Flashback Friday: Batman Legends of the Dark Knight Annual 1996 #6 (Legends of the Dead Earth)

Kathy Kane's father is dead.  He has hung himself and left the new Earth of which he served as the tool of justice and law.  Who was he?  Well, he was the Batman.  In this world similar to the middle ages he was the man that carried out the sentence of beheading once a person had been found guilty.  He brought Justice to a world that had been mired in chaos.  Or so he thought.

A parchment found by Kathy, his heir to the mantle of the Bat, tells of a secret he discovered.  The last man he executed was innocent as he had claimed.  He carried out the sentence for murder, he killed himself.  Taking his gauntlet and weapons Kathy creates her own armor and Batwoman seeks out answers to the story her father left behind.

She discovers a vast conspiracy that has tainted her entire bloodline.  This Dark Knight seeks out the ones behind it and faces them head on.  The ending is brutal.  It also is in keeping with the mythos of the character of Batman.

I love these elseworlds tales.  Seeing different versions of the characters and the histories that could have been are fun.  It also shows that a great writer can take the core of a character and keep it while creating a captivating story.  I have many of these types of comics.  Apparently this was a theme for the 1996 Annuals.  Legends of the Dead Earth show up in searches for the cover.  I have some extra comics to keep an eye out for when going through the cheap boxes at conventions.

BDS