Batman: No Man's Land - TPB Rant

*Spitfire* · 03-24-2009, 01:23 AM

Anyone read the entire series of this? I could only get my hands on the trades and I'm so far rather disappointed with them. I feel they did a poor job on them. For one there's 84 total comics that were apart of the series and only 40 made it into the trades. There's points where I have no clue what's happening. My only semi-saving grace is I have several issues of Nightwing and Robin that take place during No Man's Land someone gave me when they were cleaning out their house. I still doubt this will fill in all the holes in the story left by the trades.

The story doesn't feel like it flows it sorta just jumps around from one story arc to another and they toss in random one issue stories to tie them together. Half the time characters randomly pop up and we're just supposed to know who they are and where they came from. When I have to look up what happened online to figure out what the characters are talking about I find that to be pretty poor.

The same thing happened to me with Knightfall. The entire Knightquest section of the story wasn't even collected. I know I could go after the singular issues if I wanted but I have no idea what order to read them in since these series take place across several different series. Also because they did this a lot of those issues are rare and sought after by other collectors.

Any idea why DC decides to omit stuff from the trades? The Cataclysm trade is twice the size of the other NML trades and cost about 20 bucks, which is what the other trades cost, around 17. I don't see why they couldn't have just included all the issues I'm sure people wouldn't mind paying 3 more dollars a trade to have everything.

*shuriken* · 03-24-2009, 01:43 AM

yeah I know what you mean. Batman RIP kinda felt that way too. As for Knightfall I wish they would have included when Bane first started f**king with Batman as opposed to the Arkham break in.

*Mr._Mutant_Man* · 04-07-2009, 09:50 PM

I also wonder why they never collected Knightquest. It results in a gap in the story if you're just following the trades.

I wonder the same thing about the colorized TMNT books, too. They leave out the first Casey Jones appearance, which means if you only read those books he shows up out of nowhere later.

*Cipher* · 04-07-2009, 11:05 PM

The American comics industry is whack. They make it so daunting to try to read a series. I'm not huge into manga, but they could take a serious page from the Japanese and have collections of all material regularly available.

And requiring you to read auxiliary series is something that has always irked me.

*Spitfire* · 04-08-2009, 04:54 AM

I finished this series, it was eh. The ending was very intense but that was only because the last two trades actually had a solid storyline that went together.

It's so rare a trade covers all it's bases. I just opened up "Batman: War Drums" which is a prelude to "War Games". Anyways the first two pages are describing everything that you need to know that happened pertaining to the story. It was a nice recap. I've read every story they mentioned except "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive"

03-24-2009, 01:23 AM	#1
Spitfire Writer • Director Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 12,035	Batman: No Man's Land - TPB Rant Anyone read the entire series of this? I could only get my hands on the trades and I'm so far rather disappointed with them. I feel they did a poor job on them. For one there's 84 total comics that were apart of the series and only 40 made it into the trades. There's points where I have no clue what's happening. My only semi-saving grace is I have several issues of Nightwing and Robin that take place during No Man's Land someone gave me when they were cleaning out their house. I still doubt this will fill in all the holes in the story left by the trades. The story doesn't feel like it flows it sorta just jumps around from one story arc to another and they toss in random one issue stories to tie them together. Half the time characters randomly pop up and we're just supposed to know who they are and where they came from. When I have to look up what happened online to figure out what the characters are talking about I find that to be pretty poor. The same thing happened to me with Knightfall. The entire Knightquest section of the story wasn't even collected. I know I could go after the singular issues if I wanted but I have no idea what order to read them in since these series take place across several different series. Also because they did this a lot of those issues are rare and sought after by other collectors. Any idea why DC decides to omit stuff from the trades? The Cataclysm trade is twice the size of the other NML trades and cost about 20 bucks, which is what the other trades cost, around 17. I don't see why they couldn't have just included all the issues I'm sure people wouldn't mind paying 3 more dollars a trade to have everything. __________________ Check out my online portfolio http://www.christopherpelletier.com/

03-24-2009, 01:43 AM	#2
shuriken Second City Shinobi Join Date: Jul 2005 Location: Chi-town Posts: 4,182	yeah I know what you mean. Batman RIP kinda felt that way too. As for Knightfall I wish they would have included when Bane first started f**king with Batman as opposed to the Arkham break in. __________________ Some things are better left unsaid. This isn't one of them

04-08-2009, 04:54 AM	#5
Spitfire Writer • Director Join Date: Mar 2004 Location: Los Angeles Posts: 12,035	I finished this series, it was eh. The ending was very intense but that was only because the last two trades actually had a solid storyline that went together. It's so rare a trade covers all it's bases. I just opened up "Batman: War Drums" which is a prelude to "War Games". Anyways the first two pages are describing everything that you need to know that happened pertaining to the story. It was a nice recap. I've read every story they mentioned except "Bruce Wayne: Fugitive" __________________ Check out my online portfolio http://www.christopherpelletier.com/

04-07-2009, 09:50 PM	#3
Mr._Mutant_Man Mad Scientist Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 2,340	I also wonder why they never collected Knightquest. It results in a gap in the story if you're just following the trades. I wonder the same thing about the colorized TMNT books, too. They leave out the first Casey Jones appearance, which means if you only read those books he shows up out of nowhere later.

04-07-2009, 11:05 PM	#4
Cipher Foot Elite Join Date: Nov 2007 Posts: 3,454	The American comics industry is whack. They make it so daunting to try to read a series. I'm not huge into manga, but they could take a serious page from the Japanese and have collections of all material regularly available. And requiring you to read auxiliary series is something that has always irked me.