Originally Posted by
Dr. Ellingham
My copy of this book finally arrived a couple weeks ago, and this weekend I looked through it. It's nice enough; it has all of Englehart's notable Batman stories in one place - including the Night of the Stalker.
The star attraction is the original Englehart/Rogers/Austin run from the 1970s, which inspired the Batman '89 film, TAS and lots of other stories. A lesser light included is the 2005 sequel, an earnest attempt to recapture the magic over 25 years later. There's also 1990s stories Englehart wrote for various Legends of the Dark Knight/DCU books, including an Aquaman vs. the Joker story. Eh.
A few gripes: The cover includes art by contributing artists...but not Marshall Rogers. There's also no essay or introduction, highlighting what this run did for Batman. Also, because the epilogue to the main arc was written by Len Wein, it's not included here. When DC reprinted these in deluxe format in the 1980s as 'Shadow of the Batman', Wein's epilogue was there - along with essays, and beautiful new wraparound covers by Rogers and Austin. This book has none of that - meaning that a single-issue reprint series from 35 years ago remains the best way to read the "definitive" Batman.
This is a nice book, and I'm pleased to finally have that classic run in hardcover. But it should never have taken this long, and it still needs to be collected appropriately - as a story. And ideally in an oversized HC with Rogers' beautiful wraparound covers.