The Different Collected Editions of Batman: Knightfall (1993-1995)

 Hey everyone, how're you all doing today? It's been a rough few days around here. If you know me in my personal life, you know why. So posts might be a bit more sporadic than usual. Not for too long. Today I'm finally getting around to doing a post that I've been planning to do for like three years now. And that's take a look at the various collected editions of the Batman: Knightfall storyline, including aftermath stuff. So let's get right into it.

The first collected editions of Knightfall came out between 1993 and 1997, when DC still wasn't collecting all of their storylines. They did a few of them, but not all of them. In fact, during this period, Knightfall wasn't completely collected. Only Broken Bat, which shows Batman's mental and physical decline as he fights the escaped Arkham inmates and then his fight with Bane, Who Rules the Night, which tells Jean Paul Valley's start as Batman and his defeat of Bane, KnightsEnd, which shows Bruce's return as Batman and his defeat of Jean Paul, and Prodigal, which shows Dick Grayson's time as Batman before Bruce takes up the mantle again permanently. Apart from seeing an ad for the KnightsEnd trade paperback in one of my Star Trek comics when I was a kid, I completely missed out on these editions though I did have a few of the single issues from Knightfall, Knightquest: The Crusade, and Prodigal in my childhood comic book collection, which I showed off in a previous post.

In 2002, DC published new editions for Broken Bat, Who Rules the Night, and KnightsEnd. Nothing new was added to these editions, but the covers line up, as you can see above. Prodigal wasn't republished though. These are the editions that I got when I was in high school, as they were the only editions in print at the time. Of course, having not seen the previous editions, I didn't realize that Knightquest hadn't been collected, so that was interesting since by this point I'd actually gotten several issues of the Knightquest story arc from the back issue bins at my local hobby store, which sold comics, both old and new at the time, as I didn't have a comic book store anywhere near me that was close enough, and none of my friends drove at the time.

In 2012 DC Comics republished Knightfall again, but this time in entirely new editions. Broken Bat and Who Rules the Night were published in a single volume, Knightquest was collected for the first time though only The Crusade, which is Jean Paul Valley's time as Batman, was collected. The Search, which follows Bruce Wayne during his recovery, was omitted yet again. KnightsEnd and Prodigal were also combined into a single volume. These are the editions that I currently have in my collection and I really enjoy them. I'll be doing individual reviews on all three of these volumes at some point.

From 2017 to 2018 DC Comics published the entire Knightfall saga in three hardcover omnibus editions, including the prelude stuff, Knightquest: The Search, and Troika, in addition to everything that was in the previous trade paperback editions. Being that hardcover omnibus editions of any comic book story arc can be prohibitively expensive, and always out of my price range, these editions aren't ones I'm interested in.

Finally from 2018 to 2019, DC Comics put out 25th Anniversary trade paperback editions. The nine volume set includes everything that was in the omnibus editions, with Knightfall split back up into Broken Bat and Who Rules the Night. This set is the first time that the prelude material, The Search, and Troika have been collected individually, and the first time that Prodigal had been reprinted individually in 20 years, since the original trade had come out back in 1997.

And that my friends is it for me for today. I'm not sure when I'll be back but I'm gonna try to have a book review out sometime before the weekend. So until then have a great day and I will talk to you all again later. Take care.