Hey guys! How's it going? I'm actually doing pretty well for a Saturday morning. Today I'm going to be reviewing the comic book adaptation of the 1995 movie, Batman Forever. It's a comic that I had when I was a kid, and right now I have it in the trade paperback collection, Batman: The Movies which contains the comic book adaptations of Batman, Batman Returns, Batman Forever, and Batman & Robin. So let's get right into it.
The thing I find interesting about this movie adaptation, as well as the ones for the other three Tim Burton/Joel Schumacher Batman movies, is that it was written by comic book veteran, Dennis O'Neil, who spent most of his career writing or editing Batman comics. I also find it interesting what they left out from the movie for this comic book version. For example, Bruce's struggle to be both Bruce Wayne and Batman is all but completely left out of here, aside from a brief conversation with Chase Meridian just before Alfred calls him on his wrist communicator to inform him that Dick had stolen the Batmobile. Even that is severely trimmed down from how it is in the movie. But that's the nature of adapting a movie into comic book form. More is cut to keep the page count down to over-sized comic book norms, unless it's expanded to full comic book mini-series form, which surprisingly didn't happen all that often, even back when comic book adaptations of movies were actually a thing.
I got this comic probably in 1996, after I already had the movie on VHS. My dad had taken me to the hospital, I think for an asthma attack or something like that, I don't remember what it was for. It was in the evening and we were only there for a few hours before they sent me home with some antibiotics, so it could've been for an infection. Anyway, while we waited for test results, my dad took me down to the gift shop, and I saw this comic on the shelf and my dad bought it for me so I would at least have something to do if the doctors decided to admit me to the hospital. Apart from it being the comic book adaptation of my second favourite Batman movie (my first being 1966's Batman: The Movie), the reason I asked my dad to buy it for me is because I love the cover. I mean Batman and Robin are in a classic pose, and Riddler and Two-Face are above them. That's like the perfectly classic 90s comic book cover right there so of course I wanted it.
I'm not familiar with the penciler on this book, Michal Dutkiewicz. I don't think he did anything else for DC unless I'm horribly mistaken. However, the inker is Scott Hanna and he's done tons of work for DC Comics, on various Batman titles. Mainly Detective Comics in the 90s.
That's pretty much all I have to say about this comic because I haven't talked about the movie yet and I don't want to go too in depth here. I will say that this is a pretty good comic book adaptation. Yes, it leaves some things out, and changes a couple of scenes around a little, but it's a fun read. Especially if you read it after watching the movie. Or while you're watching the movie as a side by side comparison. I'm still hoping to get an individual copy of the issue again since I got rid of my original copy, and I have the other three Burton/Schumacher Batman movie comic book adaptations individually already, as well as in the trade paperback collection I have that I mentioned earlier.
Alright guys that's going to be it for me for today. I'm going to be starting to watch Flash Gordon tonight for my other blog, so expect that review to come out on Tuesday or Wednesday. For here though I got a VHS post coming out on Monday, and then maybe I'll have a review of Animorphs: The Encounter for you around then too. We'll see though. In the meantime have a great rest of your weekend and I will talk to you later. Take care.
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