What is this book about?

With the popularity of the first Batman movie starring Michael Keaton and the success of Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One, Legends of the dark knight was created.

The main reason this book was created was to have a constantly rotating creative team. This was to attract new readers who didn’t want to be committed to having to read the regular Batman titles which often times requires you to buy many if not all of them due to cross-over events and things like that. Additionally, it was a way to promote and showcase some of the best writers and artists in the business without having to hire them for a regular monthly book which is often times very expensive. With Legends of the dark knight you got the best of the best talent for a limited amount of issues leaving you with the option to discontinue the title without feeling as though you’re missing out.

Why should you read this book?

The entire series of Legends of the dark knight is predicated upon the idea of someone’s view point of something, someone’s interpretation or perspective. They use the character Batman to star in this book because writer’s like to write the character as if he is just an urban legend. Most people don’t know if he actually exists.

The issue and story I want to recommend above all other issues in Legends of the dark knight is issue # 0, which features the aptly named story, Viewpoint.

A new protagonist is introduced and discontinued in this story. Randolph Spire, a wealthy newspaper publisher who has been dubbed with the name “Legend-killer” by the media. Because he finds the truth behind the “legends” he decides to uncover. He feels that the public likes to read about legends but love it when those legends are exposed and uncovered.

Spire invites a whole crew of researchers and reporters to his house to discuss his new project, exposing the urban legend, Batman. So throughout the story the reporters and researchers begin to give Spire their interpretations on what they think the Batman is and how to go about uncovering who or what he is.

It’s a really cool story because each ongoing series DC Comics was running at the time was given an opportunity to retell (or clarify) the origin of its hero(es) to establish the official version in this “post-Zero Hour” revised continuity. So a “#0″ issue was published in the weeks that followed Zero Hour to showcase that series’/character’s origin. In the case with Legends of the dark knight, Batman already had a series that showcased his origin, Batman. So Batman: Legends of the dark knight was left to explain why there was a series called Legends of the dark knight.

So what they did was tell this story starring the legend-killer, Randolph Spire, mixed with old amazing illustrations from previous Legends of the dark knight talent from the previous 60 some odd issues already published that basically describes what Spire is talking about. How there can numerous viewpoints to who or what Batman is and what he’s all about. Because that’s essentially what every writer with any character does. Write them the way they feel they should be written, their viewpoint on the character.

If you want to buy the story, you can purchase it here.

Discussion: Sherlock Holmes, Huck Finn, Dracula, Frankenstein, Spider-man, Batman, Superman, etc. have all had multiple artist and writer interpretations throughout the years, but characters like Holden Caulfield, Harry Potter, Hellboy, The Invisibles, WE3, etc. Have really only had one writer or artist work on the character(s), really only one interpretation. Do you think multiple creator interpretations helps or kills the character? (Please leave your comments in the comments section below, do not message or IM me with your answers)