***THIS REVIEW WAS ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON THE NERD BLITZ PATREON***
Editor’s note: This review was written about 3 weeks before Tim Sale died.
I’m happy to have this review stand as a tribute to an impeccable artist.
Much like with my recent Superman reviews being inspired by how great Superman And Lois is and all, this one is inspired by how much I dug The Batman.
But not solely, because I’ve been having the itch for a couple of years now to reread the 3 Loeb & Sale Bat books and just haven’t gotten around to it.
I remember all of them being pretty good, but this one and Dark Victory didn’t stick in my brain the way The Long Halloween did.
And that left me a bit nervous to revisit this.
Is there some reason I don’t remember it?
Did it suck or was it just outshined by a better story?
Let’s take a trip down memory lane together and find out, gang!
Here is your dark and moody ***SPOILER ALERT***
Art by Tim Sale: There is a reason that Sale was in the conversation for induction in the 2022 Nerd Blitz Hall Of Fame class (***Editor’s Note*** He made it in in 2023), and just taking a quick flip through this book makes it obvious.
Specifically Madness & Ghosts, the 2nd and 3rd stories collected here.
He draws some gorgeous splashy pieces that are truly breathtaking in those two, particularly of The Bat himself.
Like when Batsy is leaving after Doctor Leslie Thompkins patches him up in Madness, it’s such a moody and starkly beautiful page.
Or the two page reveal of Joker in ghosts that is stunning.
This entire book, comprised of three issues from consecutive Halloweens, is clearly a master artist hitting his sweet spot and having fun doing it.
He has his own distinct style which is almost more cartoon than comic, but it works better than most other artists that have a cartoonist flair.
It’s nightmarish, garish, harsh, and beautiful all at once.
If you see a Tim Sale piece, particularly of Batman, you’ll never forget it.
Story by Jeph Loeb: Three straight years of Halloween tales in one volume: Fears, Madness, Ghosts.
In Fears, Bats is hunting the Scarecrow, while Bruce is trying to find a balance between the cowl and a love life.
In Madness, when The Mad Hatter kidnaps Barbara Gordon, Batman faces off with the deranged wonderland wannabe and is confronted by childhood memories.
And in Ghosts, the Dark Knight gets the Dickens scared out of him as he is confronted by four ghosts, under the guise of his father and three of his biggest antagonists, for dedicating too much time and effort to his nightly activities.
I think the best of these stories for me is easily Madness.
It presents some twisted imagery, but it also, out of the three, dives most successfully into Bruce Wayne’s childhood and motivation.
Giving him a real and grounded reason to dispise The Mad Hatter and his twisting of Lewis Carroll’s classic tale.
Hatter, at his core, is plainly an insane being twisted by his obsession with the book, and layering in Bruce’s history with the same book packs an unexpected emotional punch that can knock you on your ass if you’re not careful.
Neither of the other stories are bad by any stretch of the imagination, though I think Ghosts suffers in this day and age because A Christmas Carol has just been done to death at this point that I’m, to be frank, sick of seeing every goddamn version of it.
I agree, it’s a classic tale, but holy shit let’s reign it in here, gang.
I don’t wanna see a new version of it for at least ten years.
And as far as Fears goes, when I read it I thought it was pretty good, but after I read Madness I had a hell of a time remembering what happened in it, and I honestly still can’t recall without looking it up or rereading it.
Like I said, by no metric is it bad, but, much like this entire collection when compared to The Long Halloween, it just got out shined.
This is a great collection though, and it’s an even greater warm up for what Loeb and Sale would follow it with, the seminal work that is The Long Halloween.
As I reread them, it’s going to be interesting to see if Long Halloween has any connections or references to Haunted Knight or not, I hope it does because it seems to be a bit of a waste to not play with some of the toys you’ve already set-up.
But I can understand if Sale wanted to flex a bit and try his hand at some of the other Rogues.
I know it may seem like I’m a bit down on it so I feel I must reiterate that I dug this, I’ve long been a fan of Loeb’s work, but if nothing else the art alone is a huge selling point.
If you’ve not yet read this, what are you waiting for?
Stop reading this, get the lead out, and go pick it up as soon as you can!
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