Knightfall – The Bat Is Broken

Knightfall – The Bat Is Broken

It’s said that a hero is only as good as the villain he fights. For Batman, that penultimate villain is Bane. For over seventy years, villains like the Joker and Two-Face have tried to defeat Batman. Yet their failures is Bane’s victory: he broke Batman’s spine, triggering a multi-comic storyline that examines and ultimately re-defines the Dark Knight’s purpose. The Knightfall story is the first chapter of that saga.

Knightfall introduces Bane, a man born in the Pena Duro prison. Following a slight imposed on the prison’s corrupt warden, Bane spends most of his adolescence in an underground pit. Every inmate condemned into the pit eventually go insane. Not Bane. Using his hatred and his mind, Bane thrives in the pit. When he emerges from the pit, Bane finds himself a legend to the other inmates, becoming the prison’s de facto ruler.

Jealous, the warden submits Bane to experiments involving the Venom steroid. Bane’s endurance is put to the test, but once again Bane succeeds where previous subjects fail. Augmented by Venom, Bane has the extraordinary strength to match his already formidable intellect. Having achieved the physical and mental perfection he desired, Bane breaks out of prison. His goal? To defeat Batman and control Gotham City.

Instead of a direct assault, Bane instead frees most of Batman’s rogue gallery in a bid to tax the Dark Knight’s endurance to its lowest ebb. Only then does Bane strike, breaking Batman’s spine as a symbolic victory and a sign of his ascension of Gotham’s criminal kingdom.

With Batman out of commission, Bruce Wayne selects former assassin Jean-Paul Valley over original protégé Dick Grayson to be his successor, citing Grayson’s solo vigilante career as justification. With the Batman mantle secured, Wayne can focus on his rehabilitation with the help of Dr. Kinsolving, a physician whose patients include Jack Drake, the mentally-crippled father of Tim Drake (the current Robin). With her renowned healing abilities, Bruce is making significant strides in his recovery.

Unfortunately, Kinsolving is abducted right before Bruce’s eyes. Traumatized by his uselessness – and convinced that Kinsolving is the only hope for complete recovery – Bruce chases after Kinsolving.

Meanwhile, things are taking an ugly turn in Gotham. Valley proves himself a darker Batman, focusing more on punishing criminals over saving lives. Things come to a head when an encounter with Scarecrow’s fear toxin unlocks Valley’s alternate Azrael persona (derived from intense brainwashing from the extremist St. Dumas cult). Knightfall ends with Bane’s defeat at Valley’s hands. Batman once again rules the night . . . but a Batman who struggles for his sanity.

A hero is only as good as the villain he’s fighting. Bane leveled the playing field by doing the impossible: breaking Batman. Knightfall gives Bruce Wayne a new path: a life without Batman. We can only wait and see how that story unfolds.

Jean-Paul Valley

Jean-Paul Valley

Jean-Paul Valley. Typical nerd. Social outcast. The new Batman.

Confused? Let’s start from the beginning.

When supervillain Bane broke Batman’s spine in 1993, Wayne chose Jean-Paul to carry on the legacy. What he didn’t know was that Jean-Paul had been trained from birth to be Azrael, the assassin for the fanatical, Illuminati-like Order of St. Dumas cult. Had Bruce known, he would have spared himself a lot of pain.

At first Valley seems like the safe choice. His Azrael training has given him the necessary skills. Batman himself said that, “Jean Paul . . . instantly shifted into the state of alert relaxation Batman had observed only in Zen masters . . . poised on the cusp between readiness and action.”

All of that changes when Valley dons the mask. Ordinarily meek, Valley seemed overjoyed at using lethal force on a helpless opponent. It’s only the intervention of Tim Drake (the current Robin) and the timely arrival of the police that the criminal walks out with all limbs intact. Later on, Valley berates Robin for his soft-heartedness, despite the fact that Drake has significantly more experience. It’s as though Valley is a completely different person when the mask is on.

The truth isn’t far off. Much of Valley’s Azrael training involved brainwashing and negative conditioning. As such, Valley’s been trained to believe he’s nothing without Dumas and the System (the collective name for his subconscious assassination skills). An example is the Valley nearly crashes the Batmobile twice. It’s only when Valley prays to Dumas that his subconscious grants him the necessary skills.

It only gets worse. Valley’s darker persona gains more power with each passing night, as exemplified by Valley’s new costume. His subconscious, seeing Batman’s ordinary garb inadequate, completely modifies the costume. Combined with the lethal weaponry suitable for a holy assassin, plus a strong resemblance to the Azrael garb, this new costume marks Valley’s complete domination of his Azrael persona.

The Azrael persona’s effects are also psychological. Seeing Drake’s reluctance with violence as weakness, Valley arms the Batcave with a host of fatal defenses designed to keep interlopers out. Furthermore, finding detective work tedious and unbecoming of an agent of holy vengeance, Valley concocts an alliance with antagonistic policeman Harvey Bullock for the information he needs. Valley is so consumed within this Azrael persona that he lives within the costume. It’s only when Valley is tricked into getting out of his costume that his Valley persona reasserts himself.

Knowing that all comic book characters must receive periodic evolutions in order to satisfy an equally evolving audience, the Batman staff made Valley’s character into a question: do the fans want a darker Batman? The answer? No. Jean Paul is a pretender. Bruce Wayne is the one true Batman. Not even a broken spine can stop him. He’ll be a long time correcting Valley’s atrocities, but he’ll persevere. He’s Batman. He always does.

Knightfall – Comic Vs Novel

Knightfall – Comic Vs Novel

1993 was a big year for Batman. The previous year had Superman battle to the death with the new villain Doomsday. Not to be outdone, artist Dennis O’Neal and other Batman staff concocted an equally ground-breaking villain for the Dark Knight: Bane. Like Doomsday before him, Bane changed Batman’s world by breaking the Dark Knight’s back. The events of the following comics (Bruce’s rehabilitation, the exploits of his successor Jean Paul Valley, and Bruce’s return as Batman) were adapted into two novelizations: one written exclusively to younger fans, and one crafted for more mature fans. This article will explain the differences between them.

A major deviation between the two is Dick Grayson, the first Robin. Both the comics and the children’s version heavily rely on Grayson. As Valley grows more violent, Tim Drake (the third Robin) goes to Grayson for moral support. When finally Grayson tracks Bruce down, he chides Bruce for choosing Valley over him for the Batman cowl. Bruce admits that he deliberately chose Valley because he didn’t want Grayson to be burdened with the responsibility that comes with being Batman.

The adult novelization doesn’t have Grayson at all. He’s mentioned once, when Alfred explains the history of the Robins to Tim. Tim does make a good point: the presence of a young partner kept Batman from descending to darker and more violent means to deal with criminals. Batman needed a Robin to keep him sane.

Another deviation is the manner of Bruce’s return as Batman. Both versions have Bruce psychologically traumatized, becoming incapable to use violence. Both versions feature the master assassin Lady Shiva to retrain Bruce. But in the comics, Bruce is challenged by three martial artists. Afterwards he gains Shiva’s approval by fooling her into thinking he killed the last challenger, and he is allowed to leave.

The adult novelization has more psychological consequences. After a month of training, Bruce finally defeats Shiva. But he gains more than his battle ability. “In that instant [beating Shiva], he’d regained his capacity of violence, and something more, something he’d never known was his: the pleasure of dominating another human being . . . as he watched Shiva fall, it had erupted into the purest joy he could imagine.” (O’Neil 305) For a man whose creed is to avoid killing, the exhilaration of victory is not only an addiction he cannot afford, but the catalyst of re-evaluating his entire life. The comic-book Bruce Wayne got off scot-free, but the adult Bruce Wayne has some serious demons to deal with.

Bane was a game-changer to the Batman world. But the fallout from Bane’s act depends on which version one is reading. The child-novelization has everything wrapped up in a nice bow. But if you want a serious Batman story, pick up the adult novelization of Knightfall. It pays tribute to Batman’s redemption without coddling the reader. Have fun.