Neil Gaiman writes The death of Batman

I picked up What Ever Happened to the Caped Crusader? a graphic novel/comic collection, when I was browsing the Denver Public Library’s graphic novel selection.  I was intrigued to see that Neil Gaiman wrote a Batman story and even more interested to see that he was invited to write the death of Batman.

I found this collection really interesting because of Gaiman’s stature as a young adult author.  Naturally, Batman has more name recognition but Gaiman might bring some young adult fans to Batman who wouldn’t otherwise consider the comic book genre. I also wanted to see how a well regarded novelist would treat a traditional comic book character. To me, this is like fan fiction written by a fiction expert. All very interesting…

The story opens with an introduction where Gaiman explains his choice to write the episode along with his approach to writing a “death of Batman” story.  I found out that Gaiman had written comics before and included Batman in his story in cameo type appearances. Knowing the genre well, he knew Batman’s death would inevitably be followed by Batman’s revival or Batman’s resurrection, so he endeavored, he explains in the introduction, to write a death that will stick.

At the beginning of the story, he puts Batman in a coffin, with all the most popular villains coming to pay their respects. A few of the time-honored characters step up to explain Batman’s demise, offering wildly different accounts.

In the end, this Batman comic ends up being a very complex treatment of the death of Batman. I definitely enjoyed it and I feel that I got my money’s worth, since I guessed that Gaiman would do something unexpected with this “final” episode.  The story does have some mature scenes, with some suggestion of sex and violence, so I would recommend it for readers 7^th grade or older.