Batman: No Man's Land - Vol 05

When Gotham was reduced to broken buildings and rubble by an earthquake registering 7.6 on the Richter scale, the city was deemed to be beyond repair by Congress. Gotham was evacuated and then its bridges blown up, its tunnels made inaccesible, its waterways mined. Those who remained in this No Man's Land were very much on their own. Without law and order, without electricity and running water, without its champion the Batman, Gotham descended into anarchy. Urban warfare erupted, as gangs carved up their own tribal territories and terrorized the weak and the innocent. One hundred days later, the Dark Knight finally appeared. BATMAN: NO MAN'S LAND was published nearly a decade ago, so none of this is really top secret stuff anymore. Still, SPOILERS alert for the following: BATMAN: NO MAN'S LAND Volume 5 is the final entry in the trades collecting the year-long No Man's Land story arc, which originally published in 1999. It starts with "Ground Zero," a 52-paged tale which takes us back to the early days of No Man's Land and fills in the gap between Bruce Wayne's failed attempt to influence Congress and Batman's eventual return to Gotham. This story also details how the Huntress became Batgirl. Bolstering the must-read factor is some of fantabulous artist Greg Land's early work. Back to present-day No Man's Land. By the 312th day, most of the gangs and supervillains have been taken out. After grueling months of scheming and feverish fighting, Batman finally senses an ending. In "Shellgame" Lex Luthor begins his publicity campaign to "save" Gotham and the Joker feels left out (never a good thing). As these issues begin, Batman and Commissioner Gordon may have reconciled but the same can't be said for Batman and the Huntress. The Huntress has joined up with vicious ex-cop Pettit and his Strong Boys, and, certainly, Batman believes there'll be some fallout from that. "Endgame" is the big finale to No Man's Land and features a Batman engaged in a showdown on two fronts - with Luthor, as his real estate takeover is revealed and with Joker, who on Christmas Eve has kidnapped Gotham's babies. It all culminates with Gotham City at last on its way to recovery, but there is also one final shattering tragedy. NO MAN'S LAND is one of the most ambitious storylines the Batman brain trust has ever attempted, and, if Wikipedia's right, only about half of the related comic book issues made it into these trade collections. I really enjoyed this huge story arc, a bit more even than KNIGHTFALL (see Batman: Knightfall, Part One: Broken Bat), which is also tremendous. I won't even harp too much on that the overall artwork failed to match the epic feel of this comic book event. But I'm into post-apocalyptic adventures, and this one definitely qualifies. And not only does NO MAN'S LAND focus on the Bat, but his supporting cast also gets plenty of attention. Sharp character development went into Oracle, James Gordon and Sarah Essen, the Huntress, and the near-mute Cassa

This is a great ending to this epic tale. I highly recommend it for any Batman fans. It has a shocker of an ending and things in the Batman universe are changed forever. Great writing and art make for an enjoyable tale even though the changing focus on different characters can be a little distracting.

No Man's Land volume I, II, III and IV was great, how all the major players of gotham came back and started wrecking havoc with Batman coming back in volume II after the earthquake, that left him there for a long time, but he managed to escape and the Bat is back and greater than ever in this book where the return of Bane and Joker is featured and cast including Nightwing, Oracle, Huntress and others this book sets out the standard of Batmans ability and his obsure keen for martial arts and dealing with physcos, The Vigilate that is Batman begins in the greastest Batman series, No Man's Land. 9/10.

This is a fitting conclusion to one of the best stories I've seen. Gotham destroyed in an earthquake, cut off from the rest of the world (no one in, no one out), fought over by various gangs, led by the police, super villains and the Batman himself. The series has been loaded with drama, suspense, action, great art--all in all you have to love it.

No Man's Land has produced some of the best and worst storylines along its twisted year long journey, in this book you will find neither. The writing is what you have come to expect out of Rucka, full of heroism and alpha-male posturing, and I mean that in a good way. In this book you will NOT be subjected to the wince inducing crap Larry Hama wrote into Book 3 and 4. This book is all Rucka, competent and steady, if not too terribly imaginative. In this concluding chapter, we find why Huntress wore the Bat-mask, and why that mask had the mouth sewn up. Bane appears in several scenes, not really contributing anything to the novel, except perhaps for a single funny scene with Joker. Speaking of which, Joker definitely makes this book. The final storyline "End Game" is the best in this book, although not as good as "Fear of Faith" from Book 1, it does come in a close second. Since most people reading this probably already own the four previous books, I suggest you buy this because it is a competent conclusion to the No Man's Land saga. For those of you who bought the Rucka hardcover book, I am going to go out on a limb and say that this graphic novel handles "End Game" definitely better than the book.