3 out of 5

Collects:

Secret Origins of the World’s Greatest Super-heroes (“The Man Who Falls”), Detective Comics #27, Batman: The Long Halloween #1

This was a mini trade that came with the special edition of the Batman Begins DVD.  In my eyes, unless you’re purchasing a collection specifically to read the content (like a Masterworks collection or something), it doesn’t follow to go too deep into examining the quality of the stories, but rather to base a review on the realization of the book – does it look good, sequencing, etc.  Important, yes?  Sure.

Sho.

This is a cute thing that Marvel and DC have done with some of their comic movies – inserting some reading material.  Occasionally this is actually exclusive stuff, like a Garth Ennis Punisher comic with the matching flick (not that that makes it good, mind you, but it’s nice if you’re a collector for sure), but with the majority of the versions I’ve seen, there’s an attempt to show the “roots” of the film you’ve purchased.  I will say that DC did a fair job with the quality of this.  It has to fit in the DVD case, so imagine it as a bit smaller size than your regular DVD box, and it’s actually prestige bound with a nice thick glue area in the spine (dunno what this is called, but the depth from the spine of the book to the page where it’s glued together, meaning the page has some a couple CMs of gluey connection before hitting the binding, making it less likely for pages to fall out) and a pretty thick cover and pages.  I’ve been able to toss this thing around and read through it without it losing its shape or getting dinged up.  The cover even has some extra effort with a glossy finish that makes Batman from one of the movie posters stand out all flashy style.

The index on the inside cover is also a nice touch – it lists every creator credit for each contained story, writer, artist, colorist, inker, etc., and it sort of adds to the feeling that this is about the comic and not just extra goodies.  Although there is a loose correction card included that adds Bill Finger’s name to the list of Detective Comics #27 creators.  Whoops.  I’m sure whoever forgot that had a good month, having to halt the production line or whatever to have the cards inserted in the books.  That’s a plus/minus touch – it’s nice that they made the correction, and it’s sort of odd for something that I’m pretty sure had been fully addressed quite some time prior to this…  The interior look does its job but is nothing special.  Whatever reproduction process was used sort of flattens the look of each page and despite Tim Sale’s dynamic pencils or the pop-color of the old school Detective Comics, it all come out rather blase.

While I praised the binding, there’s also a criticism that comes with that – there’s like zero gutter between the end of the page and the glue, making some panels that extend thataway impossible to fully read unless you literally break the spine.  I think it would’ve been acceptable to shrink the images by whatever percent to just allow for a small sliver of space.

In terms of the book’s connection to the film – this is a nice spotlight of stories.  But billing this as “stories that inspired the movie” feels off, as ‘The Man Who Falls’ is the only one that actually fits that bill, or so it seems.  That story is mentioned in the documentation regarding the genesis of the film, and Nolan certainly flirted with the fleshing out of Bruce’s past along a similar path as the Batman of Denny O’Neil’s classic story.  Now Detective Comics #27… beyond introducing Batman, seems a far cry from being a direct touchpoint for the movie.  But it’s nice to read the story and have it reprinted in a convenient format.  And The Long Halloween, while no doubt on David Goyer’s shelf, in no way relates to the original movie but more to the second one, except for mention of the crime families.  You could string it along on the loose concept that anything could be an ‘inspiration’, including, like, a Spider-Man story, but it’s a wonder they didn’t include an excerpt from Year One or something.

So 1 out of 3 feels like a direct tie, and O’Neil’s writing – while as heavy-handed as any of the more poetic authors – is on par with the pacing and style of popular fiction, and so can potentially connect with non-comic readers, which is sort of what I would consider the purpose of this book.  Stories 2 and 3 will make people who hang out on the fringes of comic books get some further credibility by claiming to have read them, but Jeph Loeb writes like freakin’ the way we stereotype Captain Kirk… pausing… between… every phrase or word…  Making it pretty cheesy.  It’s not going to sway anyone, and pretty much encourages the assumption that comics are just violent pictures and poor writing.  (No discounting how much Loeb has done for comics, but… eh… well wait, I actually don’t own anything by Loeb, so whatever.)  And while the book looks nice, a little bit more planning would’ve made it more readable.

But most importantly,  Who reviews these kinds of things?  Who cares about the free comic included with an old DVD?  WHY?  WHYYYYYY