{"id":30636,"date":"2024-10-02T08:00:51","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T08:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/?p=30636"},"modified":"2024-10-02T07:39:30","modified_gmt":"2024-10-02T07:39:30","slug":"batman-haunted-knight-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/2024\/10\/02\/batman-haunted-knight-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Batman: Haunted Knight"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"
\nBy Jeph Loeb<\/strong>, Tim Sale<\/strong> & various (DC Comics)
\nISBN: 978-1 401-28486-2 (TPB\/Digital edition) 978-1-7795-1638-1 (Deluxe HB)<\/p>\n

Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Seasonal Wonderment…<\/strong> 9\/10<\/strong><\/p>\n

The creative team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale tackled many iconic characters in a number of landmark tales, but their reworkings of early Batman mythology – such as The Long Halloween<\/strong> – must certainly rank amongst their most memorable. Set during the iconic Batman: Year One <\/strong>scenario created by Frank Miller, and originally released as a 13-part miniseries (running from Halloween to Halloween), that epic shed new light and plenty more shadows on the early alliance of Police Captain Jim Gordon<\/em>, District Attorney Harvey Dent<\/em> and the mysterious vigilante Batman, to destroy the unassailable mob boss who ran Gotham City; Carmine Falcone<\/em>: \u201cThe Roman…\u201d<\/p>\n

However, prior to that epic undertaking, the creators coproduced another All Hallows adventure; one that grew like Topsy to eventually become a triptych of Prestige One-Shot Specials under the aegis of Archie Goodwin\u2019s most significant editorial project…<\/p>\n

After the continuity-wide reset of Crisis on Infinite Earths<\/strong>, and with DC still in the throes of re-jigging its entire narrative history, a new Batman title launched, presenting multi-part epics refining and infilling the history of the post-Crisis <\/strong>hero and his entourage. The added fillip was a fluid cast of prominent and impressively up-and-coming creators…<\/p>\n

Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight<\/strong> was a fascinating experiment, even if ultimately the overall quality became a little haphazard and hit-or-miss. Most early story-arcs were quickly collected as trade paperback editions – helping to jumpstart the graphic novel sector of the comics industry – and the moody re-imaginings of the Gotham Guardian\u2019s salad days gave fans a wholly modern insight into the ancient yet highly malleable concept.<\/p>\n

As explained in \u2018Trick or Treat\u2019<\/em> – Editors Goodwin\u2019s reproduced introduction from the 1996 compilation – the first Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special <\/strong>began life as a story-arc for the monthly series, before being cannily promoted to a single, stand-alone publication released for October 1993. Its success spawned the two sequels also included in this volume and the aforementioned Long Halloween <\/strong>epic. If you spring for the spiffy Deluxe Edition from 2022, there are even more secrets revealed…
\n\"\"
\nOtherwise, collected in one spooky, stripped-down paperback and\/or eBook compilation, those three scary stories comprise a raw and visceral examination of an obsessive hero still learning his trade and capable of deadly misjudgements as seen in initial yarn \u2018Fears\u2019<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Here, after spectacularly capturing terror-obsessed psychopath Jonathan Crane<\/em>, the neophyte Caped Crimebuster leaves him to mere policemen ill-equipped to cope with the particular brand of malicious insanity cultivated by The Scarecrow<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

It\u2019s fair to say that the man behind the bat mask is distracted; still attempting to reconcile his nocturnal and diurnal activities. Young Bruce Wayne <\/em>is currently floundering before the seductive and sophisticated blandishments of predatory social butterfly and matrimonial black widow Jillian Maxwell<\/em>. Faithful major-domo Alfred Pennyworth<\/em>, however, is not so easily swayed. Left too much to his own devices, The Scarecrow has run wild through Gotham, but when he abducts Gordon, he at last makes a mistake the Dark Knight can capitalise upon…<\/p>\n

One year later, another Halloween brings \u2018Madness\u2019 <\/em>as rebellious teen Barbara Gordon <\/em>choses exactly the wrong moment to run away from home: a night when her dad\u2019s mysterious caped pal is frantically hunting Jervis Tetch<\/em> – a certified nutcase abducting runaways to attend decidedly deadly Tea Parties orchestrated by a truly Mad Hatter<\/strong>…<\/p>\n

Steeped in personal nostalgia as a maniac rampages through his city, inadvertently trampling upon some of Bruce Wayne\u2019s only happy memories (of his mother\u2019s favourite book), the heroic pursuer almost dies at the hands of the Looking Glass Loon, only to be saved by unlikely angel Leslie Thompkins<\/em> – another woman who will loom large in Batman\u2019s future…<\/p>\n

The final fable here pastiches that Christmas classic by Charles Dickens as \u2018Ghosts\u2019 <\/em>sees a delirious Bruce uncharacteristically taking to his bed early on the night before Halloween.<\/p>\n

After socialising with young financier Lucius Fox<\/em>, eating bad shrimp and crushing baroque bird bandit The Penguin<\/strong>, our sick and weary playboy lapses into troubled sleep, only to be visited by three spectres…<\/p>\n

Looking like Poison Ivy<\/strong>, The Joker<\/strong> and the corpse of Batman himself, whilst representing Past, Present and inescapable Future, these phantoms prove that only doom awaits unless the overachieving hero strikes a balance – or perhaps truce – between his two divergent identities.
\n\"\"
\nTrenchant with narrative foreboding (long-time fans already know the tragedies in store for all the participants, although total neophytes won\u2019t be left wondering) these eerily enthralling Noir thrillers by Loeb perfectly capture the spirit of the modern Batman, supremely graced with startlingly powerful images of Mood, Mystery and rampant Mayhem from the magic pencil and brush of much-missed Tim Sale, vividly augmented by the colours of Gregory Wright and lettering of Todd Klein.<\/p>\n

Adding lustre to these moody proceedings are a gallery of prior covers culled from earlier collections as well as a Sale Batman sketch, making this one of the very best Batman books you could read.<\/p>\n

So, do…
\n\u00a9 1993, 1994, 1995, 2014, 2018 DC Comics. All Rights Reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale & various (DC Comics) ISBN: 978-1 401-28486-2 (TPB\/Digital edition) 978-1-7795-1638-1 (Deluxe HB) Win\u2019s Christmas Gift Recommendation: Timeless Seasonal Wonderment… 9\/10 The creative team of Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale tackled many iconic characters in a number of landmark tales, but their reworkings of early Batman mythology – such as The … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Batman: Haunted Knight”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[92,10,75,305,76,225,325],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-batgirl","category-batman","category-crime-comics","category-dc-horror","category-dc-superhero","category-mystery","category-the-joker"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4AFj-7Y8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30640,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30636\/revisions\/30640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.comicsreview.co.uk\/nowreadthis\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}