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  • Archive Panic:
    • This arc is huge in every sense of the word. The bare bones of the arc itself, according to Wikipedia, comprise of material from Batman, Detective Comics, Shadow of the Bat, Legends of the Dark Knight, Robin, Catwoman, Showcase and Justice League Task Force. And that's not even getting into the supplementary material like the Vengeance of Bane special or the Sword of Azrael mini-series, as well as a dozen or so lead-in issues of both Batman and Detective that show Batman's fatigue building as well as introducing both Azrael and Bane into the regular cast. And there's the two epilogue series, Prodigal and Troika, which help the story chalk up over one hundred issues in total. And it wasn't helped by the fact that DC only packaged "Knightfall" and "KnightsEnd" in collected editions, but not either side of "Knightquest", though with the new "Knightfall" collection, it's been rectified somewhat: for some odd reason, "Knightfall" included Vengeance of Bane but left out Sword of Azrael while "Knightquest" only focused on "The Crusade" as Denny O'Neil considers "The Search" as something of an Old Shame.
    • To put it in perspective, the 2012-version paperbacks of the entire story is split up into three books. Each one is over 600 pages long.
    • The 2017 Omnibuses are the most complete collection released so far. The first volume collects the entirety of Knightfall, Vengeance of Bane and a number of prequel storylines setting up Knightfall (except Sword of Azrael) and the second volume collects both sides of Knightquest, finally averting Missing Episode, coming in at nearly 1000 pages. The third and final volume collects KnightsEnd, Prodigal and Troika, finally finishing up with Nightwing: Alfred's Return and Vengeance of Bane II. About the only issue excluded which needed to be in volume 3 is Robin #0 which sets up Dick Grayson's encounter with Two-Face that will haunt him for the first half of the Prodigal storyline.
  • Badass Decay: By the time of his final appearance in the story, Bane has lost a great deal of blood and has degenerated into a raving lunatic. After a few appearances where he was badass again, the decay set back in and continued for a while into the comics, as well as into Batman & Robin, where Bane was portrayed as Dumb Muscle. Thankfully, Secret Six and The Dark Knight Rises brought him back to his old, awesome self.
  • Ending Fatigue: After dozens and dozens of issues watching Bruce Wayne lose to Bane, hand the mantle of Batman over to Azrael, and work to get the mantle of Batman back from Azrael, Bruce Wayne finally defeats Azrael and... hands the mantle of Batman over to Dick Grayson and fucks off for another eight issues. Only then does he come back and become Batman for real.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: In Prelude to Knightfall, the father of Ulysses "The General" Armstrong says, "We can only hope" when one of his other kids asks if Ulysses will likely be executed over his crimes in that story. The way Ulysses brings misfortune and misery to his family in subsequent appearances can make the exchange feel a lot grimmer.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The protagonist overcomes their shaky confidence and claims their superhero identity by leaping off of a tall building. Are we talking about KnightsEnd, or Into the Spider Verse?
  • Misaimed Merchandising: Hasbro's Legends of Batman toyline, which was basically a tie-in toyline for this story outside of the Elseworld theme of the other figures, was marketed towards children. Thankfully, they showed some restraint by not doing figures based on characters like Zsasz or Abattoir. Still, making three figures of Az-Bats for kids and mentioning the events in quite a few of the figures' bios does enter "WTF" territory.
  • Moral Event Horizon: Jean-Paul letting Serial Killer Abattoir die rather than interrogating him, which doomed the hostage that Abattoir had to be crushed to death, since he was the only one who knew where she was. This was the moment when Bruce and everyone else considered Jean-Paul to have gone too far, and which led to Bruce making the decision to take back the mantle of the Bat from him.
  • Older Than They Think:
    • Dick Grayson had occasionally filled in for Bruce, but Prodigal was the first time he took over as Batman for an extended period.
    • The particular plot of Knightfall with Batman facing all his Rogues Gallery in a short timespan, was reused in all of the Batman: Arkham Series games.
  • Once Original, Now Common: Back in its day, Knightfall could be seen as the Badass Normal equivalent to The Death of Superman with the sole exception being that Batman doesn't die. These days, stories like Knightfall are a bit more commonplace, where the hero encounters a Darker and Edgier overpowered supervillain stronger than the rest of his rogues and either gets broken badly or killed. Then afterwards, when the main hero is out of commission, other heroes, whether it's the '90s Anti-Hero or Sidekick Graduations Stick character, will struggle to fill in his shoes. Eventually, the main hero gets back on his feet and takes back his mantle. And the previously powerful villain will eventually be beaten by the main hero and undergo Villain Decay, eventually becoming just another regular in the hero's Rogues Gallery. Because stories like this are more common across multiple comic book companies in modern times, Knightfall might not seem too innovative if you're reading it for the first time but back in its day, it was a huge Genre Turning Point just like The Death Of Superman and helped provide an early blueprint for the protagonist being beaten by an edgy new villain and staging a heroic comeback after a period of uncertainty and turmoil.
  • Rooting for the Empire: Some readers actually enjoyed seeing Bane break Batman.
  • Signature Scene: Bane breaking Batman's back over his knee is not only the most memorable scene from the comic, but also one of the most iconic comic book panels of all time (if not the most). If Bane appears in an adaptation, such as The Dark Knight Rises and Injustice: Gods Among Us, chances are the moment will be recreated in some form.
  • Squick: The Joker crashes his way into the hideout of fellow escapee Cornelius Stirk (who, believe it or not, is arguably more deranged than Joker is) and demands that Stirk team up with him to terrorize Commissioner Gordon. And all this while Stirk is stirring a pot full of boiling human hearts!
  • Strawman Has a Point: AzBats gets made out to be a monster for wanting to kill the Joker, but as usual it's hard to disagree with him. Joker had just bragged to his face about how he'd simply escape from Arkham once he'd had his fun there and they'd do it all over again, and Valley decided not to enable him. And if that wasn't enough, the Joker proceeded to escape from custody mere panels after AzBats was forced to spare him, only highlighting the case for this trope even more.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: The Misaimed Fandom's reaction; they honestly thought Az-Bats was meant to be the new Batman, instead of a Take That! at The Dark Age of Comic Books. It's hard to blame them really, though, — with a run clocking in at over 50 issues long over multiple books, it really did seem like Azbats was the new status quo at the time. According to Word of God, this was actually intentional, as DC wanted to remind people why Batman is still important in an age where Nineties Anti Heroes were all the rage, and thus, Az-Bats was made in a way that made people want to see Bruce take back The Cowl. Needless to say, DC ultimately succeeded in this goal.
  • The Woobie: Poor, poor Shondra. Kidnapped with a nearly comatose man as a fellow hostage to force her to cooperate, made to use her powers for her stepbrother over and over again so he can kill people remotely... and finally mentally regressing to a child-like state as a result of all the trauma.
  • Woolseyism: In the Mexican Spanish translation of the arc, Bane's famous line I will BREAK YOU! was translated as ¡TE DEJARE INVALIDO! (I WILL CRIPPLE YOU!) possibly because a literal translation of the line could sound too ridiculous in Spanish.

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