Chapter By Chapter (usually) features me reading one chapter of the selected book at a time and reviewing it as if I were reviewing an episode of a TV show or an issue of a comic. There will be spoilers if you haven’t read to the point I have, and if you’ve read further I ask that you don’t spoil anything further into the book. Think of it as a read-along book club.

PART 3: KnightsEnd

In our last chapter we saw Bruce get the ability to beat people up again. Good timing because we are near the end of the book.

You know, for a story that is supposed to contrast Bruce with the 90s-style “antihero” there hasn’t been a lot of that. By focusing all our attention on Bruce and only occasionally seeing Jean Paul in action (even then half of it was Tim telling us Jean Paul was losing it and JP having visions of a dead guy whose group he supposedly left), meaning the supposed theme of this storyline isn’t coming out as easily in this novelization as Superman’s did in The Death And Life Of Superman. It’s been a good story and all but if Owen Likes Comics is right and this is about condemning the kill-happy Batman then it’s failing in its goal. Perhaps the comics did it better but here it just seems to be missing the mark.

It’s not exploring WHY Bruce has a “no-kill” rule or why it’s wrong for a Batman to kill. Compare it to the novelization of Superman’s death and resurrection and all the stuff in between, where we explore what the world is like without a Superman, what made Superman so beloved, and gave us +3 heroes when it was all over rather than one less. Azrael would get his own series so I guess that’s a +1 but he was the antihero type and is so unnecessary now with Jason “Red Hood” Todd that I’m not even sure he’s still in continuity post-Flashpoint. Actually, can we get a head count? What happened to Anarchy for example?

Ah, never mind. Let’s get back into the story.

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