Do you miss the days when the Batman movies were kinda campy but not overly campy. When they were dark but not overly dark? Do you wish you could dive back into the Michael Keaton days as Batman – between Batman and Batman Returns? Do you wish there was more connective tissue between those two movies? Are you getting as tired as I am with all these questions? Well, I’ve just got one thing to say to you:
Stop what you’re doing and read this book!
Batman: Resurrection
Author: John Jackson Miller
Pages: 432
Format: Hardcover
Published: October 15, 2024
Publisher: Random House Worlds
View on Goodreads
Date Completed: October 26, 2024
My rating: 
Thoughts
I’m not a very big comic book fan. I’ve read a little Batman (namely The Dark Knight Returns), some Green Lantern, and a ton of Star Trek in my capacity as co-host of the Literary Treks podcast.
I’ve always wished I could read about my favorite superheroes, but in prose. I’ve heard of Enemies & Allies by Kevin J. Anderson; I just haven’t had a chance to pick it up yet. But at this point I don’t know of any others that came out before Batman: Resurrection by John Jackson Miller.
I’m a big fan of Miller’s Star Trek novels so I was really excited to pre-order this.
The book picks up a few months after the end of the 1989 Tim Burton film, Batman. Bruce Wayne is having nightmares that maybe Jack Napier (aka The Joker) isn’t dead. Add to that the continuing struggles of celebrity doctor Hugh Auslander to help the victims of Smilex. And when one of Auslander’s patients wakes up from a coma exhibiting some very different effects from Smilex, Auslander and Batman work (together and separately) to track this person down to help him.
Adding to this is also a gang of criminals call the Last Laughs, the beginnings of some shenanigans by someone named Max Shreck, rumors of a gang living in the sewers, and you have yourself an Easter Egg-packed jem of a Batman novel.
I really liked how Miller switched between references to Bruce or Batman, depending on the persona in play at the time. It was really easy to track and always made sense in the context of the scene. There were too many Easter Eggs to count, but let’s just say I had flashbacks to the fast-food marketing in the early ’90s.
Honestly, I don’t really feel like there was much lacking in this book. At first, I was a little tired of references to The Joker (full disclosure – I’m getting a little tired of Joker stories overall), but as the story progressed, I don’t think there was a way to tell a compelling Batman story taking place after the 1989 film without a strong presence from The Joker.
I think I’ve already said too much, so let me end with this: it was really great to see the world’s greatest detective. We got a little bit of this in Batman and probably a little in Burton’s Batman Returns, we may have seen a glimpse in Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight Rises, and some in in Matt Reeves’ The Batman. I loved the Batman in Zach Snyder’s universe and there was some detective work in Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice, but I think I may hear some arguments from that.
Aaaaaanyway… I would give this 4.5 out of 5 stars and I so can’t wait for Miller’s next installment in the Batman prose-verse!
