Friday, May 16, 2014

Batman: Golden Dawn

Batman:  The Dark Knight, volume 1:  Golden Dawn by David Finch; graphic novel; 160 pages

Batman investigates the kidnapping of Bruce Wayne's childhood friend Dawn Golden, while the demon Etrigan makes an appearance in Gotham. 

I freely admit that there were several points where I rolled my eyes in this book ("Dawn Golden," daughter of some dude named Aleister?  REALLY?), but overall this was a fun story with a nice supernatural twist.  Yes, there's mysticism, demonology, and the occult, as well as the Batman equivalent of a Bond girl, but the story is fast-paced and engaging, and the art, while a little over the top in places, is lightyears above some of the mid-90s stuff I've been reading lately. 

There are two smaller stories tacked on to this volume:  an entry from Grant Morrison's Batman, Inc. storyline, showing Bruce getting the idea of a worldwide Batman initiative (this contains eye rolls numbers two and three:  when the bad guys repeatedly shout "Hail Levaihan" at each other--which is just too similar to "Hail Hydra!"--and when Morrison uses a line from a 17th century love poem to describe the evil organization).  The second story is very short--less than five pages--and is set in the distant future, where and aging Superman meets with an adult Damian Wayne (now Batman), to discuss the legacy Bruce left behind.  To my mind, that snippet is the best part of the whole book. 

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