It’s just magic every time Greg Capullo and Scott Snyder work together. I have no idea what’s going on, but Batman: Last Knight on Earth #1 is a gripping tale from page to page.

BATMAN: LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH #1

Writer: Scott Snyder
Artist: Greg Capullo
Cover: Rachel Dodson, Terry Dodson
Published by: DC Comics/Black Label
Release Date: May 29, 2019
Cover price: $5.99

SOLICITATION: Bruce Wayne wakes up in Arkham Asylum. Young. Sane. And…he was never Batman.
So begins this sprawling tale of the Dark Knight as he embarks on a quest through a devastated DC landscape featuring a massive cast of familiar faces from the DC Universe. As he tries to piece together the mystery of his past, he must unravel the cause of this terrible future and track down the unspeakable force that destroyed the world as he knew it…

From the powerhouse creative team of writer Scott Snyder and artist Greg Capullo, the team that reinvented Batman from the emotional depths of “Court of Owls” to the bombastic power of DARK NIGHTS: METAL, DC Black Label is proud to present the bimonthly, three-issue miniseries BATMAN: LAST KNIGHT ON EARTH, published at DC’s standard comic trim size.

This could be the last Batman story ever told…

IS BATMAN CRAZY?

It’s been a long-standing discussion in the Batman community, wondering if the villains are all crazy. And did Batman create them simply by being the hero he is?

This story looks at the Dark Knight from a different perspective: Is Batman crazy?

First, we see Batman discovering what appears to be an animated corpse, and maybe it’s of himself as a young Bruce Wayne. Then we enter Arkham Asylum, where Bruce has been detained for years. He wakes up to see a doctor treating him who greatly resembles the Joker. Alfred is the first to appear, and he tells Bruce that Batman has been a lie by presenting him with a helmet shaped like Batman’s cowl with a straight jacket attached. The faithful butler is disguising his appearance so he doesn’t seem as old as he actually is, but Bruce can tell simply by Alfred’s heartbeat.

Bruce leaves Arkham with the mask and outfit, and soon he discovers the Joker’s head in a lamppost. Before long, Batman walks off, carrying the head in a jar, with the Joker saying it’s “Batman and Noggin,” together again.

Before too long, Bruce arrives at Coast City, where the Green Lantern legacy is a rough one. He encounters Diana, who tells him it was the people who gave up, not the heroes who failed or even the villains who won.

The interesting thing is, if this is “reality,” what happened? Where did the people all go? How are they surviving? Is Superman really in the “Plains of Solitude,” as has been rumored? Is that where Batman is going?

As always, the characters are engaging and the dialogue is intense. Snyder pulls us in right away, tantalizing us with the mysteries around Batman. It’s vintage Snyder!

This could well be a Mad Hatter illusion, as was often seen in Batman: The Animated Series. But I doubt that Mr. Snyder and Mr. Capullo would do something so obvious. If it truly IS reality in the comic, what about the future we’ve so often seen, stellar in its advances?

All we can do is keep reading!

CAPULLO ART

Greg Capullo’s continues to enthrall me. Faces are strong and expressive, and the action sequences are visually stunning.

I’ve tried to use words to describe how Capullo’s art moves me, but I’ve run out of superlatives. I will say, however, that this may be his best art ever!

BOTTOM LINE: Could This Be The End?

I’m reminded of how I often feel when a wonderful TV show is racing toward its final episode. I wish I could slow it down and savor it, but I also want to know what’s happening, so I continue on. It’s going to be a sad thing to read the third issue in this miniseries, but I have to know what’s going on! It could be the last Batman story from these two powerhouse creators, and I hate the thought of that!

Batman keeps wondering if he’s failed somehow, that he didn’t save the world when it needed him. It’s so odd that people keep saying they didn’t want his help, which may hurt the Dark Knight more than his own failure could have done.

I continue to say that the Snyder/Capullo Batman has set the standard extremely high for future creators to attempt to rival. I honestly thought that the villain in this “final” Batman story would be the Joker, but his disembodied head is in a jar being carried by the Dark Knight. And it’s talking!

How can you top that? I’ll be there to see what they have in mind! And being under the “Black Label” banner, anything can happen!

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