500th Review Celebration Extravaganza
Today we're going to look at one of my all time favorite Batman books, Sword of Azrael. It's too hard to review this series' individual issues, there's just so much crammed into each one, and frankly it reads better in trade. But the first thing I have to say about this book is that it's the reason I can't totally hate Joe Quesada, because the man does some absolutely eye popping artwork.
Good god does the man do some good artwork. Quesada's shadows hold such gripping depth and power, wrapping around everything in the volume in an eternal midnight. Sword of Azrael would have been NEARLY the masterpiece it is if it werent for the astounding and perfectly fitting artwork of Joe Quesada. The shadows and flames all have such sparks of life to them that it just blows me away, and enwraps me within the captivating story.
And what a story it is! Artwork can rarely completely make a story, but luckily this isn't slacking in either. The story is incredibly captivating and engagin. It begins almost as a steriotypical nerd fantasy story, where the hapless nerd is beset by fate, revealed to be a destined chosen warrior, with skills beyond a normal man buried in his subconscious. But the story is quickly twisted and corrupted, as anything touched by Gotham City does. Azrael spends much of the story straddling the line between protagonist and antagonist. Sometime's it's hard to tell who's really the one driving this story. Is it the eternal icon of heroism, The Dark Knight? Is it the newly winged angel of vengeance swept out of his world of normalcy into a crusade of shadow sects? Or perhaps it's the enigmatic and wicked servant of Biis, LeHah. Every character is given equal screen time to allow us to bask in their respective insanity. This delicate trinity is thrust into chaos and war with each other. We know who's more heroic and who's more wicked, but who's the one really driving this story? It's all three of them.
The action is fierce, and the panel layouts riddled with carefully crafted subtlety. The writer and the artist have formed a perfect synch with each other, and it makes the book feel like it's notably well made. It's in incredibly high octane action story that's swimming in the darkness of psychotic religious cults and conspiracies. It's absolutely everything a good Batman book should be, even when Batman may or may not be the most main character.
This may be a prequel story meant to begin the long chain of events that would eventually lead to Knightfall, but it works incredibly well as its own story, chock full of plotlines that carry on to Azrael's own ongoing series, rather than Knightfall.
The issue covers are absolutel gorgeous, and immensely intense. They've got the same blood, fire, and shadows that makers the interior art magnificent, but in spades. They've got such carefully chosen perspectives, some of them showing full characters, others much simpler ideas. The 4 issue covers balance each other out brilliantly.
In the end, I have to give this series a 5/5, but I have to add a side note that it is a personal huge favorite. It's just so rife with incredible intensity from absolutely every pore of it's being, and over a decade and a half later, it's still one of the best Azrael stories ever told, and reminds me most of the phenomenal 'Killer of Saints,' which rocketed it's writer David Hine striaght to my AAA+-List writers category. There's few comics I'd like to use for such a milestone as 500, and I'm incredibly proud to say Azrael easily deserves to be the one this time around. It's a quintessential Batman story, no matter what it leads to, and I'd advise any Batman fan to track this trade down.