Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Vol. 1 Paperback – September 10, 2013

A fun collection of short stories. I enjoyed the shorts a lot. Lots of good art styles and interpretations of the Dark Knight himself. I am enjoying this entire series a lot.

Really dig the creative ways to write more Batman, this one is by telling short stories from Batman’s beginning/early years. The stories are almost too short, but better than too long. Perfect amount of time to read something before bed, on train etc.

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight originally came into creation in 1989 thanks to the Tim Burton film at the time, as well as Frank Miller's Year One graphic novel. Legends decided to continue that idea by showing more stories during the early years of Batman's career, though a few have been set in the present and even the future. So in a way, Legends is like a Year Two for Batman in terms of stories. These stories constantly have rotating creative teams, and the stories are not necessarily part of the current events of the other Batman comics. So for the most part, Legends have always been about random stories of the Batman that the creative team do whatever they feel like doing. The original Legends series went for 225 issues (annuals included), was restarted in 2006 as Batman: Confidential and went for 54 issues ending in 2011.Now Legends have been brought back, but this time into the DC New 52 as a digital series turned into physical print. How does stand alone, one-in-done stories come out? Pretty impressive actually.BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT collects issues #1-5. Since these stories are non-continuity, they are made up of whatever the writer/artist choose to do the story around. Issues #1 and # 4 consist of 3 short stories and issues #2, #3, and #5 are whole stories in one issues. Since it would take forever to review each story and give away spoilers just talking about the plot of each one, I'll summarize it as a whole.These stories consist of things like a moral lesson for being thinking he is "invincible", Batman single handily taking on Amazo, Batman reading letters from people who he's helped throughout Gotham, solving a mystery of why people are dressing up as knock-off Batman and getting killed by Killer Croc, a new hero in town who is holding off the Joker until Batman arrives at the scene, and even a story of Slam Bradley (an old-school tough cop that is found in the stories of Ed Brubakers run on Catwoman Vol. 1: Trail of the Catwoman). Most of these stories are impressively done. Since so many stories have been told of Batman, these tales go to show that the Dark Knight still has plenty of adventures and metaphors for fans to dig into.The writing staff consist of some heavy hitters like Damon Lindelof, Jonathan Larsen, Tom Taylor, B. Clay Moore, Steve Niles, T.J. Fixman, Andrew Dabb, and Joshua Hale Fialkov. Art is done by Jeff Lemire, J.G. Jones, Nicola Scott, Ben Templesmith, Trevor Hairsine, Tan Eng Huat, and Phil Hester.For the most part, I enjoyed most of this book and the art. Some were great and some are phenomenal case studies. But since these are made up of various stories, it's difficult to say what was great, good, or even decent. For me, only two stories felt mediocre, so the rest have my compliments. So if there is a negative to be found, is that some stories you might like and others not so much. Or some of the art might draw you in or completely turn you off. So it is difficult to say how much you will enjoy or how much of it you will not like.My only real grievance is that most of the stories have The Joker in them. I love the character, so do not get me wrong, but considering the writers could do or pick any character they please to have, most of them pick Joker is a bit of a bummer. Or if you're a Joker fan, you might like that idea. But again, these stories are entirely up to the creative team to do with what they want.None the less, BATMAN: LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT VOL.1 is still a darn good reintroduction of the Legends series for a new audience. These stories are out of continuity and are for Bat-fans who want some solid done-in-one stories without being 6-12 long story arcs or trampled with continuity. The writing and art will fluctuate from reader to reader, but I think this is a solid collection here for those Bat-fans who want simple and good Batman stories.

Good read

Nice variation on the Batman Mythos.

A collection of short stories, these first five issues of the TPB are sort of like all-star stories from writers and artists who don't usually do superhero stories or at least Batman ones. It's an interesting experiment but with so many stories, I feel it's bound to have its ups and downs.The first issue, written by Damon Lindelof, and art by Jeff Lemire, has Bruce falling for a very personal trap. However, it was the person that set that trap that has him most alarmed.This book does not start out very well. The art here is terrible with almost caricature-like human drawings and a story that is almost silly. Just about everything's bad about this one. But, let's continue on. Jonathan Larson and J.G. Jones do the writing and art on the next story with a space battle between Batman and Amazo. This one's better with writing and art and involves Bat-Shark Repellant so that makes the story worth-while right there. Tom Taylor writes the next one with Nicola Scott doing the art work. Another nice little story with great art and involves Batman and Robin stopping a robbery. Nothing special, but a decent read unlike the first story. Now we get to B. Clay Moore's story with Ben Templesmith as the artist. Moore did a great job at writing this one and, while I'm usually not a fan of Templesmith's art, I actually enjoyed this. I knew what was going on; unlike his Dead Space work. Having the Joker and Mad Hatter involved with Killer Croc was a really fun read and had a few twists and turns despite being fairly short (yet longer than any previous stories.)Steve Niles writes the next story with Trevor Hairsine doing the art. Bravo to these two! Not only is there fantastic art, but a grade-A story to go along with this! This is an emotional one and really shows a completely different side of Batman's line of work and how it affects everyone in the city. It really dives into Batman's psyche about putting villains away and going back out to capture them again and the seemingly pointless endeavor it becomes. One of my favorites here and definitely what I would consider "all-star." T.J. Fixman writes the next story with Christopher Mitten drawing the panels. Fixman weaves another chilling tale with the Joker (next in a series of Joker tales in this book, apparently) and his psychological manipulation abilities. The art's not something I'm crazy about with the very minimalist drawing but the story was enjoyable.Giorgio Pontrelli draws for Andrew Dabb in the next story where filming for a Bat-Man movie becomes a reality. The story's goofy, the art's pretty good, and it's nothing special. Jonathan Larsen and Tan Eng Huat are writing and drawing the following comic that tells a chilling tale of the lengths Two-Face will go to separate himself from Harvey Dent. A short, sweet, nasty story with some great art (along with a scary Two-Face) to go along with it. The book ends with a really fun tale by Joshua Hale Fialkov and art by Phil Hester that revolves around Slam Bradley, good cop with bad luck, and his run-ins with Batman and the Black Mask. This story was really fun and watching Bradley have a particularly terrible day was comical and at the same time, entertaining with all the action.So, overall, you have a collection of stories ranging from really short ones to full-length comics with a myriad of artists and writers. Some were bad, most were good, and a few were great. A lot of the stories were Joker-oriented and had little variation as well. If this is your kind of thing, then this is a really good book to have. There is a cover gallery in the back as well for an added bonus. You just have to consider that you may not like all the stories or art in here.