In the conclusion to the Knightfall epic, Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham, but must relearn much of that martial arts skills and physical agility he lost when Bane injured him. Following a grueling physical training program with the notorious Lady Shiva, Bruce must fight to reclaim the mantle of the Bat and the role as protector of Gotham from the now-insane Azrael.
This book was a good change from the previous volume, which contained a whole lot of Jean-Paul Crazy. In this volume, we move back and forth between Bruce, Azrael/Batman, and Robin & Nightwing, who are working as a support unit to Batman. The inevitable defeat of Jean-Paul comes in the middle of the book, with the second half devoted to the aftermath of Jean-Paul's actions. Another interesting arc was the final twelve issues collected here: the Prodigal storyline, in which Bruce, having just reclaimed his role as Batman, inexplicably abandons it for several months, and leaves Dick Grayson to fill in. Reading this next to the more modern Batman stories (in which Bruce Wayne is presumed dead, and Grayson once again must take on the role of Batman) is really surreal: Grayson expresses similar complaints and fears in each instance, but in the Morrison arcs seems to be having those thoughts for the first time, so that was weird. Was there a reboot somewhere between 1994 and 2008 that I'm unaware of? Leaving aside the strange and unexplained disappearance of Bruce Wayne for the latter half of the book, this is a satisfying conclusion to the story, though once again I found myself wondering what was left out of this collection.
A final note on the art: there's a lot of different artists involved here, so it's hard to make blanket statements about anything (except Nightwing's mullet, which is consistently hilarious). However, if you were to just look at the cover, you'd never know there was actual good art inside. I understand choosing an image of Batman and Azrael facing off as the cover of the collection (this is also the cover of the issue in which they clash), but surely we could have picked something that uses proper perspective, and that doesn't look like Azrael is about to crack is spine. I'm not even sure what Batman is doing there--a bizarre dance of some kind?
TL;DR: I'm glad I read this classic story, but it's not something I'd recommend to the casual comics fan, or even the beginner comics reader. Getting through this takes some dedication.
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