Nightwalkers are terrorizing Gotham City.
The city’s elites are being taken out one by one as their mansions’ security systems turn against them, trapping them like prey.
Bruce Wayne is next on their list.
Bruce is about to become eighteen and inherit his family’s fortune, not to mention the keys to Wayne Industries and all the tech gadgetry that he loves. But on the way home from his birthday party, he makes an impulsive choice and is sentenced to community service at Arkham Asylum, the infamous prison that holds the city’s most nefarious criminals.
Madeleine Wallace is a killer…and Bruce’s only hope.
The most intriguing inmate in Arkham is Madeleine, a brilliant girl with ties to the Nightwalkers. A girl who will speak only to Bruce. She’s the mystery he has to unravel, but is he convincing her to divulge secrets, or is he feeding her the information she needs to bring Gotham to its knees?
To those of you who like comics, or are even intrigued by the characters, I think that Batman: Nightwalker is a pretty good introduction to the character and franchise. This book is about Bruce Wayne before he becomes the brooding, daddy-issues tech billionaire that we all know and somewhat love.
We see all familiar characters, like Alfred, the best butler and guardian that anyone could ask for (you see him in a little bit of action later on in the book, where it hints at his past), Harvey Dent (before he becomes Two-Face), and a cameo of one of our favorite police officers nearer to the end.
The book pulled me in from the beginning with a murder. Nothing is shown about Bruce Wayne until later, when you find out exactly how he ends up doing community service at Arkham. Harvey is a friend of Bruce’s and they attend the same high school with a girl named Diane, another friend of Bruce’s. They’re about to graduate, with Diane and Harvey off to college in a few months.
The content of this book is kind of predictable but still makes for a good read. Marie Lu, the author, does pretty well at capturing Bruce’s analytical, almost cocky nature and balancing it with the vulnerability that he shows only to Alfred.
She does pretty well with characterizing Madeleine as well. Mysterious, smart, and pretty, there was no way that she wouldn’t capture Bruce’s attention. Add to the fact that Madeleine knows that she has Bruce’s attention, this is all that she needs to manipulate Bruce into getting what she wants.
All in all, I enjoyed this book. I would like a little bit more in Madeleine’s characterization and I would have liked to get to know Diane a bit more. The covers, in my opinion, could have been much better. They weren’t attractive to me, and if I wasn’t a fan of DC comics or comic books in general, I probably wouldn’t have gotten the book. (This goes for all of the covers in the DC Icons series, including the upcoming Superman novel.) As I did get the collector’s edition, I enjoyed the little gift that came at the back of the book and Marie Lu’s signature in the beginning.
I know that this review took a moment, but I’m happy to present it to you! Batman: Nightwalker is available at Books-A-Million, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon. Watch out for Superman: Dawnbreaker, which comes out next year!
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