The Haunted Knight
This trade would collect the three Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Specials. Fear, Madness and Ghosts would be explored by the Dynamic Duo of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale who gave us Batman: The Long Halloween and many other stories set to themes.
Fear
What better way to spend Halloween reading an early tale of Batman and Scarecrow? The Legend of the Dark Knight are great books because of they are set before modern continuity.Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale create a strong dark Halloween story, which plays on "Fears". This comic is drawn with a lot of work of Shadows and light, which sets the tone of fear of the dark. There is fears of being lost, not just in a "maze" and trying to find your path in life. Many fears are explored in this comic. The Scarecrow is the perfect villain in this story if things that go bump in the night are your thing.
I really enjoyed the Noir film style that both Loeb and Sale create. There are scenes that remind me of Schindler's list where it is black and white, but the only color is to highlight something. The "Love" interest in Bruce's life would become sexier with this use of B&W filming, with her lips highlighted in a see of no other vibrant life.
Madness
After the first Batman: The Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special selling so well, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale cracked their brains opened to create a tale of "Madness". The Mad Hatter is not a huge Villain in the Batman Rogue Gallery, but he does give the depth to it and that is why Batman has the best Rogue Gallery in all comics.Who would of thought that a story with the Mad Hatter could be so good? The reason for it is that Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale write good Batman stories with they play with a childhood idea and twist it one us. This story plays with Alice is Wonderland and our beloved Babs Gordon as a child is captured to play Alice in the Hatters twisted tea party.
This comic explores Madness in both Batman, Jim Gordon and The Mad Hatter. What is the differences in these men and why are their levels of sanity considered different, when ultimately each are all "MAD". The hatter for obvious reasons, Batman for being Batman and James Gorden trying to balance a city and a family.
Ghosts
The Final Batman: The Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween special would lead to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to continue their Halloween story telling in Batman: The Long Halloween, which would take 13 months, Halloween to Halloween to tell.Before The Long Halloween, Bruce Wayne is visited by the Ghost of Charles Dickens. This tale would pace differently for any of the other Halloween tales from the Dynamic Duo of Loeb and Sale. This comic would first have an exciting heist from the Penguin in which Batman would stop and then the story would slow down with the Ghosts visits. This many of not been the smartest choice, since I think it slows the story too much and having so much pages on the earlier half doesn't level enough interactions with the Ghost for my personal liking. This is still a solid read and would never skip it when rereading the this set of three Halloween stories.
If you liked any of the tales inspired by Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol then this may be a good read for you. I like the idea of using Dickens' Ghost but as faces Batman would recognize, but this story I don't think was as tight as the earlier stories or the Long Halloween that follows.
Final Comments:
For a Batman read this is a solid set of stories which is set before modern continuity and uses the theme of Halloween to present takes of Batman that most writer would not think about. This is a wonder read and I look forward to making this a Halloween tradition. With these stories being fairly kid friendly, it would be nice to scare any young guy with Halloween tales of the Dark Knight.Happy Halloween
- Silkcuts
