CONSUMER ADVICE

Parents, need to be aware that this is not their grandfathers Batman book, this is a new age Batman book. The story presented in this book is dark, it can be gruesome, and it can be downright frightening sometimes. In this book people are killed, tortured, some of the characters are mentally insane and sick, and there is some mild innuendo. If this was made into a movie, I'm pretty positive that it would be given an R rating. Batman fans rejoice, this is one of the best Batman stories since "Batman: The Dark Knight Returns." If you aren't a big fan of Batman then you should read this anyway, as it may change your mind and make a Batman fan out of you yet! People who don't like American comics need not worry: This actually isn't an American comic book.

In case you didn't know, American comics are NOT popular in Japan! At all. This is a topic that must be discussed before we can properly look at the reason as to why this book is so important. Comics are viewed at very differently in Japan then they are in America. In Japan comics are looked at like a form of literature, everyone reads them from the young people to the old. In America comics are looked at to be read only by anti-social nerds and Star Wars geeks (sorry, I had to tell you the truth). In Japan the goal is that a single author will have some editors at his/her disposal, write the comic, and when the author wants to end the story he/she does. In America the point of a series is to keep it going for as long as it can possibly go, with various different authors and artists, and along the lines somewhere the story gets a little confusing and tends to contradict itself sometimes. Do you see any differences yet? Simply put, American comics are a nitch market in Japan, and no one over there really cares for them. Well...almost no one that is.

Kia Asamiya is a famous Japanese manga artist who has created such fan favorite anime and manga series such as "Steam Detectives," "Nadesico," and "Corrector Yui," among other series. For some reason Kia is one of the few people in Japan who has a real appreciation for American comics, and his favorite American comic creation is none other then Batman (by the way Kia, Batman's my favorite too). Kia was always fascinated by this character (and to be honest there's a lot to admire about Batman), and Kia was kind of saddened that more people in Japan didn't appreciate him more. Well Kia felt that that needed to change, and he penned his own Batman story, even though creating a story based on an American superhero was considered suicide for a manga artist (again, American comics just aren't very popular in Japan). I can't tell you for sure whether or not this was a success in Japan or not, but you do need to know this: This is a REALLY good take on the Batman mythology!

The story begins with a Japanese news reporter name Yuko Yagi heading to Gotham City with a single mission in mind: To get an interview with the legendary superhero Batman! Yuko arrives in Gotham City, and almost immediately gets into trouble. You see, Batman's long time nemesis Two Face has barricaded himself inside a building and is holding lots of people as hostages in it. Yuko decides that this is her chance to not only get an exclusive scoop of the situation for herself, but this is the kind of thing that draws Batman out of hiding, which gives her a chance to get her interview. Being the journalist that she is, Yuko has no trouble finding a secret passage inside the building that no cop has discovered yet (which would be helpful to the police since this passage could double as a way to save hostages). When she gets at the end of the passage she is taken hostage by Two Face immediately, who decides to give her a chance to live or die by flipping his famous double-headed coin. However the coin never lands though because Batman shows up just in the nick of time to save everyone. Yuko tries to get an interview with Batman, but he just shrugs her off and tells her to go home, as he's not talking to any reporters. Yuko though is determined not to give up on getting the exclusive interview with Batman, and she vows that she will stay in Gotham as long as she needs to to get her interview.

However her quest for an interview brings up a strange incident. On the way to Arkham, Two Face dies! And what’s worse is that his body drys up and turns into a mummy in a matter of hours. Shortly afterward Penguin, Riddler, and even Joker (my personal favorite villain) all show up, and the same thing happens to them too! All leads to the incident are going sour, except for one: Yuko. Batman suspects that Yuko may be involved in this somehow since this whole thing started happening when she showed up, but investigating her further (VIA Bruce Wayne) just leads to more dead ends. So what is going on exactly? What is happening to all the classic villains? What is Yuko's role in the whole thing? And will Yuko ever get her interview? The answers can all be found in "Batman: Child of Dreams." Right off the bat I'm going to say that this story may be one of the best Batman stories in a long time! We have Batman in all his glory, a mystery that is multi-layered and interesting till the end, great art, and all the characters we know and love in the Batman universe.

Plus Kia's unique story telling and artwork add's a whole lot to this story that would otherwise be your standard Batman fare, which includes the many story twists, sick revelations, and very gothic art. However DC Comics presentation is a mixed bag. For starters they flipped the artwork, which causes a couple of mistakes to pop up in the art. Things like reverse Japanese letters, Bruce Wayne driving on the wrong side of the road, and other things are annoying. Oh sure they're just nitpicks, but Kia's artwork and attention to detail is so strong, that you do notice all these little artwork "glitches," and it can be very distracting. Another thing they did was hire Max Allen Collins to do the translation of the book. Collins is best known as the author to the best selling book "Road To Perdition." Collins skills as a writer are excellent, but his translation skills are a little but more sketchy. While the translation is decent over all, he fails to include any Japanese terms, phrases, or nick names Japanese people usually use (just for the record, Batman ends up going to Japan in this story, so the translations sur-names are important). It's an overall decent translation, but it just doesn't work as a whole.

DC Comics have done everyone a great service by making this a hardcover book, and a very nice one at that. Seriously folks, this book is most likely going to last you forever its made so well (keep in mind that the hardcover book will last forever, if you pick up the soft cover edition the life span of the book is in your hands). However because of this extra expense of the title, the book is shrink wrapped, so there is no way for someone to be able to read this without buying it. That's not a complaint in my book since this book is so good you'll want to buy it and read it multiple time, but I know some people feel a little uneasy about buying books they can't "sample" at the bookstore first. I should also make a not that even though the artwork is excellent, Kia's Bruce Wayne model is a little off, and if you had no idea this was a Batman book you wouldn't be able to tell that that was Bruce Wayne at all. Overall this is a very good Batman book that fans of Batman (and people in general) should read. It's got a very intriguing story, the characters are as complex in this book as you'd want them to be, and the whole thing just oozes with quality. Hopefully this won't be the last Batman story we get from Kia Asamiya.