Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #79 (1996) Christmas Comic Book Review

 Hey everyone! How's it going? I'm doing pretty well. It's a dark, dismal day here in the Geek Cave, so I'm here to talk about a comic book that takes place during Christmas. And keeping with the '90s nostalgia theme I apparently have going on this week, I'm taking a look at Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #79 from 1996. So let's get into it.

Legends of the Dark Knight is a comic book series that ran for 214 issues from 1989 to 2007 and took place during Batman's early career, post-Year One. This series acted as a gateway for new readers and fans because the stories very rarely impacted anything going on in the larger DC Universe, and they weren't impacted by the larger Batman and DC continuity. Though particular issues were involved in big Batman and DC story arcs such as the Knightfall saga, Zero Hour, No Man's Land, and War Games. When the first issue came out in 1989, it was marketed as the first new Batman solo book since Batman #1 came out in 1940, and it was also the first new Batman comic to come out since Batman and the Outsiders debuted in 1983. The DC Comics Wiki also says that it was published in the wake of the 1989 movie, but I don't know if it was published because of the movie's popularity or if DC Editorial planned to publish the series before the movie came out. 

Issue #79, "Favorite Things", has Batman chasing a gang of criminals who stole something of great value to him from Wayne Manor. The gang, known as the Chessmen are just random thugs who stole something from Wayne Manor. Honestly, this is an okay issue. The problem with it is that we don't learn what the Joy Boys took from Wayne Manor until the last two pages and while I like that it was a toy train that Bruce's parents had given him for Christmas the last Christmas that Bruce would have with them before they were murdered, not knowing what it is that was taken and has Batman so enraged makes it hard to connect with him because you don't know why he's so determined to get this item back and there are so many other interesting things going on in this issue that just get left there. 

The writer for this issue is Mark Millar and I'm not a huge fan of his work. Kick-Ass is okay but Kick-Ass 2 is kind of meh. And while writing for Batman is very different from writing his own books, this is not his best story. It's very all over the place and like I said, he had some good ideas with the Joy Boys, a gang who idolizes the Joker, similar to the Jokerz in Batman Beyond, which would start airing only three years after this issue came out, as well as everything going on with the Chessmen, and the guy they paid to keep the stuff they stole until things settled down. But, he doesn't explore any of that, which is unfortunate, because in alot of cases, the supporting cast, and cast of villains are often more interesting than Batman himself, which is why the villains were so much the focus of movies like Batman Returns and The Dark Knight and why characters like Robin, Nightwing, and Batgirl work so well on their own in the comics. 

The artwork is fine. The artists are Steve Yeowell and Dick Giordano. Yeowell is mostly known for working with Geoff Johns on his run on JSA, a series that was basically an extension of Johns's Stars and S.T.R.I.P.E., the book that introduced Courtney Whitmore, a.k.a. Stargirl. There is one inconsistency though. Early on in the book, Batman has the yellow oval around the Bat symbol on the chest of his Batsuit, but then it's gone on the very next page and for the rest of the issue. Because Batman doesn't add the yellow oval to the Batsuit until a little before Dick steps down as Robin and Jason Todd takes over the mantle, at least at this point, though it gets moved to after Jason's death sometime in the 2000s, having the yellow oval on the Batsuit in this issue is a bit weird since it's before Dick has even become Robin. 

Overall, this isn't a great issue. If you want to read it it is included in the 2005 trade paperback collection, Batman: The Greatest Stories Ever Told Volume 1, not to be confused with the 1988 trade paperback collection, The Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told. But honestly it's a pretty skippable issue and doesn't really add anything to the overall Batman mythos as the toy train never comes up again. In fact we don't even see it in any other Batman media. It's good, just not great.

Alright my friends that's going to be it for me for today, but I will be back soon with more reviews and blog posts. So until then have a great evening and I'll talk to you later. Take care.