Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
It’s hard to imagine any superhero in the Marvel Universe having the same type of intrigue and fascination with Halloween as D.C. Comic’s biggest hero Batman does. Indeed across every spectrum and genre no other title perhaps lends itself more to the crazy upside world of the night than the Dark Knight. In a collection of three different one shot Halloween special stories by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, under the one title of Batman: Haunted Knight, the complicated relationship he has with the day is one that captures the imagination but also the fixation, the near fixation he has in dealing with those who bring harm to Gotham City is at near psychosis levels.
Jeph Loeb arguably understands the relationship between Bruce Wayne and Batman in graphic art better than almost anybody, only the legendary Bob Kane, the man who started it all off, can ever play the dark game with Mr. Loeb. Between Jeph Loeb’s great scripts and ingenious scenarios and Tim Sale’s dedication to framing each moment of intrigue and danger with the skill of a war artist trapped under fire in the smallest of hell holes and armed with more paint that would be healthy is one that attests to the fact that when it comes to showcasing superheroes on film, D.C. Comics really has nobody bigger in which to feed the corporate machine with.
However in the purity to be found in the Graphic Novel, where the tie in is not to be found, where the story hangs on its own accord, Batman certainly reigns supreme and in the three stories, Fears, Madness, and Ghosts, the tales have more than their usual flair for the classical noir, the allusions to 19th Century Gothic, certainly self-evident in the final tale Ghosts, complete and well-rounded and ones in which even as adult half the fun of reading them, of pouring over the distinctive artwork by Tim Sale, is to imagine being of the age once more in which such tales were secretly devoured under the cover of bed clothes, the small battery driven torch hitting every stroke and punctuation mark with bitten down finger nails holding it shakily aloft and the thought of such evil characters prowling outside your door on the night of mischief.
Whilst Halloween to some has become a case for rampant commercialism, the exploitation of the scare tactics, for the readers of Batman it has become a time in which to celebrate the grotesque and gloomy in equal measure, to be creeped out without the threat of some monsters knocking on your door with tones of menace. Batman: Haunted Knight shows the only thing that should be spooked on October 31st is a hero with two personalities to keep him warm and a whole lot of psychotic criminals to catch.
Batman: Haunted Knight is available to buy from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.
Ian D. Hall