Batman: Year One

Batman: Year One is an American comic book story arc written by Frank Miller and illustrated by David Mazzucchelli. Year One was originally published by DC Comics in Batman #404-407 monthly issues format in 1987. The story recounts Batman's first year as a crime-fighter as well as exploring the life of recently transferred Gotham police detective Jim Gordon, building towards their first encounter and their eventual alliance against Gotham's criminal underworld.

Publication history

Development

In an effort to resolve continuity errors in the DC Universe, Marv Wolfman and George Pérez produced the 12-issue limited series Crisis on Infinite Earths. Wolfman's plans for the DC Universe after Crisis on Infinite Earths included relaunching every DC comic with a new first issue.
During the production of Crisis on Infinite Earths, Frank Miller was the writer of Marvel Comics' Daredevil where he finished his long run with the character in issue #191. He went on to work for DC and produced the influential four-issue limited series Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. Dennis O'Neil, who was the editor for Miller's run on Daredevil, took over the duty as the regular writer, with David Mazzucchelli as the artist. In 1985, Miller briefly returned to Marvel as the writer of Daredevil only for issue #219, while also fully committed himself into developing Dark Knight Returns. By the time the Daredevil series reached issue #226 in 1986, Miller and Mazzucchelli collaborated for the first time due to O'Neil's departure from Marvel and return to DC. Miller and Mazzucchelli collaborated again on the critically acclaimed issues #227-233, which were eventually collected as the trade paperback Daredevil: Born Again. Mazzucchelli subsequently departed from Marvel to pursue personal creative endeavour.
The contract Miller signed to produce Dark Knight Returns also required him to write a revamped Batman origin story. "Year One" was originally conceived as a graphic novel. O'Neil, who had been asked to edit several issues of Batman, was friends with Miller and was able to learn of the story. Reflecting on poor sales of Batman, O'Neil caught Miller one day while on a walk in Los Angeles and convinced him and Mazzucchelli to serialize the story in the ongoing series. Miller was initially reluctant; he felt this would be hard because he had to ensure the story stayed canonical to the DC Universe, something he did not have to worry about when writing Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. In addition, Miller's pacing would have to be altered because of ongoing series' relatively small page counts. O'Neil reasoned that Crisis on Infinite Earths had completely remade the DC Universe, so Miller would be able to have the same creative freedom that Dark Knight Returns provided. He also reassured Miller that he and Mazzucchelli "weren't going to lose anything" by serializing it.
Miller has said he kept Bob Kane and Bill Finger's basic story for Year One but expanded it. In writing the story, Miller looked for parts of Batman's origin that were never explored. He left the core elements, such as the murder of Bruce's parents, intact, but reduced them to brief flashbacks. Bruce's globe-trotting adventures were removed, as Miller found them uninteresting. Rather than portraying Batman as a larger-than-life icon as he had in The Dark Knight Returns, Miller chose to characterize Batman in Year One as an average, inexperienced man trying to make a change in society because Miller believed a superhero is least interesting when most effective. Examples of this include Batman underestimating his opponents, getting shot by police, and his costume being too big. The story's violence was kept street-level and gritty, emphasizing noir and realism.

Artwork

Miller's past projects for Daredevil overwhelmed him since he had to handle both writing and illustration duties simultaneously. For Year One, he once again relied on a comic book artist for illustrations while he simply wrote the story and the script. Mazzucchelli signed on to illustrate the artwork after accepting Miller's offering to do Batman. The team also consisted of Mazzucchelli's wife Richmond Lewis who was in charge of coloring, Todd Klein as the story's letterer, and O'Neil editing the overall story.
In illustrating, Mazzucchelli sought to make Year One look grimy, dark, and muted. His interpretation of Gotham City was designed to symbolize corruption, featuring muddy colors that gave the impression of the city being dirty and needing a hero, so Mazzucchelli took on Year One with a more grounded and darker approach. Mazzucchelli envisioned Year One as one full story published in graphic novel. He specifically opted to use the process color paper that was used in Miller's Dark Knight Returns as printing paper rather than the usual newsprint paper used in most Batman titles because this paper material is designed to print lots of colors, more than what newsprint was capable of. There was a sudden change to what Mazzucchelli initially had planned out when O'Neil convinced him to serialize the story into the monthly issues run and retain newsprint as the printing paper. In 1988, Year One was published in the collected edition. DC gave Mazzucchelli the approval of using the process color paper as printing paper. With many sets of color available from the color hue, Lewis recolored the entire story in order to match the visuals printed on the paper.

Publication

In accordance with Wolfman's plans, O'Neil initially saw "Year One" as the start of the second volume of Batman and expected the first part to be its first issue. However, Miller rejected this idea. He explained: "I don't need to slash through continuity with a sharp blade as I thought. Doing The Dark Knight Returns has shown me there's been enough good material... I didn't feel that fleshing out an unknown part of Batman's history justified wiping out 50 years of ." Thus, the four "Year One" issues bear no continuity to past issues of Batman.

Title	Issue	Cover date
"Chapter One: Who I Am – How I Come to Be"	Batman #404	February 1987
"Chapter Two: War Is Declared"	Batman #405	March 1987
"Chapter Three: Black Dawn"	Batman #406	April 1987
"Chapter Four: Friend in Need"	Batman #407	May 1987

Collected editions

Following the completion of the 404–407 monthly issues run, Year One received several reprints over the years: collected edition in hardcover and trade paperbacks, several deluxe editions in hardcover and paperback format, an Absolute Edition, and an Artist's Edition published by IDW Publishing.
In 1988, Year One was published as collected edition in hardcover and trade paperback. Both Warner Books and Titan Books also published trade paperbacks in 1988.
In 1989, Longmeadow Press published The Complete Frank Miller Batman, collecting Year One, Wanted: Santa Claus - Dead or Alive!, and The Dark Knight Returns.
In April 2005, DC released the "Deluxe Edition" of Year One in hardcover to coincide with the release of Batman Begins. This edition reuses the printing paper from the 1988 collected edition with Mazzucchelli supplying the promotional and unseen Batman art, Lewis' color samples, some of the original penciled artwork, and some pages of the original script as bonus materials. The cover was designed by Mazzucchelli and graphic designer Chip Kidd. The trade paperback was later published in Feb 2007.
The hardcover deluxe edition was re-released in March 2012. Mazzucchelli clarified that DC never contacted him to design this edition. Having been sent a copy of the book by DC, Mazzucchelli was unhappy with the quality and opined that "Anybody who's already paid for should send it back to DC and demand a refund.".
In November 2014, to celebrate Batman's 75th anniversary, DC released a sample of Year One as a part of its DC Comics Essentials line of promotional comics.
In 2015, DC released a hardcover of Year One which included its 2011 animated film adaptation on both DVD and Blu-ray.
In November 2016, DC released a 288-page Absolute Edition of Year One. This edition comes in a slipcase with two hardcover books. Book One features a whole new scanning from the original artworks by Mazzucchelli and remastered coloring by Lewis, while Book Two features scanning pages directly from the physical copies of the 404-407 monthly issues. Over 60 pages of bonus materials are also included, including Miller's complete scripts in Book Two.
In September 2017, the hardcover deluxe edition was re-released again, this time with the same printing paper and coloring as Book One of the 2016 Absolute Edition.
In March 2022, to coincide with the release of The Batman, DC released The Batman Box Set, collecting trade paperbacks of Year One, The Long Halloween, and Ego and Other Tails in a slipcase with art by Jim Lee. Director Matt Reeves cited the three graphic novels as the major influences for the film.
In August 2024, IDW Publishing published the Artist's Edition of Year One in a 144-page hardcover. Mazzucchelli personally supplied the artworks for scanning with Chip Kidd serving as the designer of the book. The 250 copies limited edition was exclusively available only for pre-ordering on the IDW's official website; this version includes a slipcase, a variant design of the front cover, and Mazzucchelli's personal signature printed in an interior page.

Title	Material collected	Format	Publisher	Region	Released dates	ISBN
Batman Year One	Batman #404-407	HC	DC Comics	US
Batman Year One	Batman #404-407	TPB	DC Comics	US
Batman Year One	Batman #404-407	TPB	Warner Books	US
Batman Year One	Batman #404-407	TPB	Titan Books	UK
Batman Year One: Deluxe Edition	Batman #404-407	HC	DC Comics	US
Batman Year One: Deluxe Edition	Batman #404-407	TPB	DC Comics	US
Batman Year One: Deluxe Edition	Batman #404-407	HC	DC Comics	US
Absolute Batman Year One	Batman #404-407	HC	DC Comics	US
Batman Year One: The Deluxe Edition	Batman #404-407	HC	DC Comics	US
David Mazzucchelli's Batman Year One Artist's Edition	Batman #404-407	HC	IDW Publishing	US		Standard edition:
David Mazzucchelli's Batman Year One Artist's Edition	Batman #404-407	HC	IDW Publishing	US		Limited edition: