Legends of the Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle Vol. 1 (Detective Comics (1937-2011)) Kindle & comiXology

These reprints bring back very good memories for me. It was my time to discover Batman and Norm’s cool artwork made my intro to Batman special.

I am a Batman reader of the 70s and early 80s, so I never read these tales when they first came out. I was too busy learning to be an adult during this period. Now that I read them for the first time, I do so with relish, and I am not disappointed by it. This volume is among the best in this Legends series. Norman Broyfogle certainly deserves to be among the great Batman artists (Neal Adams, Jim Aparo, and Marshall Rogers). His style is very close to Rogers'. Batman on the rooftops, swinging between buildings, his shadow - all drawn in an impressionistic style. In addition, his panels are action-packed. I appreciate the various layouts he uses to energize the story. Adrianne Roy does the coloring for Broyfogle, and I think he matches well his artwork.I know this is an art-oriented tome, but I can't help mentioning the writing contributions of John Wagner and Allan Grant. If Broyfogle is a proper successor to Marshall Rogers, Wagner and Grant follow the tradition of Denny O'Neil and Steve Englehart. Their stories are as moody as those from the seventies, and even grittier and darker. They also create villains that rival the traditional villain lineup that readers often associate with the Batman: the Ventriloquist, the Ratcatcher, and Cornelius Stirk. In fact, these villains are bloodier than the League of Assassins, the Joker, etc. The stories are characterized by being action-packed, darker, and full of pulp. Batman's persona follows the footsteps of Englehart in the seventies and adds to it: "You!" I like it every time Batman says that in these stories. The writing is also high quality. The writers often use different techniques or points of view, switching from third person to first person, and also telling the story from the villain's point of view. My favorite story - I think it was outstanding - was the Night People where there are various stories taking place at the same time in different places, but at the end they are all connected. The voice of a disc jockey serves as a thread that keeps all the stories together. Clever technique. In addition to this, readers can see some social problems pervasive during the late eighties: the influence of cocaine and ecstasy in drug culture, and the growth of homelessness. There is even a cameo of Ronald Reagan in "Sole Survivor" (not a good story, in my opinion).In sum, this is another great volume for this series and a must-buy for a Batman fan.

Norm Breyfogle has got to be one of the all time great Batman artists. Bruce Timm has even said that he was directly inspired by Breyfogle when he was creating Batman The Animated Series and you can really see the similarities in these pages.Storywise, Alan Grant's scripts aren't quite as strong as the art but still pretty damn good. They're definitely more offbeat and gritty and stripped down. Almost no Robin, Gordon, Alfred, or Bruce Wayne to speak of, although they all have memorable appearances. No classic villains except one appearance of Penguin and a Clayface 4-parter at the end. Etrigan also makes an appearance. They did however introduce the villains Scarface/Ventriloquist, Ratcatcher, and Cornelius Stirk in this volume.But mostly it's just Batman solving grisly murders and weird cases, several having some sort of supernatural or "psi-power" angle, or a fantastical element of some kind which isn't really my thing but they make it work. Some stories are more realistic and pulpy. It's almost as if Alan Grant was writing Detective Comics as a noir/horror series with action and superheroes thrown in.Grant and Breyfogle later transitioned over to the main Batman book and took a decidedly more straight-forward "classic Batman" approach, although still kinda fiixated on grisly murder. They also famously reintroduced the third Robin, Tim Drake, to great fanfare. He even got his own series for several years afterwards.As far as the presentation goes, it leaves a lot to be desired, much like almost all of DC's collected editions. There's no bonus material whatsoever, glued binding, non-oversize format, and worst of all- NOT ALL THE COVERS ARE REPRINTED! Only the ones Breyfogle did. I absolutely hate that practice, and it's one DC has been doing for decades. They only reprint the covers for certain books like Archives and Omnibus books but for some reason they will do it for the Tales/Legends books that focus only on the writer. The Len Wein book and Alan Brennert book both reprint all the covers. I see no reason why they can't show us the covers to every chapter like Marvel does with their collected editions, regardless of who drew it. That's extremely annoying and just really terrible production value.So aside from some frustrating production flaws and some occasionally weird stories, this is still a must own for die hard Batman fans.

Coming at a hefty five hundred pages, this is Norm Breyfogle's first foray into the DC comics and his art is now synonymous with the late 80s Batman. You can see how the art in the first issues is not yet polished but the talent already shows. There's no overarching metaplot that we are now used to, but the stories are all simple good fun and the last one is excellent. In this story arc contained in four issues different Clayfaces all work together to take Batman down and Looker from the Outsiders makes a cameo appearance. Basil Karlo is excellent as a Hollywood cinema villain. You can see how the artist starts to experiment with the panels in some pages, where the framing lines are not drawn but the individual pictures all merge together instead and it looks truly amazing. All action is great and dynamic, with a single picture often containing multiple hits, punches, dodges and maybe a line of dialogue here and there, all fitting into a neat progression when your brain unpacks it. The only thing that is missing for me is the coloring. It's still the simplistic coloring of the 80s, where the night sky is often light purple and walls are commonly yellow.

Very nice book and I'm extremely happy for with this publication a very long wait has finally come to an end. I love the work of Mr. Breyfogle and I grew up with his Batman, and him and his writing contributor Alan Grant are responsible for my Bat obsession big time.As I said I'm very happy for the book but it's not without it's issues. While the book itself is gorgeous and will go on your shelf like it was born there I think the art (one of the most important part of the book) is being ruined by overly saturated digital colors and some kind of barbaric scanning process they used that makes all the black lines massive and strong. That great many times destroys the fantastic inking done by Steve Mitchell. The details are lost. Some frames only some of it remains making it look like a printing flaw. In certain frames certain items are colored wrong by mistake, blond hair is green, previously red jacket is now yellow etc. Anyway, I don't mean to moan, as I said I'm very happy that we finally got a collected Breyfogle. It's long overdue. The cover says Volume 1. which implies there is gonna be another one coming. I hope so. But I also hope that next time they will be less hasty and take bit more time to make things look nicer.

Norm Breyfogle is one of the names I will always fondly associate with Batman. His style truely lifts Batman and his world off the page in ways that contemporaries (and many after) simply didn't. Breyfogle's panels explode with energy and drama! His exaggerated expressions and movements drawing you in with their detail, and his sense of space and framing is still amongst the best I've ever seen.On to the stories themselves. Breyfogle is well known for his association with Alan Grant, and rightfully so. They are a team that perfectly complement each other, and there are several classics here including the introduction of several long-standing enemies.This features the first appearences of the Ventrilloquist and Scarface (excellent, probably V&S's best issues), the Ratcatcher (Also excellent, definitely RC's best story), the Corrosive Man, Kadaver, Cornelius Stirk (again, best story), Joe Potato (taking a moment here, "Ecstacy" is actually one of my favourite one off Batman stories), and the epic Mud Pack 4-parter in which ALL Clayfaces (technically...) band together to kill Batman, resulting in the now well-known Basil Karlo version of Clayface (prior to this, he was a normal human in a mask, which itself was an excellent very early Batman story).As per the cover, we also see The Demon, who Breyfogle and Grant have had fun with several times over the years.Hopefully, we'll get a volume 2 for the first appearences of Anarky, Zsasz and much, much more.

Arguably the best Batman artist ever, this massive hardback volume is a fantastic. The art is printed on shiny high quality paper and is superbly reproduced with clear vibrant colours. The run of stories in this book are just fantastic, some of ther best Batman tales ever written.If I have one complaint is that the packaging pretty much ignores the input of the writers to the contents. None qualify for a mention on the sleeve notes. Strange given that the vast majority of them are written by one writer - Alan Grant. Other writers include Mike Barr, Jo Duffy, Max Allan Collins, Robert Greenberger and of course Grant's co-writer at the start of the run: John Wagner.At £24 its a bit expensive, but If you like Batman - this is a great buy.

Norm Breyfogle is one of my favorite Batman artists. He is easily in my top five Batman artist list, and I wish he would draw Batman again. This volume contains some of my favorite Batman stories from when I was a young, and reading Batman in the late 80's to early 90's. It contains the story of the Corrosive man, The Rat Trap, and others. I hope they do a second volume with Norm Breyfogle.Also this book is just beautiful to own as it is a hardcover, and the jacket is awesome. This was really enjoyable to read, and I recommend this to anyone who is both a fan of Batman, and Breyfogle.

I'm so thrilled that we are finally getting a collection of Breyfogle's work! As he is my favourite artist this book is a real treat for me and includes a couple of early works I have never read.The late 80s/early 90s Batman stories penned by Alan Grant (and John Wagner) with Breyfogle on art duties are absolute classics and my favourite era of the Dark Knight.This is a pretty packed collected volume of 23 issues. Highlights include the fantastic 4 part Mud Pack story, featuring a team up of Clayfaces, and first appearances of The Ventriloquist and Scarface and Cornelius Stirk.I really hope DC will continue to collect Breyfogle's stunning work for many volumes to come!Beautiful art, wonderful stories, highly recommended!