Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight as a Digital Exclusive

Comics News
Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight as a Digital Exclusive
By Dan Horn
June 7, 2012 - 11:22

DC Comics
$0.99 US

According to DC, today will mark the digital release of the debut issue of its new Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight series. No word on what time the launch will actually take place, but stay tuned to ComicBookBin for a review in the near future. The first installment will be available at dccomics.com and on Comixology and their DC Comics reader app for 99 cents. The series will see a weekly digital release every Thursday with six weeks of creative teams already announced:

June 7 – “The Butler Did It” written by Damon Lindelof with artwork by Jeff Lemire

June 14 – “All of the Above” written by Jonathan Larsen with artwork by JG Jones

June 21– “The Crime Never Committed” written by Tom Taylor with artwork by Nicola Scott and Wayne Faucher

June 28 – “Crisis of Identity” Part 1 written by B. Clay Moore with artwork by Ben Templesmith

July 5 – “Crisis of Identity” Part 2 written by B. Clay Moore with artwork by Ben Templesmith

July 12 – “Crisis of Identity” Part 3 written by B. Clay Moore with artwork by Ben Templesmith

The original Legends of the Dark Knights series was one of the publisher's mainstay Batman books, having a long and rich publication run from 1989 to 2007 which spanned over 214 issues (including annuals and the Zero Hour #0). In LOTDK, readers were treated to Grant Morrison's first Batman story "Gothic," Matt Wagner's absolutely brilliant three-issue arc "Faces" (of which you can read at length here), Mike Mignola's eery "Sanctum," and even some oddities like Warren Ellis' "Infected." Though the series was known to be a continuity null, perhaps its most widely known contributions to the Batman mythos were those arcs that presented new facets of Batman's history. "Venom" showed readers a Batman that could fail and a Bruce Wayne that was an addict, while "Prey" became the inspiration for many of our contemporary Batman stories in other media.

As for the new continuity-neutral series' digital format, my inner-collector mourns, but my outer pragmatist celebrates the fact that digital comics don't pile up in dusty stacks around my office. If the other DC digital releases are any indication, Legends of the Dark Knight will see are hard copy release sometime in the near future should digital sales prove to be satisfactory.