Knightfall/YMMV


 * Archive Panic: This arc is huge in every sense of the word. The bare bones of the arc itself, according to The Other Wiki, comprise of material from Batman, Detective Comics, Shadow of the Bat, Legends of the Dark Knight, Robin, Catwoman, and Justice League Task Force. And that's not even getting into the supplementary material like the Vengeance of Bane special or the Sword of Azrael mini-series. And it wasn't helped by the fact that DC only packaged "Knightfall" and "Knights End" in collected editions, but not either side of "Knightquest", though with the new "Knightfall" collection, it's been rectified.
 * Badass Decay: By the time of his final appearance in the story, Bane has lost a great deal of blood and has degenerated into a raving lunatic.
 * This continued for a while into the comics, as well as into Batman and Robin, where Bane was portrayed as dumb muscle. Thankfully, Secret Six is starting to bring him back to his old, awesome self.
 * In Batman the Animated Series, he was still hired muscle, but was far from stupid; his introduction was just delayed because the show's writers feared he was a one-note character.
 * His appearance in The Dark Knight Rises averts this.
 * Complete Monster: The Joker, as per usual.
 * It's Scarecrow who really takes the cake in this arc. Nothing like bragging about how you killed someone's dad when they were little while they're standing right beside you and completely enslaved to your will.
 * Crowning Moment of Awesome: See here.
 * Crowning Moment of Funny: See here.
 * Dude, Not Funny: While the rest of the story may be great Knightfall's depiction of the mentally insane is... medieval. Throughout the first arc of the story an author tries to excuse the actions of people such as The Joker. This was probably done because readers at the time pointed out that nearly every Batman villain just so happened to be insane. The Dude, Not Funny part comes in when you realize that some of these readers might have had friends or family members in an asylum getting the help that they needed and have never harmed anyone in their entire lives. Responding with something that can be taken as "All insane people are homicidal maniacs" is a touch insensitive.
 * Well, Arkham is a hospital for the criminally insane. Presumably, Gotham has a separate mental hospital for the harmless, law-abiding insane.
 * The key phrase here is "can be taken as". IIRC, at no point are the words "All insane people are homocidal maniacs" ever uttered in the comic. The hack author depicted in the story was being interviewed specifically on the subject of the mass Arkham breakout, not about mentally ill people in general. Furthermore, he was trying to excuse the actions of the freaking Joker just so he could get publicity for his stupid book. The whole thing was a clear Take That at pop-psychology.
 * Squick: The Joker crashes his way into the hideout of fellow escapee Cornelius Stirk (who, believe it or not, is arguably more deranged than Joker is) and basically demands that Stirk team up with him to terrorize Commissioner Gordon. And all this while Stirk is stirring a pot full of boiling human hearts!
 * They Changed It, Now It Sucks: The Misaimed Fandom's reaction; they honestly though Az-Bats was meant to be the new Batman, instead of a Take That at The Dark Age of Comic Books.