There is a minor villain called "The Cavalier" who seems to be a part of the continuity- guess I've just missed him or something. He shows up at one point in Knightfall- don't remember the issue- and he sounds familiar... anyone want to help me out here?

The other Cavalier is from the LOTDK Blades story arc. (a story which, by the way, I highly reccomend- it's available in the Batman: The Collected Legends of the Dark Knight book.) This Cavalier was really one Hudson Pyle, a movie stuntman and swordsman who became a vigilante in Gotham in Batman's early years. He and Batman worked together for a while, until the Cavalier was forced to commit a crime to protect Ellen, the woman he loved. There was a showdown with Batman, which ended in a sort of a draw, and then the Cavalier committed suicide by walking into a hail of police gunfire with an unloaded gun. This is not an origin story for the other cavalier, because the one we see at the end of Blades is quite definitely dead. If anyone wants to clear up my confusion, you know how to reach me...

Before the Crisis, Joe Chill was killed by his associates in crime when they realized that it was he who created the Batman. Lawrence King provides this info:

This is quite true. I'm almost positive the comic was Batman # 47, dated June/July 1948. I'm certain it was 1948 (no, I wasn't around then!) because around 1988, DC reprinted it in a "best of DC comics" and called it "the 1948 origin of the Batman!"

The first origin was in Detective #33, November 1939, and was two pages long. In Batman #47, this origin is expanded to about three pages, with added panels involving young Bruce staring into the killer's eyes. Thus when Batman meets Chill years later, he recognizes him. He stalks him and finally, catching up to him, UNMASKS in front of Chill and says "I'm the kid whose parents you killed; now I'm Batman because of you." Chill flees and tells his fellow hoods. Yelling stuff like "Batman put me away for years! It's your fault!" they shoot Chill. Then they realize they forgot to ask him who Batman was. Batman arrives and captures them all.

There was a FURTHER expansion of this story, probably from the 1950's, in which Batman learns that Chill was working for someone, and he gets revenge on that person. This may have been reprinted in Greatest Batman Stories Ever Told, volume 1. But I'm vague on this -- perhaps it's in Untold Legend of the Batman from the 1980's.

After Zero Hour, apparently, Bruce has still not caught up with Joe, leaving the field open for Batman: Year Two: Take Two...

4. What was the Crisis on Infinite Earths?

The Crisis on Infinite Earths was a 12-issue series published by DC in 1985-6. The "Crisis" effectively revamped the entire DC Universe by merging several universes (containing the various DC characters) into a single universe (whose history is still somewhat unclear in parts). The Crisis was used as an opportunity to change DC history retroactively, including the remaking of several main DC characters. Thus people refer to the "post-Crisis" Superman, Wonder Woman, etc., as distinct from the "pre-Crisis" versions who existed on "Earth-1" or "Earth-2".

The confusion really begins because the revamping and "retconning" didn't all take place in the Crisis limited series itself, nor in the comics immediately after then. If DC had simply started all their series over from scratch, thing would have been pretty straightforward. Instead, they declared the Pre-Crisis history to be implicitly intact, until and unless they could explicitly create the new, post-Crisis versions of characters and histories.

Thus, new changes were still being made in titles up to eight years after the end of Crisis. So, for example, the "old" Hawkman appeared in the "new" Justice League. But then Timothy Truman began writing Hawkworld, which retconned Hawkman's character; among other changes, Hawkman "now" arrived on Earth much later. So, the Hawkman who appeared in the new Justice League comic (call him the Silver Age Hawkman, or the pre-Crisis Hawkman) "now" (in real world time) "no longer exists, and never has" (within current DC continuity).

But then the creators realized the problem, so they said that most of the Silver Age Hawkman appearances in JLA were actually by the Golden Age Hawkman, and a new Hawkman was created whose purpose was to satisfy those few JLA appearances made after the GA Hawkman was known to have been MIA.

Confused yet? Suffice it to say, the way DC handled the Crisis and itsaftermath confuses lots of readers and provides a perennial topic of discussion on r.a.c.misc. Zero Hour was said to be an attempt to "fix" problems caused by Crisis and part of the McGuffin for Zero Hour was that Crisis actually didn't end, and all continuity problems until ZH were symptoms of this.

There has been the occasional announcement that Crisis would be reprinted as a trade paperback, but the latest word from DC is that they feel it would be too expensive and don't plan to do so.

(rec.arts.comics FAQ edited by Tom Galloway)