Batman: Haunted Knight | Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale | Top-rated Halloween trinity of Batman

Batman: Haunted Knight | Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale | one of the best

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Batman: Haunted Kn...

	Batman: Haunted Knight Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale DC Comics, 1996 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 32 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

Top-rated Halloween trinity of Batman

This excellent compilation gathers up the three consecutive Halloween specials mastered by the Dynamic Duo, Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale (after these three Legends Of The Dark Knight-specials the two wrote Long Halloween).

First story features Scarecrow and rather unyielding and even too determined Batman, who scarcely sleeps at all. The story features also the possible love interest of Bruce Wayne... but it's eventually up to Alfred to discover the truth.

The second marvellous story tells the modern version of Alice in Wonderland - the teenager Barbara Gordon is kidnapped to play Alice in the monstrous, twisted world of The Mad Hatter. The tale also reveals us some new details about young Bruce Wayne's relationship with her mother. Intense, scary and emotionally touching - this is a Batman story of highest quality!

The third tale is a remake of Dickens' Christmas Carol - feverous Batman sleeps rather badly after a long night in the streets of Gotham. Bruce Wayne is depicted as a grim, joyless hermit - the commitments of Batman do not leave space for anything else. The first ghost, Thomas Wayne, tries to warn his son, but eventually Bruce encounters the three ghosts of Halloween past, present and future. In the end Bruce realizes, that the work of Bruce Wayne is equally important to the work of Batman: Bruce sets up his B.W. Foundation (with mr. Lucius Fox, his old acquintance), and even delivers some Halloween candies to local kids!

Somehow Loeb is able to capture the very essence of both Bruce Wayne and Batman, and the marvellous art of Tim Sale makes this compilation a treat, not a trick!

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one of the best

i simply loved this one.Do yourself a favor and get it as soon as possible.All the villians and the BATMAN has to offer is right here!

The third story is best

This book is a collection of three Batman tales. In the first, Bruce Wayne begins to get serious with a woman while the Scarecrow terrorizes Gotham. In the second, the Mad Hatter is up to his usual schemes. Finally, the third is a Batman version of the Dickens classic, "A Christmas Carol."
My favorite is the third story. The tale is woven so that it becomes obvious to Bruce that the Batman can sometimes be his own worse enemy. I just love the way a night of strange visions can change even the most uncompromising character. The thing I always loved about the whole "Scrooge" archetype is that the presence of three spirits, a mystical and supernatural event, takes back seat to an even more incredible event; the redemption of a wayward human heart. So I am a sucker for the whole "Christmas Carol" mentality.
The thing about the Mad Hatter is I believe they've taken the character a bit far; he went from a dreaming schemer to a delusional psychotic. He once was just an eccentric criminal whose sense of reality was a bit distorted; now he is a homocidal maniac. I don't, in general, like the way they write the Jervis Tetch character nowadays.
Nonetheless, the third story is good and the first one is good enough to warrant a good recommendation for this book.

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Last Story Is Pretty Crap.

This here is Loeb and Sale's first batman stories. This book is a collection of three batman halloween specials that were released in the mid 90's. The first story is entitled 'Fears', the second 'Madness', and the third and final story is titled 'Ghosts'.

The stories:
The first story called fears is deffinately the best story in the whole book. The storie's villain is the scarecrow, and him and his goons have been taking out sub stations so parts of gotham is in darkness, stores and places are then looted because of the sudden darkness. Scarecrow also is trying to bring fear to the people of gotham city, by putting the fear pwder into teddy bears and other stuffed toys that children play with. In many ways this story actually inspired the batman begins movie. This is by far the best story in this book, it's very original and keeps you entertained the whole way through.
The next story called madness is the second best story in the book. The villain this time is the absolutely insane mad hatter, who thinks he is the character from the children's book Alice In Wonderland. Jim Gordon's daughter Barbara has a fight with him, because it's halloween night she want's to go out trick or treating, she gets out without jim's approval and is then being threatened by men dressed in outfits. The mad hatter saves her but then kidnaps her for his reinactment of the story he obsessed about, he thinks she's alice, so he tends to keep her and the other kids who have been missing. This story is another story that has a lot of fun reading it, but somehow lacks a bit.
The next story named ghosts is actually the let down of this book. Bruce Wayne is actually a scrooge character in this story, he is visited by hi father telling him that he will be visited by three spirits, warning him about being batman. The first Is Poison Ivy, The second is The Joker, and the third is the grim reaper. This story is very lame and dissapointing, it is not a very exciting read and tends to get pretty cheesy and annoying.
This is a good effort by Tim and Jeph but fails to deliver a knockout read like the long halloween and dark victory. If you own the other two batman books that Loeb And Tim did, buy this if you want to complete their collaberation together doing the year one books then buy this. But the only reason buying this is the fears story. Overall it's an ok book.

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Two out of three ain't bad

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale rock. They are perhaps one of my favorite comic duos ever put together. They usually come up with amazing work when they're put together and they have given us few let downs. They have the brilliant Marvel "Color" series about the early days of the Marvel super heroes and they're also responsible for in my opinion, the best Batman book ever written: Dark Victory. Years ago Jeph Loeb wrote a three issue mini-series entitled "Fears" that had Batman taking on Scarecrow. He suggested that the company should just make the series into a Batman Halloween Special. The idea stuck and since then Loeb and Sale have written more and more Batman specials over the years. This book is a collection of three Batman Halloween stories.

The first story is entitled "Fears: and it deals with Scarecrow busting out and causing his usual mischief. Batman really seems to be having a tough time in this story. He hasn't been able to sleep in days, Scarecrow is repeatedly escaping from he, and he can never seem to find time with his new love Jillian. Eventually Gordon is kidnapped and we see a pretty sweet show-down between Batman and Scarecrow in a huge clock (ala Dick Tracy). The secret Alfred stumble upon when researching Jillian is pretty sweet as well, and the last page is just awesome like every other Loeb / Sale book.

The second story is entitled "Madness" and it is my definite favorite (which is surprising considering Scarecrow is one of my faves). This is without a doubt one of the best Mad Hatter stories I've ever seen. It involves Mad Hatter luring runaway children into his busted mansion to recreate scenes from Alice in Wonderland with them. Unfortunately for him, his Alice is none other than a very young Babs Gordon. She just moved to town and ran away from Commissioner Gordon's house after they had an argument. Mad Hatter actually manages to get a wound Batman and Batman's having a tough time bringing him in. We also see some also moments from Bruce's past involving the story "Alice in Wonderland", and the reason that the Mad Hatter makes him sick worse than any other member of his Rouges Gallery is revealed.

The final story is entitled "Ghosts" and it basically just the cliched Charles Dickens story "A Christmas Carol" with Bruce Wayne instead of Scrooge. Needless to say he's visited by the ghosts of past, present, and future and learns an important lessen. The ghosts take on the form of Poison Ivy, the Joker, and the Grim Reaper and they basically show Bruce the exact things that they show every character that's ever taken part in this cliched plot line. What makes no sense is that it's always been shown that Bruce is very caring and gives to lots of charities and such, this book makes it look like he just stays locked up and sits on his money. Anyway, it's not that great and the best part is the few pages at the beginning where Batman fights the Penguin.

As most others say, this is not an essential Loeb / Sale read like Long Halloween and Dark Victory, but it is very good. It's not meant to be a huge epic story, it's just three one-shot Halloween comics. Check it out if you're looking for some good Batman action. My whole review is basically summed up by: "Two out of three ain't bad".

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reviews: 1, 2, 3, page 4, 5, 6, 7

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