Trying out the Facebook "Visual Bookshelf" app...

...with this review of Batman: Year One.

Seeing "Dark Knight" – what a ride! – sent me back to the shelf to reread this classic, the antecedent for many of the film's conceits, and still the greatest superhero graphic novel ever. (Sorry, Watchman fans.) In "Year One," you feel every blow and cheer every small victory as two flawed but principled men, Jim Gordon and Bruce Wayne, confront a chilling, unprincipled city – and each other. Writer Frank Miller and artist David Mazzuchelli at their respective bests. Though we might never get a literal film adaptation, the Christopher Nolan movies capture the book's raw vitality and momentum, and, I've heard, are pretty commercially successful, too.

(Batman: Year One can be purchased on Amazon, and you can get your own Visual Bookshelf on Facebook. Hangin' out there more. Addictive.)