Dennis O'Neil (1) (1939–2020)

I wish I'd known about this book when I did my big readthrough of Green Arrow tales, because it's much more Green Arrow and Green Lantern's tale than it is Batman's. This collects two stories: the first, "Peacemakers," is about the first meeting between Green Arrow and Green Lantern, while the second, "The Arrow and the Bat," unites the two with Batman.

That said, it's not very good. I feel like the later you are in Denny O'Neil's career, the worse his writing is, and this book is no show more exception. It's jumpy, characters don't (re)act realistically, the conspiracies are too complicated to make sense, it's bloodier than a mainstream DC superhero story ought to be, and it doesn't even get basic points of continuity right. Oliver seems to have lost his fortune already, but he hasn't even joined the Justice League yet because there is no Justice League yet. And it was O'Neil who wrote the story where Oliver lost his fortune, set well into his tenure on the League! What's the point of writing a tale to tick off a continuity box if you get the continuity wrong? None, as far as I can tell, because this is a disappointing and uninteresting book.

Batman "Year One" Stories: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence »
Green Arrow: « Previous in sequence | Next in sequence » show less

These contain the last stories done by Gardner Fox and Mike Sekowsky. While Sekowsky's work had improved (or he'd had better inkers) for awhile, I wasn't sorry to see his replacement Dick Dillon, who's work is more to my taste. However, I feel like Fox had really had his stride on the title, varying his plots and doing some truly interesting things with his cast. I'm truly sorry to see him go. His last story, a JSA crossover, was one of his best. His replacement is Denny O'Neil, who's simply show more lacking in subtlety. He's trying to add characterization to the book and that's good, but his plots aren't generally very good, and for a man known for social relevance, his sexism is much more overt than what we saw under Fox. Still, the issues aren't bad, and it's exciting to have a new era on the title. show less

Knightfall is a book of two distinct halves, and the first is definitely better than the second. In the first, a gangster known as Bane decides he is going to prove himself by taking out Batman, and he enacts a massive scheme to deplete Batman's strength in order to do so. Bane himself is the best part of this; far from being the brute thug I'd imagined from the film versions of him, he's a fascinating, semi-heroic character, or at least a character who could easily become a hero with the show more right push.

The second half of the book tells the tale of Jean-Paul Valley's time as Batman, while Bruce Wayne recovers from his breaking at the hands of Bane. This is less successful, partly because there's so little overlap with the first. Bane is dispatched quickly and easily by the new Batman, who capitalizes a bizarrely small amount on his major accomplishment, and he stays in prison for the rest of the novel. And given how important a character Jean-Paul is in the second half of the book-- he's Bruce's first choice for a replacement!-- he's introduced really late, very shortly before the breaking of Batman. The effect is two halves that don't quite mesh; Jean-Paul should have been more important in the beginning, and Bane should have returned at the end. Without some source of cohesion, the ending is unsatisfying.

Part of the reason I started this project of reading superhero prose fiction was to see how writers rendered the interiority of superheroes in prose. O'Neil actually uses this as a plot point; Bruce thinks of himself as "Batman" up until his back is broken, and then he cannot anymore. But when he adopts other disguises, he also inhabits them completely-- as does Jean-Paul the identity of "Batman." When the narration dubs Bruce Wayne "Batman" again, you know the hero has made a comeback. show less

I'm a huge fan of Ra's al Ghul, one of my favorite Bat villains. He, along with his daughter Talia, are showcased in this volume, and we even see appearances from the original Batwoman and the Bronze Tiger. Ra's and his daughter are pretty amazing in most of these stories but sadly time has not been as kind to the stories themselves. The dialogue is sometimes painful, especially when Batman uses "hip" words and phrases, and the plotting can be problematic. The longest storyline in the book, show more where Batman assembles a team to take Ra's down, is full of things that don't make sense. Not a bad volume, but it suffers when read in more modern times. show less