Batman: Castle Of The Bat

Short Review: Surprisingly competent meshing of two legends

Southern Germany, 1804. A carriage ride home after the theatre is held up by a highwayman, and young Bruce Wayne sees his Parents die in front of him. He swears two oaths that night, to avenge his father's murder and to follow him into the medical profession. 15 years later, while pursuing his obsessive research into the essences of living beings, he discovers a vault beneath his secluded laboratory, connecting to the morgue of the local university in which he finds the preserved remains of his father's brain. He steals parts from the morgue, convinced that his father's rebirth will be his greatest triumph. When he reanimates the patchwork cadaver, he finds that it has severe brain damage, and an aversion to light. He attempts to fix the second fault by exposing it to the essence of a bat, but the monster escapes afterwards, and is afterwards seen preying on the highwaymen of the region.

That's not all the story is this merging of the two tales, not to mention the occasional inspired casting, and the good painted art. The most striking thing here is how well the two stories about creatures of the night merge in mood. That, and that I managed to get through the review without mentioning the way they stitch the two stories together. (oh, damn).