Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are reunited yet again for another Batman graphic novel. Haunted Knight is actually a collection of three short stories, all of which take place on Halloween night. The title is a pun, he’s a haunted knight and the stories take place on a haunted night. That’s clever; see what they did there?
The first story is called Fears and it’s about Batman facing his fears. He has a showdown with the Scarecrow and gets trapped in a giant corn maze and he almost goes crazy. But then he doesn’t and he escapes the maze because he’s the goddamn Batman.
The second story is called Madness. The Mad Hatter kidnaps James Gordon’s adopted daughter. The Mad Hatter has a twisted tea party with kidnapped kids and it’s up to Batman to stop the madness. There’s a parallel storyline involving a young Bruce Wayne and his pre-murdered mama reading Alice in Wonderland to him on a rainy day.
Ghosts is the final story and it’s a spin on A Christmas Carol. Bruce Wayne gets visited by the ghost of Halloween past (she looks like Poison Ivy), the ghost of Halloween present (he looks like the Joker), and the ghost of Halloween yet-to-be (and this ghost is a dead, decomposed Batman). The ghosts teach Bruce not to let Batman take over his life.
There is no sense of continuity between the stories. In fact, you’re not even sure when they take place. It must take place after the events of The Long Halloween storyline because Two-Face is referenced, but before Dark Victory because there is no mention of Robin. And they take place over three years because there are three Halloweens and there’s only one Halloween per year. I might have to double-check my math, but I’m pretty sure I’m right.
The Long Halloween is awesome. Dark Victory is still good, but not as great as The Long Halloween. Haunted Knight is just lazy. Loeb and Sale make great comics, but even they are susceptible to making shitty ones. This is their Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. You wanted to like it, you tried to like it, but they did everything they could to fuck it up and they succeeded in making it suck. It’s not terribly bad. It’s just soul-crushingly disappointing. There are a million better stories out there, and this collection is not necessary.
Critically Rated at 9/17
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