Batman: Battle for the Cowl - The Complete Collection

by Tony S. Daniel (Writer/Penciler), Fabian Nicieza, Dustin Nguyen (Artist)

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

Genres: Batman, Comics, Graphic Novels, Dc Comics, Fiction

440 pages, Paperback

Published December 24, 2024

About the author

Tony 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.

Reviews

[Liz.Loki]

2.5 stars.

Started off strong but the finale was meh. Good character development for Dick Grayson, at least.

I hate how Jason Todd is written tho, completely mischaracterised him, he’s not some deranged villain. Also hate that Cass Cain wasn’t a main character, she’s Bruce’s child too and yet she’s always ignored by the writers because she’s a woman, it pisses me off.

[madi ★彡]

3.5⭐️
i really REALLY wish i could give this book five stars.. i whole heartedly enjoyed most of the stories and found the collection really engaging and entertaining

my favorite parts include:
- the artist of the azrael comics, frazer irving, has such a unique and satisfying style in a way i don’t quite know how to describe! it’s so soft and satisfying to look at, which made me enjoy it a million times more
- nightwing’s character growth
- barbara gordon’s personality; strong, independent, intelligent, and empathetic—qualities that balance out and make such an amazing character
- commissioner gordon having to come to terms with the fact he can no longer rely on the city’s most popular vigilante
- vicki vale; while serving as a throw away character (in the sense of involvement), also served as a beginning and end for the collection, which i found worked well for how she was being used

my least favorite parts:
- jason todd’s characterization; now don’t get me wrong, i don’t know a lot about jason’s character, but he felt incredibly misused in this setting
• damian wayne’s character also felt misused and inaccurate—considering his upbringing and racial identity
- considering this is titled a “complete collection,” why is that we don’t know the identity of black mask?
- catwomen felt like a throw away here and there and it felt like she was sort of tossed around with no clear direction
• ex. the scene where jason ambushes tim and where she finds two-face
- i would’ve LOVED to see more of cassandra cain and stephanie brown!! while they both were heavily important to certain aspects, it felt like they too were thrown in here in there purely to say they were in the comics

all in all, i REALLY enjoyed this collection as someone trying to get into the absolute behemoth that is the dc universe, yet i do believe that there are a lot of aspects that could’ve been worked on!!

[Krystal]

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.

[Jamie]

Pretty good book, I enjoyed this “Complete” version of Battle for the Cowl WAY more than the smaller paperback version.
While it definitely doesn’t have a coherent story that flows, it was still an enjoyable set of issues that kept me intrigued. I actually finished the book reading over half of the book in one sitting, so I was obviously engaged and enjoying it enough.
Some stories are definitely more exciting/important than others. For example the actual Battle for the Cowl issues were good, the Arkham Asylum and villain issues were great, but other ones like Oracle being in a VR game world were less enjoyable. Some issues did feel out of place, but I guess the point of this paperback is showing the events in Gotham and the Bat family during Batman’s “disappearance” after Final Crisis.
As an Arkham game fan, I also liked reading about the Michael Lane version of Azrael and found these good side stories during the book.
The part of where Black Mask frees the inmates and blows up Arkham was really awesome, but then it doesn’t really conclude in this story at all….
Whilst reading, there were moments where I wondered to myself, “what would have been the best order of these stories in this paperback”. I wasn’t sure if these were chronological or done by publishing dates, but it was probably done in the best way possible (even if it didn’t always feel like that).
Overall, I’m glad I got this book and would recommend!

[Brent]

The boys fight over who gets to be Batman next... *snores*

[MannyLikesPie]

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

[Jack "THATLegoRobber" Brown]

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.

[Nolan Gutenschwager]

2.75 stars. This was fine. Kind of a mixed bag, did not seem very cohesive and the reading order did not make things easier. Post-Final Crisis with Bruce gone and we explore the different bat-family members in the aftermath. Gotham is in chaos because everybody presumes Batman is dead now. Some good stuff in here, particularly with Nightwing ultimately taking up the Batman mantle at the very end after resisting it for a while. Tim takes up the Batman mantle for a little bit but he gets beat up bad by Jason Todd who is also taking up the Batman mantle and killing people / wielding guns. Good fight between Nightwing and Jason. Jason is full crazy here. Still get some random stuff in here from Grant Morrison's run like Squire showing up. We get an introduction (at least it is to my knowledge) of the new Azrael Michael Lane, who was one of the people who underwent Dr. Hurt's experiments to be a replacement Batman. Sort of confusing story as there was actually another Azrael right before him who lost his mind so now the Order is going with Michael instead. Random Oracle stories of her vs the Calculator and a lot of it takes place in a virtual world but has real life impacts, and he is after the anti-life equation. Did not seem to fit with this collection and was just ok. Also some random one-shots which were a mixed bag. I do not think anything in here was bad, but nothing was great either. Did not seem as impactful as it should have.

[Brenda A.]

It was really interesting to see the Batfamily and the rest of Gotham trying to move forward without Batman, while still living under the weight of his shadow.

Dick Grayson, usually one of the most stable and level-headed characters, finally losing it.
Tim taking his role as Robin just as seriously as if Bruce were still standing beside him, refusing to give up hope.
Jason... somehow losing it even more than Dick. But this feels like the Jason I know, which only makes me more confused about his portrayal in Batman and Robin (2009) (you know, the red hair? His face looking completely different? The prison? I still have so many questions).
And Damian... he really is just an inexperienced kid here.

It was also interesting to see the events that were referenced in Batman and Robin (2009). At the same time, though, I couldn't help noticing that some characters and scenes seem to develop differently here than I expected based on what I'd already read, which left me with even more questions.

[Andrew Seaton]

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.

[Chad]

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.

[Allen Setzer]

There’s good comics like Battle for the Cowl 1-3 then there’s boring comics like Oracle The Cure 1-3 and Azrael 1-3. The single issue ones are hit or miss. The Secret Society issue is one of the best.

[Jack]

3.6⭐️

[Brooklynn Keen]

enjoyed it. not a big fan of the structure, too much jumping back and forth for my taste. the side plots are interesting sometimes and dull at others, but overall an enjoyable read.

[Ayrton Pattison]

A great look at what gotham is like with Bruce Wayne absent. The storytelling was pretty spot on for the most part however the black mask plot not being finished here did leave a bad taste in my mouth. The art throughout was beautiful especially during the Azreal chapters, breathtaking at time.