him hard enough that Shiva would believe for the time being that Wayne had killed the man. Bruce had figured out that Shiva put a radio transmitter in his mask, and decided that he was back to peak physical condition and did not need any more of Shiva's game.
Bruce now dons the original Batman costume and vows to take Gotham back. Along with Robin and Nightwing, he tracks Valley down to Selkirk's penthouse, as the other heroes had been watching Jean-Paul for a while and knew he sought his father's killer. Coincidentally, Catwoman is chasing the same man because he owns a neural enabler that might allow a paraplegic to walk again. Selkirk already wanted to kill Jean-Paul for destroying a valuable weapons cache in Gotham Harbor.
Bruce, Jean-Paul, and Selkirk fight; the battle ends in the mobster's helicopter as Jean-Paul's grapnel gun locks one of the rotors and Catwoman knocks away a gun intended to kill Bruce and Jean-Paul. The helicopter crashes into the Gotham Narrows Bridge; coupled with fuel from the chopper mixing with Jean-Paul's flame-thrower, he falls into the Gotham River. Bruce and Catwoman save Selkirk and his aides just before the helicopter explodes from the leaking gasoline. When Bruce tries to find Jean-Paul using the Batmobile, it explodes. He realizes that Jean-Paul would have booby-trapped the car and escapes just in time. This is followed by a fight between Jean-Paul and a vengeful Nightwing on a party boat. The police arrives in time to prevent Nightwing's murder. Jean-Paul escapes, but to his shock, finds Bruce waiting at Wayne Manor.
The final battle, however, takes place in the caverns surrounding the Batcave: rather than best Jean-Paul at hand-to-hand combat, Bruce escapes into a passage too narrow for Jean-Paul to go through in his armor, forcing him to remove most of it. Bruce then opens a hatch to the outside, which covered the very hole he fell into as a young kid, allowing sunlight to stab at the night lenses in Jean-Paul's helmet. After being momentarily blind, Jean-Paul sees Bruce staring down at him in the original Batman costume and concedes defeat, saying "You are Batman... and I am nothing." Bruce comforts Jean-Paul, who leaves Gotham to travel the world and find his purpose as had Bruce. Bruce decides not to take Jean-Paul to the police because it was his decision to make Jean-Paul the Batman. Also, Bruce does not want to risk the possibility that people start thinking that he is the real Batman.
KnightsEnd was collected into a trade paperback about a year later. Originally released as Batman: KnightsEnd, recent editions retitled it as volume three of the Knightfall saga.
A side note of interest is that in KnightsEnd, Jean Paul Valley references defeating Marvel Comics' Jigsaw in the Batman/Punisher crossover. This is a very rare mention of a character from another company in a non-intercompany capacity.
[edit] After KnightsEnd
Bruce reaffirms his partnership with Tim. He immediately passes the mantle of Batman to Nightwing so he can re-evaluate what it will take to restore his aura of invincibility. This begins the "Prodigal" storyline, a reference to Dick Grayson essentially being Bruce's prodigal son (Bruce adopted Dick after his parents were murdered).
When Bruce finally returns for good, he wears a sturdier (made of Kevlar), darker costume, and drives a new, state-of-the-art Batmobile.
Because of the events of KnightSaga and "Prodigal," considerable time passes before Commissioner Gordon restores his trust in the idea of a Batman working for good. Gordon can tell that he is not looking at the original Batman (based on Jean-Paul's costume and Dick's size), and he refuses to place blind trust in people.
The events of all of this lead into Batman: Contagion, Batman: Legacy, and Batman: Cataclysm, which itself leads into No Man's Land, which these stories having Batman and his allies dealing with an outbreak and the aftermath of an earthquake on Gotham, and also have Gordon making steps of trusting the Dark Knight again. .
[edit] Influence and impact
DC Comics published Knightfall about the same time as the "Death of Superman" storyline. The two storylines involved DC Comics' two most prominent characters in what were regarded by some as bold, daring stories and others as stunts designed to sell extra comics through sensationalism. Similar storylines followed for Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Aquaman, and Green Arrow.
Knightfall was, in terms of number of titles and issues it encompassed and the duration of the storyline, the most ambitious Batman crossover ever at the time it was published. Its success paved the way for other extremely large Batman crossovers, such as "No Man's Land", to be published.
[edit] Adaptations
Dennis O'Neil adapted the entire storyline trilogy into a 1994 novel which was released by Warner Books in hardcover form and then in mass paperback later on (Hardcover ISBN 0-553-09673-7, Paperback ISBN 0-553-57260-1). A young adults book version was also released, this one written by Alan Grant and titled Batman: Knightfall and Beyond (ISBN 0-553-48187-8).
The character Bane was quickly added to roster of villains in Batman: The Animated Series. He appeared in an episode as a muscular thug rather than the mastermind as he was in the comics. He was hired by the mobster Rupert Thorne to eliminate Batman, and in turn by Thorne's moll to eliminate Thorne afterwards. He ends up fighting Batman onboard the boat (where Robin had been kidnapped and tied up), but before he can break his back as he did in the comics, Batman thrusts a crumpled batarang into the controls that inject Bane with Venom. This causes a rapid and uncontrollable feed into Bane's body before Batman pulls out the tube, stopping a fatal overdose of the drug.
In 1994, there was also an radio-play adaptation transmitted on BBC Radio 1, later also released on audio-tape (ISBN 0-563-39520-6).
| Batman | |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Bob Kane and Bill Finger • Other writers and artists |
| Supporting Characters: | Robin (Tim Drake) • Nightwing (Dick Grayson) • Batgirl • Batwoman • Alfred Pennyworth • Lucius Fox • Barbara Gordon • Commissioner Gordon • Harvey Bullock |
| Villains: | Bane • Catwoman • Clayface • Harley Quinn • Joker • Killer Croc • Mr. Freeze • Penguin • Poison Ivy • Ra's al Ghul • Red Hood (Jason Todd) • Riddler • Scarecrow • Two-Face • Other villains |
| Locations: | Arkham Asylum • Batcave • Gotham City • Wayne Enterprises • Wayne Manor |
| Miscellanea: | Batarang • Batmobile • Batsuit • Popular media • Publications • Storylines • Alternate versions of Batman |
