Standing here solidly on my own two hands and going crazy

18. Batman Year One; Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli (144 pages)

So, I'm not a ten year old boy. I'm a thirty-something woman who likes superheroes. You have something to say about that??

I never read comics as a kid, but I loved my heroes. Always liked Batman (somewhere, in a box upstairs, is a blue, heavy plastic hair brush with Batman as the handle; I've had it since I was four.). Wonder Woman was one of my 'role models', as it were, as a child.

I had a single issue of Wonder Woman when I was nine or ten, but in a story depressingly similar to millions of other children, my mother threw it away (note to self: never throw Alex's comic books, collectible cards, etc, in the trash).

It's only recently I've started reading them, have I learned what I've been missing!

Batman Year One is phenomenal. I mean, seriously. It's gritty, and real; from the artwork I could almost hear Gotham City...I knew exactly what it would be like.

The story was, to no great surprise, very familiar. I'd heard Batman Begins was based heavily on this book, but I had no idea it was practically page for page!

But a wonderful re-introduction to the world of Bruce and his alter-ego; I will definitely be getting more (raising my stock in the eyes of Matt and his friends, for sure!).