Fans of Batman are lucky to get Greg Rucka--the talented, gritty young author of Keeper and Finder, among others--sharing time with their favorite licensed character in this novelization of DC's complete No Man's Land comic series. (And fans of Rucka--assuming they get around to reading this at all--will still likely hold the opinion that Atticus Kodiak could take Batman in a standup fight any day.) DC shook up Gotham--literally--in its 1999 Batman plot arc: a 7.6 earthquake rocked Gotham City, wreaking enough destruction to bring the broken, crime-ridden, runt kid-brother of Metropolis and New York to its knees. In the story line's most indulgent liberty, those fat cats in Washington decide to write off Gotham, +á la Escape from New York, blowing up the connecting bridges, mining the surrounding waterways, and signing into law the Federal Declaration of No Man's Land, which makes it a crime to even set foot in the city.
