by Ryan Martin, Reporter

Holy Splintered Spines, Batman Fans! Stop what you are doing right now and go rent or buy Batman Knightfall: Part 1: Knightfall! Yes, that is the title, now with more Knightfall!

This is an amazingly approachable adaptation of the 1993 “Knightfall” comic arc. Most of the credit goes to writer Jeremy Adams for “trimming” the fat from the original story, staying faithful to the big beats, and focusing on the characters that matter most: Batman and Bane.

Bane gets a much more streamlined origin story, and a more logical reason to be so obsessed with Bats/Bruce. Gone are his cronies that felt a little dated, and he comes across as much more dangerous and larger than life. Michael Mando of Better Call Saul and Spider-Man fame delivers a great performance with his villainous voice, blending in some inspiration from the gas-masked version of Bane portrayed by Tom Hardy.

When it comes to Batman, Bruce is tired, but not just tired; he is at his limit. This isn’t Anson Mount’s first rodeo voicing Batman, but you can tell he understood the assignment when it came to this version. You can hear the exhaustion in every line, and that’s how it should be,

The rest of the cast was fantastic as well, with Robin/Tim Drake (Jack Griffo) and Jean-Paul Valley/Azrael (Pablo Schreiber) getting a good amount of screen time, and an expanded quasi-romantic role for Dr. Shondra Kinsolving (Toks Olagundoye).

As with most of the DC Animated Movies, the production is stellar, and the artists understood the assignment. My only complaint is that we have to wait for parts two and three, which we should hopefully see sometime in 2026 and 2027. I’ll be here waiting for it, same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel!

Rating:
ComicsOnline is proud to give Batman: Knightfall Part 1: Knightfall – 5/5 Knightfalls.

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