How I Read Batman 6.3: Haunted Knight

In 1993, DC comics asked Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale to create a Halloween special issue for their Legend Of The Dark Knight series.  The pairing of this creative team would go on to create The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, two of my favorite Batman stories.  Haunted Knight is a precursor to those storylines.  While it's not as tight a narrative as the other two collections, it does feature some plot points that will come up later.

The major problem I have about this collection is that it's set up in the order that the specials were released, which doesn't appear to be the order that the stories take place.  So, while I don't suggest reading the collection manga style, I do recommend reading the third chapter in this collection, Ghosts, first.    My reason being that I believe this collection should be read as 48 hours in the life of Batman, not three different years on Halloween. 

Ghosts starts the night before at a banquet where The Penguin makes his first appearance, interrupting one of Bruce Wayne's shindigs.  Batman captures the villain, retrieving a medallion Penguin stole from Lucius Fox.  The medallion features either an exact mock up of the Wayne family door knockers, or else Bruce's father's face.  Either way, the charm induces a sort of hypnosis on Bruce, and the story turns into a Halloween retelling of Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol, with Thomas Wayne as Jacob Marley, Poison Ivy as The Ghost Of Christmas Past, The Joker as The Ghost Of Christmas Present, and a grim reaper  as The Ghost Of Christmas Future.  Among the memories is a primer as to how Lucius Fox got into Wayne's life, as well as unintentional foreshadowing to Final Crisis and Blackest Night.

Next up is chapter two: Madness.  In it, The Mad Hatter kidnaps Jim Gordon's niece, Barbara, who he's just adopted.  Adoption is a bit of a theme in this book, as we are also introduced to Leslie Thompkins, a doctor who helped Alfred raise Bruce after (brace yourselves, new info here) his parents were killed.  (Note: If you want to turn this website into a drinking game, sip a beer every time I make a joke at the expense of Grant Morrison, and a shot every time I have to mention that (spoiler alert) Bruce's parents were killed.)  This story also injects Alice In Wonderland into the Batman mythos.  I grew up loving the book, but I find its saturation in comics, particularly Batman, a bit overwrought.   This story is not one of the finest examples of working the book in subtly.  The "through the looking glass" line hurt to read, but the rest of the story is pretty solid.

The first chapter, Fears, takes us back to another Wayne Halloween party.  While Ghosts and Madness could happen in the same timeframe, this party and the party from Ghosts can't really be the same party, so let's say, for argument's sake, Wayne scheduled a second party due to his guilt over the first one being crashed by The Penguin.  This party is slightly more successful, as none of the rogues gallery interrupts, but a woman named Jillian Maxwell attempts to seduce Bruce, much to the disdain of Alfred.  Alfred does his own detective work while Batman is off dealing with The Scarecrow, and discovers Jillian is a black widow who serially marries and then murders rich husbands under a variety of names.

While all three of these stories are very good, the highlight of this collection is Tim Sale and Gregory Wright's art.  The panel layouts are effortlessly complex.  Despite their nontraditional placement, there's never any doubt where the eye should go next.  And Wright's colors are an integral part of the story.  I especially love his greyscaled pages with the lightly colored narrative boxes.

Story 4/5, Art 5/5