Gautam Surath

How many time can you write a back to the origins story and still make it interesting. Batman: Earth One answers this question with aplomb. There is no limit to re-writes:-). This novel takes us back to Batman's origins, gives us a new take on Alfred and suddenly pops up the Penguin as the villain. The art is beautiful (especially on a tablet) and the writing delightful. Its Batman as we know it but have never read before. That in itself deserves 5 stars. Awesome!

The end use of the shroud just takes the cake. I had all but forgotten about the ending of this book and the second reading makes me sit up and notice many things with a fresh perspective. Damn is he good or what!

Starts fairly slowly so don't let it go early. builds nicely into what could have been a special book. But somewhere Michael could not polish and give enough substance to his hero. I still rate it highly cause the ending deserved a much better book. Talion as a concept had a lot of scope and I hope he is able to build upon it in future books

Every once in a while someone takes a shot at the lesser ranking villains in the Batman world. So in a week I have gone through the Riddler (Earth One) and now in this book on the Scarecrow. And scary is the way he comes across in this take by Gregg. We also get a bit of a back story which makes you feel bad for the fellow for a few seconds. But for me the reason it never reaches 4 stars is that there is no plot or investigation holding this together. Its a straight fight between the two and the winner takes all. What might have been. Sigh!

Superbly written and well paced, George Martin is obviously a huge talent and I look forward to his next venture as this one was not really my kind of book. Frankly this is a Fantasy soap opera and I never really found it exciting. Also, too many character POV's made it a bit hard to follow. But each POV by itself was very tight and the lines well written. The sense of doom through out the book makes it stand out from most I have read. All in all, I can understand why this has been such a success and I recommend it wholeheartedly to people who enjoy large scale multi character plots full of intrigue. But definitely not for the faint hearted.