I wasnt overly fond of the villain. The Reaper just felt subpar.

Feels like a comic book from the 40s, only it had no excuse to feel this way because it was written 80 years later. Even the Reaper from the 40s looked better than this one for God's sake.So this has nothing to do with Year One, it is more like a one-shot about a stupid villain called The Reaper and how Batman HAD TO work with Joe Chill (the killer of his parents) in order to take him down.The Reaper happens to be the father of this lady that Bruce\Batman is flirting with, this direct relation i...

5 🌟Batman faces off against the Reaper.

I realise I don’t have the worst life in the world, that there’s probably some poor sod in the third world eking out a single meal to feed his family today, and if the worst thing that happened to me today is that I read a bad Batman book, it’s still streets ahead of what that guy’s going through - but Batman Year Two: Fear the Reaper makes you feel worse than that guy while you’re reading it. It’s a book so bad you lose perspective on everything and start howling out your frustration at the inj...

I’m sitting here side-eyeing this book in pure judgment. Batman teams up with the guy who killed his parents? What.First, how did Bruce not rage kill this guy years ago? You know, like back when Batman actually killed people. He has all this trauma from his parent’s deaths, which molded him into a violence machine, and he turned his daily self, Bruce Wayne, into his alter-ego. This guy is so dedicated to Batman that he swears Batman is his true personality and Bruce Wayne is an image. He even we...

Want to read some fun old school (late 80s/early 90s) Batman adventures? This title volume might be for you! Having read some of the recent volumes of Batman from the new Rebirth series I felt I needed a break from things “new” and maybe explore some just good old fashion Batman fight against crime and villain. I’m happy to say this work delivered! This is the 30th anniversary edition that collects the stories under the story arc of “Batman: Year Two.” That means this was originally from 1987 (s...

Collects the original Batman: Year Two arc, from Detective Comics 875-878 (maybe it's 575-578) and the Batman: Full Circle graphic novel. Well done, although not quite as heady as Batman: Year One was.

Year One is timeless. Year Two is written & illustrated like a bad Saturday morning cartoon.This story is quintessential 90's: a cheesy bad-guy spouting tacky catch phrases like "Fear the Reaper". Cheesy writing that tries to be "dark" while also being dumbed down for 12 year old boys to understand. If you came expecting a well written mature comic like Year One - which this is supposed to be a sequel to - then you've come to the wrong place.Alan Davis provides great pencils for the first and la...

I just gave this a second read, I thought it was boring the first time around (when I was a teen) and now i see that this a complete travesty, this is not Batman. ...Or unless he's such a rookie.. So inexperienced that he makes about the dumbest mistakes and comes up with the dumbest plans. Hmmm.. Nope, he can't be that stupid and that cowardly to need help. This is a bad plot. Avoid.On the plus side.. Alan Davis and Todd McFarlane on art. Batman: Mask of the Phantasm animated movie semi based o...

Okay, it's no Year One but I still had a great time reading this book. It's pulpy, action-packed fun. There are some stunning panels of atmospheric art, especially in the later issues drawn by Todd McFarlane. It explores the effects of Batman using a gun, which might seem crazy to us now, but you have to remember this is supposed to be Batman's second year on the streets of Gotham. The villain is completely over the top, but there was something about him that drew me in. It's a shame Bruce's rel...

I might have read these stories years ago. They sure bring back good memories. A very good follow-up to the Year One classic. Kept me involved during the whole Reaper storyline. A different end to Joe Chill, but still one he deserved. Highly recommended for Batman fans!

2 1/2 starsThis was... okay. I guess. I dunno. I know that following up Batman Year One is a pretty daunting task (maybe Nolan in his version could do it well... for the most part), but... what's telling is the intro to the book, which is a collection of four issues mostly drawn by S is for Spawn auteur Todd McFarland, where writer Mike Barr says he wrote about 75% of this series originally for a REJECTED series called Batman 1980 (albeit Barr says this was before Frank Miller came along and sal...

Um... one of the more crazier Batman stories I've ever read. There's just a lot of...questionable actions that Batman does over the course of this book that really make you just shake your head and sigh. Batman.... wielding guns? Working with the killer of his parents to take down a middle age villain with no superpowers? (I mean the dude literally just carries some guns and a some scythes.) Totally obsessed with killing said killer of parents/ally? Being a complete and utter jerk to Alfred and

Batman: Year Two is famous for two things. One is as the basis for the Batman: Mask of the Phantasm film, which loosely adapted elements of the storyline to tell a much better story. The second reason is that it’s really awful.While I won’t argue the first point at all, I don’t think it’s terrible. It’s perfectly readable and interesting. It’s just got some awful ideas in it. It’s almost as if someone at DC forced their ideas onto Mike Barr. In fact, all the really bad stuff is introduced in the...

I was never a superhero fan as a kid -- strictly horror comics here! (EERIE, CREEPY, VAMPIRELLA, Warren magazines forever!) But when I was required to read a few graphic novels for a course in library science -- think about that for a minute -- I picked this one up and I really liked it. As you all know, these DARK KNIGHT graphic novels are nothing like the colorful BATMAN TV show late boomers of a certain age grew up watching! No Burt Ward, no Adam West, no fun and games, no ZAP! and POW! Inste...

Wow, this story felt soo forced! Pushing it from plot point to plot point without any regard to believabilty. No matter if it's Bruce's romance, him using the gun, Gordon sudden bathate or Bruce just deciding he'll shoot Chill in the end. WTF?! It's like some abridged version of a bigger storyline! Davies art is of course great, Todd is interesting if an aquired taste and Reaper's design IMHO is quite cool in 80s over-the-top grim'n'gritty heavy metal way. Still the story, while looking fairly i...

Year Two. Year Two would have been hard set to equal Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. It's hard to tell if it's for the best or worst that it didn't even try. But, it's certainly not to this comic's advantage that it largely ignores Year One. Gordon, recently made a Captain in the previous Year is now suddenly Commissioner, as if Barr just didn't want to deal with any of it. The corruption within the force? The crime lords? The promise of the Joker? All gone. (Oh, except the crime lords appear a...

This edition contains both Batman: Year Two and Batman: Fulll Circle.Rating for Batman: Year Two: 4.5/10Rating for Batman: Full Circle: 6/10Final Rating: 5.2/10Batman: Year Two is supposed to be a kind of sequel to Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli's Batman: Year One story. Unfortunately, the story doesn't live up to the one it is trying to follow. While there are some very interesting ideas being tackled here, the execution overall feels sloppy and a bit too convenient. The idea behind the ma...

Batman: Year Two - The 30th Anniversary Deluxe Edition collects two stories written by Mike Barr, namely, Fear the Reaper and Full Circle.Before there was Batman, Gotham City had a vigilante named the Reaper, who was brought about by a similar circumstance as to what Bruce Wayne experience. The main difference between the two vigilantes is that the Reaper is willing to kill to protect the citizens of Gotham. In Fear the Reaper, the Reaper returns to Gotham City after a long hiatus and Batman, on...

I honestly think this story gets way too much of a bum rap. It’s honestly quite amazing for something that had so much turmoil behind the scenes, and was from an editorial mandate. It has two of the best comic book artists of the 80’s-90’s, Alan Davis and Todd McFarlane on the art, and Mike Barr’s Batman contributions are far more influential than given credit for. Without this book, we wouldn’t have Mask of the Phantasm (though in many ways, it is fairly different, the bones are here) and witho...