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 serial comic books in the spring and summer of 1993. Knightfall 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, only the third part had its title written in CamelCase. The entire Knightfall storyline took over a year to complete in the comic book serials, and in later years, the comics were compressed into a series of trade paperbacks.
Contents |
[edit] Storyline
[edit] Prelude
The prelude to Knightfall began with the introduction of two new characters key to its storyline in issues prior to the release of Knightfall:
- Azrael, introduced in Batman: The Sword of Azrael (October 1992 to January 1993) 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, with Azrael being an apprentice-in-training who fought alongside Batman, while Bane was introduced as a villain. Bane began a series of encounters letting Batman know of his presence and his intentions. His attacks culminated in an assault on Arkham Asylum in Batman #491, where Bane broke the inmates free and supplied them with numerous weapons to escape. Other elements of the Knightfall storyline are established in Batman #489 (Feb 1993), Batman #490 (Mar 1993), and Detective Comics #658 (April 1993). Despite being included in the Knightfall trade paperbacks, Batman #491 is not marked as a part of Knightfall in the monthly comic book format.
[edit] Knightfall
The plot of Knightfall began with the master criminal Bane freeing all of the maximum-security inmates of Arkham Asylum, a notorious psychiatric facility in Gotham City. Bane's plan consisted of weakening Batman by forcing him to deal with the deadly villains one at one time. Among the freed inmates, there were numerous high profile villains, such as the Joker and Scarecrow, as well as many less known villains, such as the Mad Hatter. The storyline of Knightfall drove a large rift in the relationship between Robin and Batman, as Batman sought to face the outbreak alone. Indeed, in later issues, Tim Drake, the current Robin, questions Batman if he is even needed as his sidekick anymore.
Over the next few issues, Batman became weaker and weaker as each criminal was put away. The combination of the Joker and Scarecrow took Batman to his mental and physical limits. After this encounter Bane made his move and attacked Batman. By this time, Bane had deduced the identity of Batman - Bruce Wayne. At the end of his mental state, Bane attacked Batman when he most vulnerable, at Wayne Manor as Bruce Wayne. The fight between Bruce Wayne and Bane was detailed in Batman #497, and ended in Bane breaking Wayne's back over his knee. With Batman supposedly out of the way, Bane assumes control of Gotham City and begins to take over a number of illegal operations within it.
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 argues with Bruce to allow Dick Grayson (The former Robin) to become Batman as he was more experienced and mentally competent. However, 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). Bruce's rationale for this decision is revealled in later issues - Secretly, he doesn't want Dick to have to face Bane as he knows Dick's character will compel him to try. Bruce gives Jean-Paul strict orders never to engage Bane in combat; indeed, when Jean-Paul faces Bane, only his modified gloves save him from being thrown to his death.
Soon after, Kinsolving and Tim's father Jack Drake are kidnapped and Bruce with Alfred leave the country to find them - Their story is continued in Knightquest: The Search, whilst the happenings in Gotham are recorded in Knightquest: The Crusade. 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. Over the next few issues he is portrayed in, Jean-Paul alienates Robin and becomes paranoid and arrogant, the opposite of what Bruce had chosen him for. In Batman #500, Jean-Paul in his new mechanical Batsuit, confronted Bane in a vicious battle and eventually defeats him. Jean-Paul leaves Bane broken mentally and physically, although he had struggled with a choice of whether to simply kill Bane or hand him over to the police. Stating that he will let Bane go to Blackgate prison instead, Jean-Paul continued to watch over Gotham after the fight, but grew 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" in the monthly serials. "Knightquest" is divided into two storylines, one following Bruce Wayne (Knightquest: The Search) and the other on the new Batman (Knightquest: The Crusade). The stories were not treated as crossovers and the Batman titles continued as they had before Knightfall where the creative teams each pursued their own storylines. This however lead to some contradictions within the story between the different comic titles.
The issues that make up the Knightquest saga are highly sought after by comic completists as they were never collected into trade paperback format; "Knightsend" was released as a trade paperback directly after the two "Knightfall" collections.
[edit] The Crusade
Knightquest: The Crusade followed the story of Jean-Paul Valley as he became increasingly violent and mentally unbalanced as he replaced Bruce Wayne as Batman in Gotham. During this time he drove Robin away because he believed Gotham post-Bane to be so tough that only violence could answer it's criminals. Indeed, in numerous issues Robin is left horrified as Jean-Paul ferociously attacks common criminals, often with a weapon and often nearly to death. This surge of violence from Gotham's defender put pressure on Batman's relationship with Police Commissioner Gordon, who begins to distrust & even fear the new Batman. All of Jean-Paul's actions are compelled by "The System", a brutal training system that he partook in when he was younger. On numerous occasions, he sees the ghost of his anscestors giving him advice on how to run Gotham and he is driven to near insanity by the time the Knightfall saga's end. Bruce Wayne was unaware of Jean-Paul's involvment in The System. 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. Notable villains Jean-Paul faces include Mr. Freeze, Catwoman, Joker and Clayface.
[edit] The Search
Knightquest: The Search follows Bruce Wayne and Alfred'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 a small 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 reluctantly 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, returns to England, not wanting to see Bruce Wayne damage his already broken body further. He would not return to Gotham until a while later, when Dick Grayson persuades him to do so in later issues.
[edit] KnightsEnd
Jean-Paul Valley sees visions of his dead father, who had programmed him at birth to be a deadly weapon. These 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 remembered the incident. 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 Bruce 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 continued 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). Unbeknown 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 thus did not need any more of Shiva's game.
Bruce returned to Gotham City and donned the original Batman costume and vowed 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.
When they eventually all meet, 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. After the explosion, Nightwing fears Bruce dead and take his vengeance out on Jean-Paul on a party boat. The police arrive in time to prevent Nightwing's murder, but Jean-Paul escapes. However, to his shock, Jean-Paul finds Bruce waiting at Wayne Manor.
The final battle of the Knightfall saga takes place in the caverns surrounding the Batcave between Jean-Paul and Bruce Wayne: 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 child, allowing sunlight to stab at the night lenses in Jean-Paul's helmet. After being momentarily blinded, 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] Prodigal
Bruce reaffirms his partnership with Tim after tension invaded their relationship. 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 as Bruce adopted Dick after his parents were murdered.
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 height), and he refuses to place blind trust in people. The Prodigal storyline was utilized as a way of tying up the numerous loose ends that Knightfall left, with Killer Croc, Two Face and many other released inmates being returned to prison. During the story, a firm bond arises between Dick and Tim as they share Wayne Manor together in Alfred's absence.
[edit] Troika
When Bruce finally returns for good, he wears a sturdier (made of Kevlar), darker costume, and drives a new, state-of-the-art Batmobile.
[edit] Reading Order and Release Dates
Each story arc of the Knightfall saga ran across a number of Gotham City-related comics. This created a fairly complex reading order, which is summarized below.
| Knightfall | Knightquest | KnightsEnd | Aftermath | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| "Broken Bat" (Apr-Late July 1993) |
"The Crusade" (Oct 1993-June 1994) |
"The Search" (Oct 1993-June 1994) |
(July-Aug 1994) | (Aug 1994-Feb 1995) |
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| "Prodigal" (Nov 1994-Jan 1995) |
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| "Who Rules the Night" (Late July-Oct 1993) |
"Troika" (Feb 1995) |
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[edit] Influence
DC Comics published Knightfall around the same time as the "Death of Superman" storyline. Approximately, Knightfall started almost immediatly after "The Funeral For a Friend" storyline in the Superman books. It can be seen that During the break out at Arkham Asylam, Batman was wearing a black arm band with the S-shield engraved on it as well as Robin whilst cutting Jean-Paul Valley's hair. The two stories involved DC Comics' most prominent characters in what some regarded as bold, daring stories and others as stunts designed to sell extra comics through sensationalism. Similar stories 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 story ever at the time it was published. Its success paved the way for other year-or-longer crossovers, such as "No Man's Land."
[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). The novel does however leave out Nightwing who was present throughout the story in the comics. 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 the 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 mole to eliminate Thorne afterwards. Bane eventually faught Batman onboard a boat (where Robin had been kidnapped and tied up), but before he could break his back as he did in the comics, Batman thrusts a crumpled batarang into the controls that inject Bane with Venom. This action caused 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 a radio-play adaptation transmitted on BBC Radio 1, later also released on audio-tape (ISBN 0-563-39520-6). Its performers are Bob Sessions as Batman/Bruce Wayne ; Michael Gough as Alfred Pennyworth ; Peter Marinker as Bane ; Kerry Shale as Jean Paul Valley/Azrael/Azbat and The Joker ; William Roberts as Commissioner James Gordon ; Lorelei King as Officer Renee Montoya ; Eric Meyers as Sergeant Harvey Bullock ; Michael Roberts as the Ventriloquist/Arnold Wesker/Scarface ; Alibe Parsons as Dr. Shondra Kinsolving ; James Goode as Scarecrow/Dr. Jonathan Crane and Nightwing/ Richard Grayson ; Daniel Marinker as Tim Drake/Robin ; Chris Emmett as the Jervis Tetch/Mad Hatter ; Vincent Marzello as Mayor Armand Krol ; Stuart Milligan as Edward Nigma/the Riddler.
- An interview with Dirk Maggs from www.sci-fi-online.com
- Review of Batman: Knightfall on CD at www.sci-fi-online.com
| Batman | |
|---|---|
| Creators: | Bob Kane • 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 |
