Batman: Year One

Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham after twelve years away, set on fighting crime. That same winter, Lieutenant Jim Gordon arrives from Chicago to find a rotten police force. Fellow cops beat him on Commissioner Loeb's orders, and Bruce gets shot by police on his first masked outing. Wounded, he sees a bat crash into the manor and takes up the Batman identity. Crime drops, but Loeb sends the police after him and blackmails Gordon over an affair. In the end, mobster Johnny Viti takes Gordon's family hostage; on a bridge the baby falls and Batman saves him. Gordon lets the vigilante go, Loeb resigns, and Gordon is promoted to captain, about to meet Batman about someone called the Joker.

1. Behind the scenesMeant to be a graphic novel

   Year One was conceived as a graphic novel. Editor Dennis O'Neil talked Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli into serializing it in issues #404–407 of the monthly Batman title.

   source ↗
2. Behind the scenesThe Aronofsky film that never was

   Warner Bros. hired Darren Aronofsky to write and direct a Batman: Year One film. The project was shelved in 2001.

   source ↗
3. ReferenceGary Oldman's Gordon

   Batman Begins' Gordon comes from here. Writer David S. Goyer said Gary Oldman looked just like Mazzucchelli's Gordon, and the corrupt-police plot device also comes from the comic.

   source ↗
4. ReferenceOn Matt Reeves's reading list

   Matt Reeves named Year One among the comics he drew on for The Batman, which shows the hero early in his career.

   source ↗
5. SetupA teaser at the end

   The last page teases the next foe: Gordon, now a captain, tells Batman about a criminal calling himself the Joker.

   source ↗