Batman - Earth One is yet another take on the Batman mythos, this time Geoff Johns and one of my favourite artists, Gary Frank, take us on a journey that looks at the search for Martha and Thomas Waynes killer/s by Bruce who is only just beginning his career as Batman.It must have been tough for Johns to come up with something new and fresh with all the previous versions of the Batman origin having been well established over the past decades. Frank Miller's Batman: Year One and of course the Batman Begins movie, along with the other movies, already establishing the character in our own minds doesn't allow much room for someone else to add just another origin tale. So, how does Johns try to keep it fresh and entertaining? He gives us an early look at Alfred Pennyworth and his relationship to the Waynes and his new relationship to Bruce Wayne as well as the early stages of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman.
The story is very tightly knit and at times it begs to be allowed more room to breathe. It's fast paced and relentless at trying to tell a story worth remembering, unlike the slow pace of Superman: Earth One.
The story begins with the arrival of Alfred who has come to work for Thomas Wayne as his security while Thomas runs for election as Gotham's new mayor.
A young Bruce is set to go to the cinema to watch the legendary Zorro film. Ignoring Alfred's pleadings to stay home, the older Wayne sticks to his family's routine of going out on that night.
And as you might guess safely, as the night unfolds we are left with the dead Waynes and Bruce on his own. Unknown to Alfred, his friend Thomas Wayne had named him guardian for Bruce if anything were to happen to him or Martha. Alfred has no idea about this guardianship and is stumped by his new charge who happens to be a very headstrong child.Fast forward to the modern day and we see Bruce grown up and starting his role as a crime fighter. It is here, after a night out failing with his grapple gun and falling off a building, that he is challenged by Alfred about his quest and his lack of training and he learns that Alfred knows a lot more about fighting than himself.
Barbara Gordon also plays a major role in the story, with the Penguin as the Mayor of Gotham. She becomes entangled with the criminal underground due to negligence on Dt. Bullock's part. There is no sign of the Joker anywhere but a serial killer, called the Birthday Boy, is on the loose.The artwork is wonderful and being a Gray Frank fan for ten years, since first seeing his work on Rising Stars (Top Cow), it feels like he does an awesome job of illustrating a fresh looking Batman and Bruce Wayne. His line-work is as good as any top industry artist. Frank brings as much to the story with his artwork as Johns does with his script. The characterisation of a young Bruce Wayne is reminiscence of his earlier work on Rising Stars, which he worked on with the writer of Superman: Earth One, J. Micheal Straczynski.
Batman: Earth One is good read. It has all the elements of a good Batman tale; crime, super villians, detective work, and a city under siege with a new crime lord.
4/5 Stars.
(ARU), Aruneshwar has a Bachelors Degree in Digital Media -Digital Film-making. He took a semester of Multimedia earlier last year which kind of set him up for comictrade.co.nz, a New Zealand online comic store. On the creative side, Aru is writing and illustrating a graphic novel about the 30yrs of Institutionalised Slavery of Indians in Fiji from 1885 -1915. He is a prolific script writer and writes in all comicbook genres which include several graphic novels for his own company,Rising Sun Comics. Aru also uploads a digital comic series on Facebook called, Zero as well as completing his first crime-noir graphic novel, The Circle. He is also trying to finishing off coloring and lettering a superhero comic book mini-series he co-created with Mike Burbeck called, Incredi-Girl.
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