Yesterday afternoon, comic book artist Sean Gordon Murphy announced that Batman: White Knight would now be available to pre-order. Since its announcement, the Elseworlds Batman comic has been one of the most highly anticipated releases in recent memory.
For one, this version of the Batman not only sees the Dark Knight as the evil protagonist, it also portrays the Joker as the savior of Gotham, the “White Knight.” The story will be set in a world where the Joker is cured of his insanity and homicidal tendencies. In this world, he is simply known as Jack and is trying to right his wrong. On the other hand, Batman has gone too far, and can be seen beating the Joker into a Coma in the preview for the comic.
Part of the reason fans are so excited about the next installment in the stand alone comic series has to do with its aforementioned writer and artist, Sean Murphy. The New York Artist has gained a fair amount of acclaim in the comic community over the past couple of years for his work on books such as Batman/Scarecrow: Year One, Teen Titans, Hellblazer: City of Demons, and Shaun of the Dead.
Fans really started to take notice of Murphy’s talents after his six issue mini series Punk Rock Jesus was released. The series was described as his “passion project years in the making”, and focused on religion and the media in the United States as themes, more complicated issues than Murphy had previously addressed in his work.
[quote bcolor=”red”]”Sarah Palin scared the shit out of me in 2007 — I was floored that someone that ignorant could come so close to being President. And a lot of her comments were about religion, politics, and the media. It made me want to take action, but I was just a comic book artist and I wasn’t sure what I could do. So I started addressing my concerns about these three topics in Punk Rock Jesus.”[/quote]
His bold themes not only earned him the trust of fans, but it seems the people in charge of Batman. It’s a big accomplishment to say that you were the one entrusted with turning one of the most well-known supervillains into a good guy for the first time.
The first of seven issues for Batman: White Knight goes on sale October 4th, 2017 for $3.99, totaling in at 32 pgs. For more information, be sure to check back to the site for updates.