Bane Breaks Batman's Back! DC Hotshots Knightfall! The 90s Comics Collapse Commences!

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[@biggybg98]

We need some commentary on The Breyfogle run on Batman….man was he awesome

[@bennyblanco89]

Need that!

[@bradfrederick1135]

DC bookers did a good job of protecting the babyface

[@MrJohnffrey87]

And the reason why Riddler is so muscular in the flashback is because Bane injected him with Venom to test out Batman’s abilities, and Jim Aparo also drew that issue.

[@dannycruz5446]

The art in that Knightfall Batman/two-face ad was by Glenn Fabry

[@TheTonyFigueroa]

How about Kelley Jones' "The Hammer"? That's pure Kelley Jones and it's creator owned

[@carlosnicolini1719]

Knightfall turned me into a Batman fan. In 1994 I read a Spanish trade paperback with the first, like, 7 issues, and I was hooked. Had to wait months to read the rest of it, as US superhero comics were hard to get in my country back then. That storyline has created generations of Batman fans all over the world by showing what Batman is all about at its core: the guy just won’t give up, not even in the face of insurmountable odds (which, in a brilliant twist, turns out to be the cause of his defeat. Bane understood Batman psychologically and took advantage of his Batmanness). No wonder it keeps being reprinted, referenced, homaged and ripped off. Also, the storyline was being prepared by the Batman team before the Superman team began working on The Death of Superman. Anyway, here’s a good video about Knightfall as a whole: kzbin.info/www/bejne/l4PUeYyioJ2Ljrs

[@steppeone]

Every video with more wrestling references convinces me that Jim's next book is wrestling related. Another great video for such a bad comic that was hugely important in my comics education.

[@yawnberg]

The cover art of that series is the best part of it. So good every issue.

[@AngusRockford]

I’ve just discovered this channel. From your comments, I figure I started reading Batman (and comics in general) about 10 years before you guys (late 70s), so I was in college when I was reading Knightfall. Just wanted to say one main thing: you *nailed* it-every single aspect of it. The abuse of the readership, the knowing destruction of the younger, more casual newsstand readership (which was what created dedicated fans in the first place), the suspicion about Aparo’s ability to be a risk-taker (no disrespect to Aparo-he’s “my Batman artist” too), Giordano pulling rank to cash in on the royalties (which he also did on “Man of Steel”)…all of it. Frankly, I’m amazed to find a channel at this late date that mirrors my own sensibility about comics, and isn’t totally fanboyish and blisteringly uninformed, as most are. I can only assume that those of us who started reading before the early 90s rot began to set in, regardless of age, have much more in common than those who don’t know any better, and never bothered to learn. Anyway, kudos for an informed and intelligent critique. I’ll be catching up on old episodes and subscribing.

[@MrJohnffrey87]

That guy in the spike covered suit attacking Batman in the flashback is called Metalhead, he appeared shortly before Knightfall as an assassin hired to kill Black Mask, and after Batman defeats him, he never comes back outside of this flashback, the issue was also drawn by Jim Aparo, I was wondering who he was myself when I bought the graphic novel, so I did research until I found out who he was.

[@marknemecek2454]

The KJ Batman run is definitely the most creative of the 90s. Just do me a favor and hold off on reviewing it for a bit, I've been re-buying it and I don't need you guys jacking up the prices for me😄

[@v2pictures300]

I usually agree everything that you guys say, but 10 year old me was HOOKED on this saga. I ate up every bit of it like a packed lunch. It's still my favorite Bat story (outside of TDKR and Year 1). I even loved JVP as AZ-Bat. This was a saga tailor made for me, for sure.

[@nevadacoakley2576]

Totally agree. I pulled this out for a potential reread a year or two ago. Made it through 3 issues of knight fall and that was a struggle.

[@mathewguglielmi8451]

The Knightfall story was adapted as a radio drama for the BBC by Dirk Maggs. Marvel followed suit with the much maligned, convoluted Clone Saga in Spiderman comics.

[@TheScrltspdrslayer]

Turning 16 I jumped into Marvel and DC Books, with X-Men and Spider-Man being two of the books I was heavily into. I missed a lot as there wasn’t a comic book shop near me until much later and I ended up missing a lot. It wasn’t until much later that I got to read Clone Wars and the Onslaught Saga. And it was like Apples to Broccoli. The entire Onslaught Saga was more colorful, drawn better and just more interesting to read. While the Clone Saga had some of the stupidest writing I’ve ever read in a Comic Book. And before I was 16 I used to read Daily Digest, Archie and Casper, so I knew dumb shit. I couldn’t even read through a whole volume. The writing was awful, the art was subpar and it was so repetitive. I could not understand for the life of me why a Volume was so expensive. DC definitely had some better arcs with Knightfall and No Man’s Land

[@danthaman03]

I love this channel. Its great to see people as passionate about comics as you guys are.

[@doomedhuh]

its not every issue where someone breaks batman's back

[@jrodriguez6]

Not a great issue, not a great saga but do please check out more Kelley Jones Batman. Oh that jacked Riddler was using Bane's Venom that's why he is looking like that.

[@MikeWRogers]

Showed the Zap #0 cover on my show the other day! Awesome swipe! Love you guys are right here on KZbin!

[@billcrabtree8700]

You guys had me rolling in the aisles watching this. Love Kelley Jones, his artist edition is well worth taking a look at too, although I’d stay away from the recent Batman collection of his that DC put out. The pages looked like they had been printed off jpgs or something, all the line art is blurry. How something like that gets printed I’ll never know.

[@danieljeyn9847]

"You had to read 20 of these things to get the whole story? No wonder you dropped reading the character." Nods in Clone Saga.

[@torrentthom4734]

I picked up that issue from a magazine stand in a generic convenience store, just when it came out. think about that for a sec. O.o

[@craigvial3441]

My experience mirrored Ed's almost exactly. This kind of stuff prompted me to drop the monthlies too, in favour of getting into books like Hate and Eightball. I was shocked to check the newstands less than a year later and find it was all gone.

[@MrSamfonseca]

I remember a classmate bringing this comic to school and "rubbing" the issue in the face of another classmate who was a big fan of Batman. He said: "See? Batman is weak! That would never happen to Spider-Man! Batman is a cripple now! - and this other boy broke down in tears; an event that, nowadays, is probably a secret that he will take to the grave.

[@ByTorthePinballWizar]

This was the first Batman storyline I read, mainly because it had all the villains in the lineup. I was always disappointed that there was never a rematch between Bane and Bruce. Seemed like a missed opportunity.

[@SHAUMBE.]

breaking off batman's ear lol 10:12

[@jabbadac]

surprised there was no comment on that goofy dinosaur on the cover.

[@timhibbard4226]

I think the ‘Kink Villain’ as Ed artfully names him, was an early appearance, possible the first appearance of Jean-Paul Valley AKA Azra-bat.

[@WiktorProsniak]

No, it was a different guy. But later Paul got similar costume when training with Robin.

[@basscot17]

Isn't the drawing of Bats and TwoFace done by Glenn Fabry, instead of Janson?

[@andybrining]

After the Harley Quinn cartoon I can only read Bane's dialogue in that voice. Not exactly a complaint, mind you.

[@raydillon]

It's interesting, the first Batman story I ever got into, aside from movies and animated series, was the Knightfall novel that I picked out one day at the library. In large part because of that awesome Batman moon logo and how it changed throughout the chapters. Whoever made that choice I hope they're getting royalties! But for some reason I was captivated by the story and that's what lead to me buying Batman comics which is around the time of Cataclysm and No Man's Land. Before that I was just an Image kid. I don't think I ever read the Knightfall comics. I wonder which came first and how that novel would hold up nowadays.

[@timhibbard4226]

I didn’t have Ed’s issue following this arc as a kid. My folks used to get me these multi-title 20 packs of current DC books from Pace, when it was over in West Mifflin. (A local dead big box bulk store chain in the Pittsburgh area circa 80’s and 90’s.) So when these arcs were happening they would be themed to be packs of this and Death of Superman stuff respectively.

[@s2735]

i wanna know about the making of that Eating Raoul comic. How and why did Deitch do that? Put your on detective hats, ed and jim. Keep up the good work. Also, you can still find the comic cheap from Last Gasp

[@petez4608]

I see the FLASHBACK Ad, which was a completely genius and poetic game, way ahead of its time. No scores? Incredibly organic animation and art for the time.

[@jonjones6764]

Man 7 year old me was horrified by the Kelley Jones house ad for this. I love Aparo's art but Man by this time it was not the same. Sometimes I wish the fight was more brutal, not to the extent of the bootleg in another video, but just a bit more rough and violent. And as far as backbreakers go, I think Bret Hart had a great one. He just had such a nice snap when doing it.

[@roberthart149]

Riddler was on venom in the flashback.

[@KaufmanIsAlive]

I just bought this last week!

[@jlevans1985]

this was my first comic storyline at around 8 or 9 actually ordered it out of the back of one of the death of superman comics i'd gotten. I liked the artwork and was more of a batman fan than superman

[@WestCoastDAVEngers]

The one thing that the Knightfall storyline did, above all else, was give Bane a place in Batman's rogues gallery. It may have been the most cash-grabby way to do it though. If you're gonna do some Jones Batman, I think the Dracula series would be fun, Red Rain/crimson mist/blood storm easily my favorite elseworlds stories DC ever published and just beautiful artwork!

[@MisterMech]

I read Knightfall for the first time in 2014/2015 due to the upcoming Batman game thinking there might be some reference or connection between the two. There was not! After reading through the whole thing my only impression was "what the hell did I just read?". It was like nothing happened at all in the end anyway. The Spider-Man Clone Saga made more sense than Knightfall. Had some decent artwork though, I'll give it that.

[@JeffWalshPhotography]

Cover is amazing, but can we talk about the T-Rex that looks like it just shit itself in the background.

[@erikwirfs-brock2432]

Definitely a better issue then the death of superman, something wonky about that late period aparo art but it gets the job done.

[@porcupineracer2]

Really enjoy this channel. Why don’t you guys allow the voting to count? Anyhow, I was just a kid when this series was running. Didn’t have the money to buy more than a few issues in a year. I think I bought one in this run but has no idea it was 20 issues.

[@thepoloranger420]

What's yall favorite video they did? Like wich comic they flipped threw?

[@kyleyoung2984]

All In for more Kelley Jones always

[@redred222]

hes a big guy, if you take off his mask it will be painful FOR YOU

[@drawrobot]

This comic made it easy to quit reading comics as I was starting art school. Batman could have snapped several times. He has no powers and no indication of body armor in this era. That penny drop made no sense. His legs would be shattered to a pulp. Ridiculous.