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Batman: Haunted Knight

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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Batman: The Long Halloween (comic)

The Long Halloween is a semi-sequel to Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. Writer Jeph Loeb continues the tale of a Gotham City that is still partly controlled by mobsters and gangsters, but more and more crazy Batman villains are starting to make their voices heard. A serial killer is slowly killing off members or the Falcone crime family on holidays and Batman has to find out why. He enters a crime fighting pact with Police Captain James Gordon and the new district attorney, Harvey Dent. Over the course of the 13 issues, Harvey Dent transitions himself from a moral and upstanding person to a psychotic villain known as Two-Face. If that spoiled anything for you, I’m not fucking sorry. Everyone knows that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face.

A notorious mobster named Carmine “The Roman” Falcone tries to get Bruce Wayne to get the Gotham City Bank to launder money. This sets off a chain of events where Batman starts to investigate that Falcone family, allying with James Gordon and Harvey Dent in an attempt to stop organized crime in Gotham.

On Halloween, Jonny Viti (The Roman’s nephew) is shot and killed by an unknown assassin. Each month the killer returns to wipe out another mobster on a holiday, each victim is associated with the Falcones.

Batman, Gordon, and Harvey Dent become intent on catching the killer, who they start referring to as Holiday. Catwoman is constantly spying on Batman and always seems to be present when he’s meeting with Gordon and Dent, or whenever he’s creeping around at nighttime doing his Batman duties. Haha, Batman doodies. Batman’s not sure which side she is on, but he’s got bigger fish to fry.

Harvey Dent finds a link between the Falcone family and the Wayne family that results in Bruce Wayne getting arrested. That puts a slight damper on Batman’s relationship with Harvey Dent.

The crime war between the Falcones and their rivals, the Maronis reaches the point where Maroni agrees to testify against The Roman. Instead of a damning testimony, he hurls acid into Harvey Dent’s face. And Harvey Dent goes crazy and becomes Two-Face.

So now Batman has a new crazy villain to deal with and he still has to find out who the Holiday killer is. And there are a lot of suspects. And there’s a twist so brace yourselves.

Not only does Batman have to deal with the Falcone mobsters and the Maroni mobsters, but there’s a virtual who’s who of Batman villains that make appearances. Catwoman, the Joker, Two-Face, the Calendar Man, Solomon Grundy, the Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Mad Hatter, and Poison Ivy all show up. Even though there are a few sideshows, the main storyline is tight and focused. Just sit back and enjoy where the story takes you.

Tim Sale’s artwork is gorgeous. Loeb and Sale worked together for a few projects; this is one of their better collaborative efforts (check out Superman for All Seasons for a good Superman read).

If you’ve seen any of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (and I’m assuming you have, because who hasn’t?), then you will notice a lot of things that the movies took from this comic, especially in The Dark Knight. This story is better than The Dark Knight. It’s a murder mystery that can only be solved by the world’s greatest detective and he dresses up like a bat when it’s dark outside.

This is one of the best Batman stories ever. And one of the best comic book stories ever. It’s just a great story period. So read it.

Critically Rated at 15/17

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Actors in Multiple Movie Franchises

Some movies make a lot of money. And people like money, so they decide to make a sequel to make even more money. And if that sequel makes money they might make a third movie. And three movies in the same series makes a trilogy, and (for the purposes of this article) a trilogy is a film franchise. So if an actor appears in three or more movies in the same franchise and three or more movies in another franchise, then they will appear on this list. Unless I forgot about them. Sorry forgotten celebrity.

Harrison Ford starred in the original Star Wars trilogy and the Indiana Jones trilogy (and that shitty fourth movie that I try to forget about). He’s also rumored to come back in the new Star Wars movies.

Tim Allen starred in the Toy Story trilogy and the Santa Clause movies.

Michael J. Fox went Back to the Future three times and voiced Stuart Little three times.

Matt Damon was Jason Bourne three times and was in Ocean’s Eleven, Twelve, and Thirteen.

Eddie Murphy was Donkey in four Shrek movies and Axel Foley three times as a Beverly Hills Cop. Mike Myers was Shrek in the Shrek flicks and Austin Powers and Dr. Evil in the Austin Powers movies.

Shrek And Donkey - Shrek The Final Chapter Desktop Wallpaper

Orlando Bloom was Legolas in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and he’s reprising his role in The Hobbit movie. He was also in the first three Pirates of the Caribbean movies too.

Sir Ian McKellen has saved the world as Gandalf in three Lord of the Rings movies and will do so again in The Hobbit trilogy. He’s also threatened the world three times as Magneto in the X-Men franchise.

Patrick Stewart played Captain Jean-Luc Picard four times on the big screen and played Charles Xavier in three X-Men movies with a cameo in the Wolverine movie.

Crazy anti-Semite Mel Gibson has been in four Lethal Weapon Movies and was Mad Max three times. You know he hates Jews right?

Warwick Davis was in six Leprechaun movies (about half were direct-to-video) and was also in all eight Harry Potter Movies playing duel roles as Professor Flitwick and Griphook.

Sylvester Stallone was Rambo four times and Rocky Balboa six times. I have a feeling he might be Expendable three times too.

Vin Diesel sucks a lot of balls, but he’s been in four Fast and/or Furious movies (one of them was just a cameo), and he will play Riddick again in 2013. I’m sure that there are at least four people who will pay to see that shit.

Ben Stiller has played Gaylord Focker in three movies and loaned his voice to three Madagascar movies.

Gary Oldman played Sirius Black in Harry Potter 3, 4, 5 and 7.5 and has been James Gordon three times in Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy.

Bruce Campbell has played Ash in the Evil Dead movies and had cameos in all of Sam Raimi’s Spider-man movies. That might be a stretch, but it still counts.

Antonio Banderas has been Puss in Boots in three Shrek movies and one spinoff and was in four Spy Kids movies (his scene was cut in the fourth one. Yes, there are four Spy Kids movies). He was played El Mariachi in two out of the three El Mariachi movies, so he doesn’t get any points for that.

John Cho has hung out with Kumar three times as Harold, and he was in American Pie, American Pie 2, American Wedding, and American Reunion. Cameos count. Right, Bruce Campbell?

Samuel L. Jackson was Mace Windu in Star Wars Episode I-III. He also played Nick Fury in Iron Man, Iron Man 2, Thor, Captain America, and The Avengers, which are all part of the same universe, so he gets included.

Jackie Chan has three franchises under his belt. Three Rush Hour movies, four Police Story movies, and he’s loaned his voice to two Kung Fu Panda movies with a third coming out in 2013.

Christopher Lee played Fu Manchu three times, he was Dracula in a bunch of movies. He was Count Dooku in Episodes II and III and the animated Clone Wars movie. He was in Lord of the Rings too.

Hugo Weaving has also been in three franchises. He threatened Neo three times as Agent Smith in the Matrix trilogy. He loaned his voice to Megatron in the Transfomers movies. And he was Elrond in the Lord of the Rings movie and will reprise his role again in one of the upcoming Hobbit movies.

So that’s my list. I think it’s pretty complete. If you see anyone that I’m missing leave a comment. And I’ll either correct you or add it to my list. I don’t know how to rate this so I will just settle for something like this:

Critically Rated at 12/17

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