A 13 COVERS Wagner birthday salute, featuring the worthiest successor to the seminal Batman: Year One…
A lot of comics since 1987 have tried to follow Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s magnificent Batman: Year One by giving us stories that are essentially sequels, in name or in concept. There have been the actual Batman: Year Two (and Year Three); The Long Halloween and Dark Victory; The Man Who Laughs; and countless others. The details don’t always line up with the Year One narrative but they are still intended to follow that story. Heck, the whole “early years of Batman” trope was central to the Christopher Nolan film trilogy and the brilliant The Batman, starring Robert Pattinson.
Pattinson’s Batman
The best of the comics versions? Matt Wagner’s Dark Moon Rising saga from 2005-07, hands down. Weirdly, though, there’s no Deluxe Edition. There’s no Absolute Edition. And there’s certainly no Artist’s Edition. (The most recent collection — 2020’s Legends of the Dark Knight hardcover, which included other Wagner Batwork — is out of print. And only half of the story can be found on DC’s app.)
Which is a crying shame because Dark Moon Rising — which was really just two connected miniseries, Batman and the Monster Men and Batman and the Mad Monk — should be on every Batman fan’s TOP 13 list of Modern Age stories.
The 12 issues are a pastiche — adopting the Batman: Year One sensibility and some story elements, and matching them with kinda-sorta adaptations of the Dark Knight’s earliest adventures, from 1939-40’s Detective Comics, before Robin joined the fray. We’re talking tales starring Hugo Strange and the Monk, with Bruce Wayne’s first gal pal, Julie Madison, in a prominent role.
The result is a combination tight thriller and horror show that pays tribute to those Gothic days of Batman’s Golden Age.
Wagner was born 62 years ago, on Oct. 10, 1961, so for this year’s 13 COVERS birthday salute, we’re featuring the 12 Dark Moon Rising covers, in order, plus a page of gorgeous original art from Batman and the Mad Monk #3 — just to prove that an Artist’s Edition would be a really, really, really good idea.
Too bad it’ll be unlikely to ever happen, because DC doesn’t seem to recognize that this overlooked gem is one of the best Batman stories of the 21st century.
And that’s a fact, Bats.
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MORE
— Dig MATT WAGNER’s Superb Revamps of Classic BATMAN Covers. Click here.
— 13 COVERS: A MATT WAGNER Birthday Celebration — 2022 EDITION. Click here.
October 9, 2023
DC has twelve issues — a nice size for a complete and/or oversized collected edition — or their most hyped and marketed character by one of the comic book medium’s greatest living creators.
And DC has not done anything with them since their paperback editions came out close to 20 years ago.
DC hasn’t even bothered to digitize them.
There must be some kind of massive payout to Wagner that they are trying to avoid by pretending that these terrific books never existed.
October 10, 2023
Dc did do something with it. There was the Legends of the Dark Knight hardcover that collected these mini-series, as well as other Batstuff from Wagner, just about three years ago, so it wasnt even that long ago.
October 10, 2023
Yes, I wrote all of that.
October 9, 2023
I always assumed they were elseworlds stories and not part of any continuity , especially with the corny title of monster men. It might have got more attention if it was incorporated into the regular ongoing Detective or Batman titles. Thanks for highlighting this series.
October 9, 2023
These two six-issue series are definitely among the best Batman stories and shine among Matt Wagner’s impressive body of work. Amazon lists a 2020 release titled “Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight” that gathers all 12 stories into a 463 volume. The hardcover appears to only be available from secondary sellers but the Comixology/Kindle digital version is available direct from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Legends-Dark-Knight-Wagner-Batman-ebook/dp/B089ZZ1HWZ
October 9, 2023
Happy birthday to Matt Wagner. His artwork is just so incredible here.
October 9, 2023
Matt Wagner’s story (Legends of the Dark Knight, 1992) should also be included as one of his Batman masterpieces.
October 10, 2023
Dan, Looking back at your other entires about Wagner – did you ever see the last two of his seven Golden Age recreation covers?
Back then, you wrote: “Wagner said… he’s been commissioned by a collector to do seven of these Detective covers and has produced five so far. With everyone thinking of The Batman this week, it seemed like a groovy time to show these beauties off, along with the originals.”
Have the other two surfaced?