Review: Batman: Earth One, Vol. 2

Batman: Earth One, Vol. 2 by Geoff Johns
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Batman: Earth One, Volume 2 picks up six months after the events of volume one. Alfred has been working with Bruce to train him how to be a better fighter, and some of his work is starting to pay off; the criminal underground knows he exists, and they're starting to fear him.



I'll be the first to admit that I wasn't blown away by Johns and Frank in volume one. It was a perfectly capable Batman story, but it didn't really feel all that different from a million other Batman origin stories that I'd read. There were a few twists on the Batman mythology, but it still felt like Batman: Year One Redux. But this? This was good. Really good. This volume does a lot more to differentiate the character from his mainstream universe counterpart, and plays around with expectations so much more than the first volume did.

I like this take on Batman a lot. He's not the godlike perfection of mainstream Batman; he's a really rich guy who has put on a costume and is trying really hard to make his city better, but is clearly in over his head in a lot of ways. He's not even close to being the World's Greatest Detective, and I love it.



Batman isn't the only character to be reworked and altered on Earth One. Gordon is the least changed of the cast of characters, but everyone else has undergone some significant and interesting changes. Harvey Dent, Riddler, and Killer Croc all make appearances in this volume. Johns' take on Killer Croc is great; it doesn't quite do for him what "Heart of Ice" did for Mr. Freeze, but it's still leaps and bounds better than Croc usually gets.



Ultimately, this is a much more human take on the Dark Knight, well worth taking a look at. While some of it probably only works because it's subverting the tropes and clichés of the original, that's not necessarily a bad thing. Johns and Frank have taken the framework of Batman and put together a really interesting twist on it. "What if Batman didn't decide to start becoming Batman until he was already an adult?" is a worthy idea of exploration, and Johns really does it justice. Now the only question is: when can expect volume three?




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