30th
Read: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader, Neil Gaiman & Andy Kubert
Master storyteller Gaiman and artist Kubert team up to tell the last story of Batman, paying homage to his many incarnations in the seventy year history. Particular standouts for me include The Gentleman’s Gentleman’s Tale, which tells the Dark Knight’s tale from the perspective of loyal manservant Alfred, with a twist that reminds me a bit of Gaiman’s A Study in Emerald. Kubert does a great job with artistic references to the different eras of Batman (one particular three-panel page has an extremely subtle example that you could easily miss) and Gaiman does a good job of summing up the iconic superhero’s story. Of course, the weight of the story is somewhat lessened by the fact that this is the world of comic books, where nobody ever really dies. The Deluxe Edition also features a number of Gaiman’s other Batman-universe stories.
