“Nothing can stop you when you know you’re going to die.” – Batman
Batman: Arkham Knight
Batman: Arkham Knight is a novelization drawn from the highly anticipated video game by the same name. Written by Marv Wolfman, the story follows Batman as he tries to thwart the plans of the criminally insane Scarecrow, all the while being haunted by the memory and influence of a dead Joker and being dogged by a new villain, the armored and eponymous Arkham Knight.
The harrowing story starts with the Scarecrow making a bid for control of Gotham City immediately following the cremation of the deceased Joker. Batman, ever the protector of Gotham, is on the case, aided by Barbara Gordon, aka the Oracle, and Lucius Fox, CEO of Wayne Enterprises. Batman wastes no time in wasting the Scarecrow’s mercenaries, non-lethally of course, in a relentless march towards taking down the crazy man himself.
Unfortunately, this novel suffers from being the novelization of a video game. All too often, while reading, it is clear that “oh, this a fighting scene” or “oh, this is a cut scene”. Oftentimes I felt like I was reading the transcript of someone playing the game rather than reading a self-contained story. And having read many novelizations of films, I can tell you that crafting a stand alone story from existing material is not easy, and most authors fall back to merely describing what is happening visually. The best novelization authors, however, manage to expand and deepen the experience of watching into imagining, taking the reader to places that a film or other visual media cannot go.
The other flaw of the book is one endemic to a world populated by, dare I say, hundreds of villains. Batman has quite the rogues gallery, and while you need that for a weekly or even monthly comic book, it makes for a very haphazard book plot when you try to give each their due as existing in a realistic and comprehensive universe. I know that many of the rogues only appear in the book because they appear as side missions or asides in the video game, but having a world in which a dozen colorful characters are each vying for control of Gotham City, especially when the Scarecrow is doing so already to drive the main plot, seems rather bizarre and busy. For instance, Harvey Two-Face and the Penguin show up abruptly and disappear just as abruptly in the book. Poison Ivy is integral to the plot, but is shoved way to the side and not explored like she should be for such an important character.
Others are mentioned heavily in the beginning of the book, such as Moroni and Falcone, but then are never mentioned again as the book continues. Harley Quinn appears towards the end and seems to be very important, but isn’t so much introduced as shoved forward from the darkness. Lastly, the one for whom the book is named, the Arkham Knight himself, is barely explored. It is frustrating and confusing to the one who wants to read a good Batman story with well rounded villains.
Not to spoil anything, but the identity of the Arkham Knight is telegraphed from a mile away. It was no surprise to me and I figured it out as soon as he appeared. That it took Batman the rest of the book to never figure it out until the Arkham Knight revealed himself makes the Dark Knight look rather more like the Dumb Knight.
I cannot merely say “well, this is a book based upon a video game, what do you expect?” I expect the best storytelling possible for a world as rich as Batman’s and a franchise as profitable as the Arkham video game series. Surely the most talented of creators could have been selected for such work. Why then did the audience receive a mediocre book? I don’t know, but sadly, they did.
I would recommend, if you want to know the story of Batman: Arkham Knight without playing the video game, read the synopsis on Wikipedia. It won’t take as long and it is less melodramatic. I cringe to write such a thing, but it happens to be true. I try very hard not to give a bad review, priding myself on the ability to find the good in almost anything, but it was nigh on impossible with Batman: Arkham Knight. Save your time and read The Martian by Andy Weir instead.
I was provided a review copy of Batman: Arkham Knight for free from Titan Books, but that in no way colored my review of the book.
