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Batman: Battle for the Cowl - The Complete Collection
When Batman is missing, who protects Gotham?
Following the disappearance of her protector, Gotham City may be too far gone for Nightwing, Robin, Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the city’s heroes to save the day. Amid the fires, rioting, looting and gang warfare, one question rings out from the souls of Gotham’s desperate citizens: Where is Batman?
The status quo of Gotham will be established and you won’t want to miss who will win the BATTLE FOR THE COWL!
Collects Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight #1-3, Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1-3, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Commissioner Gordon #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Man-Bat #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: The Network #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: The Underground #1, Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1, Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1, Oracle: The Cure #1-3, Secret Six #9
Following the disappearance of her protector, Gotham City may be too far gone for Nightwing, Robin, Commissioner Gordon and the rest of the city’s heroes to save the day. Amid the fires, rioting, looting and gang warfare, one question rings out from the souls of Gotham’s desperate citizens: Where is Batman?
The status quo of Gotham will be established and you won’t want to miss who will win the BATTLE FOR THE COWL!
Collects Azrael: Death’s Dark Knight #1-3, Batman: Battle for the Cowl #1-3, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Arkham Asylum #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Commissioner Gordon #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: Man-Bat #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: The Network #1, Batman: Battle for the Cowl: The Underground #1, Gotham Gazette: Batman Alive? #1, Gotham Gazette: Batman Dead? #1, Oracle: The Cure #1-3, Secret Six #9
288 pages, Paperback
Published December 24, 2024
20 people want to read
About the author
Tony S. Daniel
685 books90 followersTony Salvador Daniel is a comic book author and illustrator. He is sometimes credited with is full name as Antonio Salvador Daniel.
For the science fiction writer, see Tony Daniel.
Tony S. Daniel decided to become a comic book artist in the 4th grade and has never looked back. He made his professional comics debut in 1993 on Comico's The Elementals and went on to illustrate X-Force for Marvel Comics and Spawn: Bloodfeud for Image Comics as well as writing and illustrating several creator-owned titles of his own: Silke, The Tenth, Adrenalynn and F5 — the last two of which led him, for a time, into the alternate reality known as Hollywood.
After being lured back into comics in 2005 to work with writer Geoff Johns on TEEN TITANS for DC Comics, Daniel landed his dream job in 2007 penciling the adventures of DC's Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN where he first collaborated with writer Grant Morrison and then went on to write and draw the book himself. In 2011 he re-launched DETECTIVE COMICS for DC’s New 52, writing and drawing most of the first year of the historic series. In 2012 Daniel moved from one icon to another when he began illustrating the adventures of Superman in ACTION COMICS.
For the science fiction writer, see Tony Daniel.
Tony S. Daniel decided to become a comic book artist in the 4th grade and has never looked back. He made his professional comics debut in 1993 on Comico's The Elementals and went on to illustrate X-Force for Marvel Comics and Spawn: Bloodfeud for Image Comics as well as writing and illustrating several creator-owned titles of his own: Silke, The Tenth, Adrenalynn and F5 — the last two of which led him, for a time, into the alternate reality known as Hollywood.
After being lured back into comics in 2005 to work with writer Geoff Johns on TEEN TITANS for DC Comics, Daniel landed his dream job in 2007 penciling the adventures of DC's Dark Knight Detective in BATMAN where he first collaborated with writer Grant Morrison and then went on to write and draw the book himself. In 2011 he re-launched DETECTIVE COMICS for DC’s New 52, writing and drawing most of the first year of the historic series. In 2012 Daniel moved from one icon to another when he began illustrating the adventures of Superman in ACTION COMICS.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
September 25, 2025
This one's not really a cohesive story, but I liked it all the same.
The overarching story is of Nightwing stepping in to fill Batman's shoes, but he's having to deal with numerous other Batman-wannabes who have a different idea of how things should be done.
But then there are chapters on Oracle in Hong Kong, and some highly confusing chapters on Azrael, and some other random characters thrown in for good measure. It's a hard picture to put together, but taken at face value there were some fun stories.
The Azrael stuff was too much for me, though. What a terrible character, honestly.
The Robins in their various incarnations feature heavily here, and that's the real draw of this one. It kinda looks at how each of Bruce's (mostly former) sidekicks respond to his absence. So if you're a fan of any of the various Robins, you'll likely find something here to enjoy.
I felt this stayed pretty true to the characters, so it was a fun exploration of a Gotham City with no Batman.
I'd recommend it less for Batman fans and more for fans of the sidekicks and smaller characters.
The overarching story is of Nightwing stepping in to fill Batman's shoes, but he's having to deal with numerous other Batman-wannabes who have a different idea of how things should be done.
But then there are chapters on Oracle in Hong Kong, and some highly confusing chapters on Azrael, and some other random characters thrown in for good measure. It's a hard picture to put together, but taken at face value there were some fun stories.
The Azrael stuff was too much for me, though. What a terrible character, honestly.
The Robins in their various incarnations feature heavily here, and that's the real draw of this one. It kinda looks at how each of Bruce's (mostly former) sidekicks respond to his absence. So if you're a fan of any of the various Robins, you'll likely find something here to enjoy.
I felt this stayed pretty true to the characters, so it was a fun exploration of a Gotham City with no Batman.
I'd recommend it less for Batman fans and more for fans of the sidekicks and smaller characters.
September 30, 2025
3.5 Better than other bat collections I’ve read, the VR thing I was weird but maybe because I don’t know the context. Jason Todd being a good written character challenge impossible edition
March 30, 2024
The boys fight over who gets to be Batman next... *snores*
June 11, 2025
7.5/10
A decent attempt of showing what would happen to the batfam after Batmans apposite demise. Some stories in this collection I enjoy, others I find rather boring.
The main plot was good as I enjoyed seeing the three Robins kind of fight it out for the mantle of the Bat, I say 'kind of' as Tim and Dick don't fight eachother. I have one problem with this and it is the fact they made Jason an absolute looney, like obviously the guy should have trauma and daddy issues but like why did he try to murder both his 'brothers' just to get a mantle he doesn't give a shit about (normally). Also I wish we did see more of Dick taking up the mantle but I do understand why they would leave it until the end.
The sides stories were kind of a mixed bag for me. I found the single stories, which includes the commissioner Gordon, Man-bat, Arkham Asylum, Underground, Network and Secret Six subplots, to be ranging for boring to brilliant. Regarding the Oracle subplot, I found it brought down the whole reading experience unfortunately as I love Barbara Gordon as a character but her subplot in this was just not all that as it was boring and had a bad resolution in my opinion. Finally, you have the Azrael subplot which I was happy to see as I wanted to read some Azrael after playing Arkham Knight for the hundredth time and it was alright (the sidestory), I didn't really care for the Cult drama but the fight panels were cool.
Its a storyline that couldve been put together better but I dont mind it and it ends up with the right son taking the mantle, so I'm happy.
A decent attempt of showing what would happen to the batfam after Batmans apposite demise. Some stories in this collection I enjoy, others I find rather boring.
The main plot was good as I enjoyed seeing the three Robins kind of fight it out for the mantle of the Bat, I say 'kind of' as Tim and Dick don't fight eachother. I have one problem with this and it is the fact they made Jason an absolute looney, like obviously the guy should have trauma and daddy issues but like why did he try to murder both his 'brothers' just to get a mantle he doesn't give a shit about (normally). Also I wish we did see more of Dick taking up the mantle but I do understand why they would leave it until the end.
The sides stories were kind of a mixed bag for me. I found the single stories, which includes the commissioner Gordon, Man-bat, Arkham Asylum, Underground, Network and Secret Six subplots, to be ranging for boring to brilliant. Regarding the Oracle subplot, I found it brought down the whole reading experience unfortunately as I love Barbara Gordon as a character but her subplot in this was just not all that as it was boring and had a bad resolution in my opinion. Finally, you have the Azrael subplot which I was happy to see as I wanted to read some Azrael after playing Arkham Knight for the hundredth time and it was alright (the sidestory), I didn't really care for the Cult drama but the fight panels were cool.
Its a storyline that couldve been put together better but I dont mind it and it ends up with the right son taking the mantle, so I'm happy.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 23, 2025
I enjoyed this. I’d say it’s definitely worth it, especially if you’re a Nightwing fan. I’ve never been much into the character but this feels like really good writing for him.
Biggest problem with it was the reveal. It’s done about halfway through the book, and the way they revealed it I thought it was a fakeout until the last couple pages. Tie-ins are pretty weak too, though it was fun revisiting the Secret Six after having read that book last year.
Biggest problem with it was the reveal. It’s done about halfway through the book, and the way they revealed it I thought it was a fakeout until the last couple pages. Tie-ins are pretty weak too, though it was fun revisiting the Secret Six after having read that book last year.
August 12, 2025
This collects the gazillion one-shots and 3 miniseries revolving around what happens when everyone thinks Batman's dead. (This takes place after Final Crisis when Batman got hit by Darkseid's Omega beam.) Unfortunately, a lot of these stories aren't very good and there's not much in the way of flow between any of them.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews