>Reading it now, it does seem to rushed and short. However, the
>story deals with his life in Gotham as he becomes Batman, not
>the training.

ur right, i mean, gotham WAS the focus, but i just felt that we could have had a little extra insight as to how he trained

>My perspective on this is skewed because I read the Catwoman
>miniseries first and then read Year One. Ironically, I bought
>them at the same time. She seems kind of tossed in for the
>hell of it.

haha yeah, that's exactly how i felt, as if miller just threw her in there just for the sake of having catwoman a part of the story. nevertheless, i did like her origin as a prostitute, and her meddling with Batman's plans, pissed off due to being called Batman's "assistant," etc.

>Two things, this was an example, an extreme example, but still
>an example of how lawless the law in Gotham was at the time.
>Brenden was known to be excessive and Loeb wanted Batman dead
>because he was pressuring the politicians.

Now that i think about it more, it DOES make sense, and shows how corrupt both Loeb and Brenden truly were

>Saving the old lady planted the seed in Gordon's head that
>Batman wasn't a criminal. He was protecting the innocent. It
>also had something to do with Batman still being new to the
>game. Saving a baglady to the expert Batman would probably
>involved a batarang.

fair enough, i just hoped that he would have done something more difficult/heroic than just saving an old woman from a truck, which any athletic man could potentially do

>another problem --> we never saw how the costume came to be,
>etc.
>
>The book was written when everything didn't have to be
>explained and some stuff was left to the imagination. That's
>the best I could come up with.

i dunno, i think it's a pretty big hole, i mean, the batsuit is one of the coolest things about Batman, they should have elaborated on it, although the references to the belt, the sonar bat-caller thing, and the glider WERE dope

>>>lastly, how did Batman and Gordon become friends all of a
>sudden?
>Bottom line, he saved Gordon's kid.

well, i undestand THAT, but apart from being thankful, Gordon never actually had a conversation with Batman about anything

>The story pretty much was an outline. A lot of stuff has been
>built on it since then. It's almost like that was part of the
>plan.

that does kind of work out well in the end, i suppose, but i'm not sure it was deliberate

>I've never heard it ranked as the best graphic novel.
>I've always heard either The Killing Joke or The Dark Knight
>Returns.

well maybe it's not, but according to the places i've checked, IGN's list, Time Magazine's list (i think. might've been another magazine or website), DC discussion boards, it is. But it's probably number 1 becuase of it's importance in continuity, influence, etc. not because of how good it actually was