Books : Batman: A Death in the Family

In association with Amazon.com

Rating:

- An Excellent Tale of a Caped Crusader, a Boy Wonder, and a Man Who Laughs.
I just finished reading this, and wow... That was one of the best Batman stories I've read. Being myself adopted, I connected straight off with Todd's search for his mother, not knowing who she is. This, of course, only amplified the effect of the titular death. I also enjoyed much of Joker's plans in this story. The Iranian delegate struck kind of close to home- remember the guy who said "no preconditions"?- but it never got too political, even in dealing with that. A great, emotional Batman story with a great twisted Joker plot.

Rating:

- Important Outcome from a Mediocre Story
This is a decent story which is mainly well known for the out come rather than a great story. This is something I would recommend to fans of Batman to read for the sake of the importance to the Batman story line, but I probably wouldn't recommend to many others. In fact even if you're a Batman fan and you don't have a lot of money to through around there a lot of other Batman stories I'd point to before this one. Now I don't want to say that this is that bad of a story I was entertained and never thought about not finishing reading it.

I think the biggest problem for me was the fact that most of the time it didn't feel like the Batman universe. It just seems odd having Batman run around in the Middle East. Now having been a fan of comics for a number of years now, I have come to know that often I will be asked to suspend my disbelief. But a few times it took it a little too far form me in this one. For example it seems a little too coincidental that Batman follows the Joker to the same city in the Middle East that Jason Todd ran off to looking for his mom. Two other examples are Batman bringing gliders and a mini helicopter with him to the Middle East/Africa. And the Joker being recruited as Iran's ambassador by Ayatollah Khomeini. I don't know it could just be me but I thought that was a bit much.

There were a few good things about it to though. While I wouldn't say the art work was amazing or anything, I thought it was pretty good and reminded me of the artwork in some of the older Batman comics (I mean that in a good way). I also liked the fact that the story addressed that when the Joker got out of Arkham he was without most of his assets and need to make some money to get started up again. In short I recommend this for the historical aspects rather than a great story.

Rating:

- Another Batman Classic!
Okay,when DC was planning this storyline they knew they were treading into new territory.It would be a controversial time in the comics industry where the companies wanted to get more mature with their readers.DC lead a campaign in whicn the fans would vote to either kill Robin(Jason Todd,Dick Grayson's predecessor)or to let him live at the end of the story.Long story short,the Joker ends up beating Jason within an inch of his life with a crowbar.Batman was elsewhere at this time.Jason discovered that his mother was alive but under the Joker's fearful leadership.They met briefly before they were locked in a shipping crate.Jason was laying on the floor bleeding to death when the Joker placed a bomb with a timer in the crate.The Joker preceded to beat Jason's mom up pretty bad too.Just before the bomb went off,Jason shielded her from the blast.Jason died in her arms.Batman found the two,then Jason's mom dies and the last image you see is Batman carrying Robin's lifeless body away from the scene.It was a very gritty story for it's time but it was necessary for DC to evolve into the '90's.A new or old Batman reader or fan should own this story.Not only is it gripping, but it's comic book history just like the Death Of Superman and Knightfall.Excellent DC Comics read!

Rating:

- Excellent story line
anyone looking into this book should buy it. It's an excellent read very easy to follow, and is one of the most defining moments in the batman universe

Rating:

- Graphic SF Reader
Here we are again lucky enough to have the fantastic talents of Jim Aparo drawing Batman. Yet another DC comics publicity stunt in part, though, as the latest incarnation of the Robin character was not too popular with readers. So, they decided to do a storyline where the Joker captures him, and the readers could vote on whether he died or not.

Pretty clearly from the title, it is thumbs down for the Bird Boy.

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