Batman: Murderer reprint images -- before and after

 ·  10 comments

I'm a little late on this, but as an epilogue to our previous discussions of DC Comics's mis-printing of the Batman: Murderer trade and their subsequent re-issuing of it, I wanted to post these photos from Kirk Kiefer, who helped get the ball rolling on the ultimate reprint.


This is the table of contents, the indicia page, and the back cover of the original edition. Note there that Detective Comics #768 is listed as "Purity Part One" when it's actually "Purity Part Two." The indicia page says the book includes Detective Comics #766-767, when in fact it includes #766-767 and #769-770, skipping issue #768, the actual "Purity Part One." The back cover correctly reflects the book's actual contents, even as the book's contents weren't actually correct, if that makes sense.


The new book includes (and correctly lists) Detective Comics #768 in the contents as "Purity Part One," followed by the other two chapters. The indicia is now correct, though I'm surprised to see the new printing still called the "first" printing; if that kind of stuff matters to you, you'd want to check the contents to make sure you're really getting the printing you want. The new back cover correctly lists the corrected contents of the book.

The original Batman: Murderer/Fugitive collections were seminal volumes in DC Comics's collections history, some of the first to collect the ancillary tie-ins of a series' event, and I'm glad things worked out for the best with these new releases.

Comments ( 10 )

  1. I placed my order at Amazon almost two months ago, thinking they had already received the corrected version, but they have yet to ship it. I wonder what the hell is going on there. At this point, I should just cancel it and order the book from IST instead.

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    1. I had heard corrected versions had already shipped from there. Anyone?

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  2. Amazon.de doesn't even list the new new edition. Only the old new edition (from March) which is OOP an their page.

    According to their homepage though, the kindle edition was updated on May 30. So everybody who bought the digital version got a corrected edition automatically.

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  3. Has anyone found any problems with the new Fugitive book? Is it safe to buy the corrected new Murderer book and the new Fugitive?

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    1. According to a post by Kirk Kiefer on the Marvel Masterworks Forum, the new Bruce Wayne: Fugitive TPB is fine. It collects Batman #603-607, Detective Comics #771-775, Batman: Gotham Knights #30-32, Azrael #91, Batgirl #29 and 33 and select pages from Birds of Prey #43 and Azrael #92, so nothing relevant seems to be missing.

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    2. Though, "select pages from" stings a little bit, given how I thought the whole purpose of these new books was to collect all of the issues in whole instead of in part as they were originally. But, well, guess something's better than nothing.

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  4. I can confirm that Amazon UK ships the corrected version without any delays (next day delivery).

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  5. Do you interpret from the article that people bought the Identity Crisis Absolute edition, put it on a shelf, and then never read it? I can believe it; I've got a couple of Absolutes that I bought because I liked the story in another form, but then never unwrapped the Absolute.

    A report like this rather strengthens my belief that a 10th anniversary Identity Crisis volume is about the last thing we need; seems people haven't read the ones they've already got ...

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  6. I do think that people probably bought it and didn't read it closely (myself included) or at all. I know when I get Absolutes, it's almost always a story I've read already so I'm not reading it as closely in the deluxe oversized edition as I would otherwise. Luckily, and I can't believe I'm saying this about printing pages out of order, the error isn't that glaring. If my copy is the same as everyone else's, the Absolute splits up two pages of flashback scenes with two pages of present day scenes before going back to the regular narrative. So instead of flashback, flashback, present-day onwards, we get flashback, present, present, flashback, present-day onwards. It's not impossible to read and I probably wouldn't have ever noticed without someone pointing it out, but it's a shame that DC was guilty of another printing error in a supposed definitive edition.

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  7. Late to the party but if I have the original trades is worth getting the new ones?

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