Batman: The Dark Knight #0

Hey guys and gals, my last review of the week and thankfully my last zero issue comic is none other than Batman: The Dark Knight. So let's finish off these zero issues and get back to the present of the DCnU.

Batman: The Dark Knight #0

Summary: This issue starts off with a young Bruce Wayne, not long after his parents murder. After going through his parents things, he finds his dad's watch and wears it as a memento. After being alone, Bruce returns to crime alley, looking for answers and finds one of his mom's pearls, but he drops it down a storm drain by mistake. Bruce notices a hobo living in the alley and asks him if he saw anything the night his parents were killed. The guy says he may have seen something, but demands Bruce's watch. Bruce, desperately wanting answers gives the guy his watch, but the guy had no answers, and he pushed Bruce down and tells him to go home. From there we see Bruce growing up, studying every single acquaintance his parents had, looking for motive. We see Bruce doing this while in classes, as well as training and boxing, getting his body ready for his one man war on crime. Bruce eventually graduates and returns to Crime Alley as an adult, looking for the man that stole his watch. He finds him and demands his watch back, as well as answers about who killed his parents. The old hobo reveals that Bruce's parents were killed by Joe Chill. Bruce then goes to a bar looking for info on Chill, and after busting a few skulls, he gets answers and finally heads to confront Chill. He asks Chill why he did it and who hired him, but Chill says they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time, he wanted Martha's pearls, and when she screamed, she startled him, causing him to shoot her. An enraged Bruce yells that he's lying, they weren't just killed over pearls, there had to be a motive, but Chill lowers his head, saying that's all it was. Bruce pulls out a gun and holds it over Chill before turning around and storming out of the building. The issue comes to a close and Bruce boards a plane to Tibet, getting ready to start his true training.


Thoughts: This was an interesting issue. It started off slow, but I loved the idea that a young vengeful Bruce was taken advantage of, and he turned around as an adult and went back to that same man, getting his father's watch back and the answers he wanted. It showed how dedicated Bruce is. I also loved that Chill killing his parents was just wrong place, wrong time. There was no plan, no enemies acting on them, just pure, dumb coincidence. That's why Batman works as a vigilante, because he's stopping that from happening to anyone else. If there was someone behind Chill, he'd just go after them and be done, instead of stopping all the crimes he can. And that came across well here.

Score: 7.5/10 

Bruce: I'm Bruce Wayne.
Joe Chill: I didn't mean to.