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about_facesThe Untold Legend of Batman was a three-part miniseries from 1980 by Len Wein, John Byrne, and Jim Aparo that served as my first introduction to all things Gotham. And what an introduction! The mini served as a perfect distillation of Bat-mythos up to the Bronze Age, all in the framework of a mystery.
Like any good mystery, one needs suspects, and this led to Batman giving a brief tour of Rogues 101, with the Joker and Two-Face getting full page origins. In keeping with the series, they boiled Harvey's origin down to the pure, iconic minimum, and you can bet this page made an impact on li'l Heffie:
Between this and my other earliest comic, the third part of A Lonely Place of Dying, Aparo's Batman cemented itself as the Batman in my mind for many years, and his Two-Face (usually wearing an oh-so-70's white turtleneck) remains one of my personal favorites.
So yeah, you can throw The Untold Legend of Batman on the list of great comics that are sorely in need of being collected. Keep an eye out for the back issues, if you can find them. Sure, it's a bit hokey, but if you have a taste for Bronze Age Batman, this is truly one of the best gems that era ever produced.
Fun fact: I got these issues as prizes in the Batman movie breakfast cereal. I think they just recycled the same crap for the Mario/Zelda cereal. I can still taste them now. Oh, so gross.
Like any good mystery, one needs suspects, and this led to Batman giving a brief tour of Rogues 101, with the Joker and Two-Face getting full page origins. In keeping with the series, they boiled Harvey's origin down to the pure, iconic minimum, and you can bet this page made an impact on li'l Heffie:
Between this and my other earliest comic, the third part of A Lonely Place of Dying, Aparo's Batman cemented itself as the Batman in my mind for many years, and his Two-Face (usually wearing an oh-so-70's white turtleneck) remains one of my personal favorites.
So yeah, you can throw The Untold Legend of Batman on the list of great comics that are sorely in need of being collected. Keep an eye out for the back issues, if you can find them. Sure, it's a bit hokey, but if you have a taste for Bronze Age Batman, this is truly one of the best gems that era ever produced.
Fun fact: I got these issues as prizes in the Batman movie breakfast cereal. I think they just recycled the same crap for the Mario/Zelda cereal. I can still taste them now. Oh, so gross.
