1991
Holy Terror
by Alan Brennert, Norm Breyfogle, Lovern Kindzierski, Bill Oakley
Bruce Wayne grows up in Gotham Towne in the American Commonwealth. He is getting ready to enter the priesthood when Inquisitor James Gordon tells him that the murder of his parents (decades before) was not a random act of violence. Bruce goes ahead with his plan to enter the priesthood after learning more about it from Doctor Charles McNider.
Bruce uses his connections to infiltrate one of the Church’s most secret buildings in the hopes of learning more. Dressed as the Batman, Bruce finds much more than he expected.
This story sets the table. I’m not sure if there was any follow up to it but it feels like the first installment of a series of stories. It could be the first part of a trilogy or something longer.
There are a number of familiar faces in this story including Barry Allen, Clayface (Matt Hagen), and Zatanna. There others who are mentioned by name (Alan Scott, Oliver Queen) but don’t play an active part in the story.
I didn’t intend to read this story as fast as I did. It was very wordy, especially the first half. Once I got to a certain point I couldn’t stop myself. I had to see where the long extended scene in Cathedral would go. Once that scene was over there were just a few pages left in the story.
I enjoyed this story but as I said before it lacks follow through. All the little references and appearances by other variation on DC Comics characters helped to make this story that much more enjoyable.
The fact that Batman is working against the powers that be make for an interesting twist.
This was the first Elseworlds story that was branded as such. It was preceded by Gotham by Gaslight.
No comments:
Post a Comment