This review first appeared at Green Man Review.
So I spent the last weekish visiting my good friend, Jason, in Edmonton. I was totally prepared for the long drive. A big stack of tried-and-true travel CDs, and this: Batman: Complete Knightfall Saga, a full-cast audio drama. Unfortunately, it was only three hours long. Shorter than I expected. But the proverbial sweetness, too, was present.
This drama was originally produced way back in 1994, under BBC Enterprises — right after the 1993-1994 comic series was wrapping up — and is only recently being re-released. This particular dramatization collects the adventures originally appearing in DC Comics under the names “Knightfall,” “Knightquest,” and “Knightsend,” which detail Batman’s first, crippling encounter with Bane, and his subsequent near-retirement and replacement by Azrael, a man with his own dark, but only recently inherited past.
If you’re a Batman fan, then there are a few things you have to read. You have to pick up the graphic novels Batman: Year One and Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. I really recommend the novelized version of Batman: No Man’s Land (since that’s the form I happened to first read it in), and there are also a handful of other critical stories from the original, iconic Batman comic series, which represent important enough turning points, and will be referenced enough and/or are influential enough that you must at least be aware of them.
These include the Joker’s murder of the second Robin, Jason Todd, back in 1988-1989. Whether or not this was actually a well-done story is not the issue. It’s important, plot-wise. You should also be familiar with the departure of the first Robin, Dick Grayson, when he goes off to be his own man, giving up the mantle of Robin and becoming Nightwing, in 1984. And then there’s this: arguably the Batman’s darkest hour. These were all major character- and story-defining moments. But the Knightfall Saga, similar to the death of Superman in 1992, is where everything gets turned upside-down. It’s when you take away everything, demolish everything a character has and is, that you truly define him.
Since this is an audio drama, and not an audiobook, there is no narrative. Instead we have dialogue, appropriate sound effects, and the occasional musical interlude. On the whole, I’d say it works. The individual characters are distinct enough in manner and voice that it is not terribly difficult to keep track.
The voice-acting is good. The fight scenes are . . . somewhat lacking. Punching sounds and grunts alone do not quite do justice to an epic fight scene, brilliantly rendered in panel and ink. But with no narrative, they did their best. The most important part of this story, and what it means to the future of the Batman’s character, is not in the fight scenes. It’s in the bruises afterwards. Our hero heals, not without scars, certainly, but he comes back. He’s the Batman. Azrael demonstrates that there can only be one true Batman.
If you are a fan, you really ought to experience this story, one way or another. This audio edition is an entirely decent way to get the meat of it in one convenient package. If Batman isn’t Batman to you without the art, get the comic collection, in volumes one and two. Alternately, you could get the novelization. Though I think that either of these written forms is likely to better do justice to the Bat than any lone voice-actor could, no matter how well-scripted, this drama is not without its charm, and is a quicker, and in some ways, more easily engaging way of telling the story. It is just one more option for those interested in finding out about this pivotal moment in the Dark Knight’s career. So, pick your poison, and check it out already!
(Time Warner Audiobooks, 2005)
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