When Christopher Nolan arrived on the scene to direct the latest spark in the Batman film franchise, inspiration had to come from somewhere. The films had taken an almost farcical turn which meant that true Batman fans had seen their dark and atmospheric crime fighting hero go from the black caped bat who instils fear into his enemies to a brightly coloured spoof puncher relying on gadgets and witty comments and sidekicks to get through the corruption lacing the unrealistic Gotham City. Batman: Year One gave Nolan the inspiration to return to the dark gothic roots of Batman, and it gave Christian Bale the right ideas on how to play the dark and damaged man ...  Read the complete review

'Batman: Year One' is a classic Batman story written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli that first appeared in DC comics in 1987. The collected story in book form was chosen as the greatest Batman graphic novel ever by IGN Comics, who commented; 'No other book before or since has quite captured the realism, the grit and the humanity of Gordon and Batman so perfectly.' The story arc is, as the title suggests, an origin tale detailing the beginning of Batman's career as a costumed crimefighter and subsequently proved to be a very big inspiration to Christopher Nolan who liberally pilfered ideas from it when he was asked to reboot the Batman film ...  Read the complete review

In the mid-eighties DC comics decided to reinvent their universe. Not in the way they do on Elseworlds or alternative universes. No, this was to give all the main characters an upgrade and start from scratch. This was partly due to DC Comics running for so long, with so many writers and so many different versions of their heroes that they decided to streamline everything. So they started with Batman Year One. Frank Miller was up for the task of writing the new Batman origins and he was the right man for the job since he'd already be applauded for his work on Daredevil, Electra and The Dark Knight Returns. The style of the artwork by David ...  Read the complete review

I'm a relatively new fan of graphic novels - been reading them for about a year and having thoroughly enjoyed The Dark Knight Returns by Frank Miller, I wanted to read Year One as well. Firstly I would say that while I did enjoy David Mazzuchelli's artwork in this book, I preferred the art work of Frank Miller in Dark Knight Returns. The book tells the story of Bruce Wayne becoming Batman and Jim Gordon joining the Gotham Police force. The young Bruce Wayne has been abroad training in martial artists for 12 years and returns to Gotham to take his revenge for the murder of his parents. After adopting the Batman persona he begins his life as a ...  Read the complete review

Batman: Year One is Frank Miller's tale of Batman's first days under the hood. It is a very different Batman than many have become accustomed to - in this story, Batman makes mistakes, and you'll also find no supervillains - the crime that Bats fights in this story is the corruption within the Gotham police department, various pimps and thugs, and the Gotham Mafia. But Year One is not solely the story of Batman's first adventures - it also chronicles the story of James Gordon, who gets transferred to Gotham City, a while before becoming the Commissioner we know and love today. Gordon has to fight the corruption he finds in every officer around ...  Read the complete review