A comic three years in the making, Batman: Earth One will be coming on sale July 4th. Batman: Earth One is written by Geoff Johns with art by Gary Frank and Jon Sibal. Johns and Frank were the team responsible for Superman: Secret Origins and the "Shazam!" Stories in Justice League. The comic is a milestone for Johns, as it will be his first original graphic novel.
Batman: Earth One follows a similar thesis as Superman: Earth One. It gives new details into a character's transformation into a hero during their first year of heroism in a contemporary setting. In this graphic novel, Johns, Frank and Sibal take on the cowl of Batman as he tracks his parent's killer – the Mayor of Gotham City. It will serve as a companion piece to the Superman: Earth One graphic novel and will follow the same format.
There will be several changes in the graphic novel contradicting the original Batman origin, including and omission of Bruce's trip around the world to learn his work from various masters (a seemingly poor choice right off the bat considering how that was one of the key points people like to reference when talking Batman which made his skill in the field much more believable – after all, what's more effective than learning from the best?).
But the most interesting plot point is the ominous threat that Alfred Pennyworth – in former lore Batman's butler, ally and best-friend – wants his blood. Even if this plot point is well-pulled off in the graphic novel, I hope Alfred's "evil" side never shows up in regular continuity – he's humorous conversations with Bruce Wayne are some of my favorite aspects of the Dark Knight.
Johns and Geoff both offered some words on DC's official blog The Source about the series.
Johns said "Gary and I are tackling BATMAN from the beginning, before he knows what he's doing and with a very different ultimate goal in mind. He's never left Gotham. And our Gotham and the people in it are very gray. Our heroes unlikely. Our villains hidden. Our story is only beginning with volume one."
"It's essentially the first piece of the jigsaw," comments Frank. "He's not the Batman people know, but he might be one day. He's certainly not yet a superhero. The fun is to watch him piece the persona together drawing on his experiences and the influences of those around him and, at this stage, the idea of becoming a 'superhero' hasn't even entered his head."
The silent preview below is all we are given for now, as well as character designs for Batman, both in-and-out of cowl at various ages and Alfred sporting a wicked tattoo. Batman: Earth One will be 144-pages long and will cost $22.99 in stores. It can be pre-ordered on Amazon. For prime-members on Kindle, the graphic novel will cost $14.84.
An all-around nerdette, I’m a comic book connoisseur, horror aficionado, video game addict, anime enthusiast and an aspiring novelist/comic book writer. I am the head of the comic book department and the editor-in-chief of Entertainment Fuse. I also write and edit articles for Comic Frontline. I am also an intern at Action Lab Entertainment, a comic book publisher at which I edit comic book scripts, help work on images in solicitations and help with other comic book related project. My own personal website is comicmaven.com.
