It may, unfortunately, be badly timed, but Panini UK launched Batman: Tales of the Dark Knight last week – the first in what will hopefully be a new line of DC titles, taking over the mantle of British reprints of the US comic publisher’s titles from Titan Comics.
Each issue contains two Batman stories, and kicks off with Sean Murphy‘s “White Knight“, which as published as a Batman mini-series, and Peter J. Tomasi‘s and Doug Mahnke‘s “Mythology“, first published in DC’s Detective Comics #994-999.
Batman: White Knight follows the man now known as Jack Napier, as he embarks on a quest to heal the city he once terrorised. After reconciling with his long-suffering partner, Harley Quinn, he sets in motion a carefully plotted campaign to discredit the one person whom he views as Gotham City’s true enemy: Batman.
His crusade exposes a decades-long history of corruption within the Gotham City Police Department and transforms Napier into a city councilman and civic hero. But when the sins of his past return to threaten everything that he has accomplished, the distinctions between saviour and destroyer begin to break down for both The Joker and Batman alike-and with them any hope for Gotham’s future.
Writer and artist Sean Murphy delivers an extraordinary examination of comics’ greatest antagonists in Batman: White Knight, exploring justice, corruption, activism and the darkest depths of mental illness.
In Mythology, Alfred Pennyworth is attacked at Wayne Manor! Who’s hunting those closest to Batman? Commissioner Gordon calls in the Dark Knight Detective when there’s a murder at the Gotham City Aquarium – staged to look exactly like Thomas and Martha Wayne’s crime scene, right down to the playbill and pearls. How does this bizarre homicide tie into the shadowy monster that attacks Dr. Leslie Thompkins? This creature looks to wage a war on Batman – and it’s using Joker gas to do it!
• Batman: Tales of the Dark Knight #1 is available from open newsagents, and the title is also available on subscription here
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: British Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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Sucks that it’s only 52 pages – and so are the Marvel Collectors Editions, since January, causing Marvel Legends to drop Iron Man. If Panini are making cutbacks, why are they spending money acquiring the DC rights? I hope the Coronavirus doesn’t bring the company down. I think it’s probably already doomed this title as it wasn’t advertised in advance and with so many shops shut a lot of potential readers won’t see it on the shelves until around issue 4 or 5.
Are all collector’s editions now 52 pages? Because they are still same price right?
I believe so, Matthew