Dark Night

Paul Dini has defined our concept of Batman. His work on Batman The Animated Series helped define DC Animation and gave us Harley Quinn and Mark Hamil's Joker. He also wrote the seminal storyline for the much darker Arkham Asylum video games. He's got five Emmys and two Eisners for his work. There are few men more responsible for our current understanding of the Dark Knight.

Then one night he was mugged, brutally beaten and left for dead. As he slowly heals he is visited by the various characters he's made a career of imagining. That framework allows him to examine his life leading up to that moment with unflinching vulnerability. He's brutally honest about the concerns his parents had of his childhood imagination, the clearly shallow and horrible relationships he cultivated with women, the emptiness of his life despite all the nerd trappings and fame.

Eduardo Risso's artwork is perfect for this story. He manages, along with Dini's writing to keep it from being a one-note premise based on the conceit of “where was Batman?” and turning it into something more. I do think appreciating who Paul Dini is, is important to the story. I'm not sure if I'd care as much if I didn't spend hours glued to Batman the Animated Series.