Haunted Knight

Batman is one of my favourite heroes. He's just out there with his wits and his training and his obsession with righting wrongs. In Haunted Knight Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale tell three stories of Halloween early in Batman's career.

The first is "Fears" and, appropriate for Halloween, the Scarecrow takes centre stage. It's more about what Batman gets out of being Batman though. What he has to give up and why it makes him very much like his father.

The second story is "Madness" and was my favourite of the trilogy. Loeb's Mad Hatter is truly mad and putting Gordon's niece Babs in danger really made it feel personal. Where "Fears" was about the loss of Thomas Wayne, "Madness" becomes about the loss of Martha Wayne. The final panel of the story has made it into my favourite moments of Batman. It shows him as the child that lost his parents and how that's hurt him as deeply as it has. The window with the single figure reading was very evocative.

Finally was "Ghosts" where Loeb tries to tell a Dickens' Christmas Story but with Bat-villains on Halloween. I didn't really like it. It was OK but still, after the first two it was a bit of a let down. Batman choosing to stay home for the evening to hand out candy to the children just seemed a bit forced. Plus, Wayne Manor is way the hell out in the middle of nowhere. There's not one kid who would be showing up on that doorstep.

I'd really like to praise Tim Sale's art. Batman is huge. Batman is a very real presence in these stories and it had to do with where Sale's chooses to put him in the scenes. He also remembers that Batman is a man and will do things like give him the 5 o'clock stubble to represent that he's been up all night and perhaps isn't as fresh as he was when he started.

This one gets a 4.