Batman: Dark Victory - Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale

The cover shows Batman and Robin--Batman with his fist out and Robin carrying a rope.  Dark Victory  is 388 pages long, and the first sign of Robin does not appear until page 235.  Thus the cover of Dark Victory is somewhat misleading: one expects it to be the story of how Robin and Batman met and joined forces, but this is really just a minor tangent of the story.  Dark Victory is best viewed as the sequel to The Long Halloween and, as such, should be compared to it.  For this book does not live up to the standards of The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, Red Son, or Watchmen--the four graphic novels that I have decided represent the pinnacles of the medium.  It is on par with The Long Halloween, and I would state that it is slightly better, because there is only one inconceivable plot twist at the end, rather than several.

The prologue picks up where The Long Halloween left off--essentially retelling the story of the serial killer "Holiday."  We see Holiday in Arkham Asylum being interviewed by the new Gotham District Attorney, Janice Porter.  Porter wants to reopen Holiday's case on the grounds that the police committed a violation of the 8th amendment in their capture of him (he endured "quite a beating").  Commissioner Gordon does not think this is wise but the D.A does not need his approval to reopen the case.  Batman shows up right after and Gordon says, "I miss him."  Batman says, "Don't."

Chapter 1, "War" recreates a scene that is by now, more than familiar: Batman's origin story.  However we also see Carmine "The Roman" Falcone tell a young Bruce Wayne that his father saved his life, and that if he ever needed a favor, he knew who to call.  We then see a major character in Dark Victory, Sofia Falcone Gigante, "The Roman's" daughter.  Members from another crime family, the Maronis, are present in this sort of funereal ceremony.  Batman is watching and Selina Kyle is inside.  The place gets busted up, but nobody "big" is captured by Gordon.  We then see Selina Kyle visit Bruce Wayne while he is swimming in his pool, accompanied by another member of the Falcone family.  We then see Janice Porter visit Gordon again:

"District Attorney Janice Porter.  As a result of Harvey Dent's removal from office, the City Council moved quickly to replace him.  Harvard Law, top of her class.  Six years as D.A. in Boston.  A lot of experience in a short amount of time.  But Boston is not Gotham City." (35)

So at least we know that (it's not Chicago, either, which is where Gordon came from).

We also see the Gotham City Bridge on page 42 and it looks a lot like the Brooklyn Bridge.  Also, remember a key scene from The Dark Knight Rises--Gotham City is unmistakably New York City.  And it is with deep regret that I must take a moment from this review and state that I will not be able to  film Batman in Brooklyn because I will be leaving this place in about a month.  It is with a very heavy heart that I announce this, but instead we will have to move forward with Back to the Future Part 2: Present, which will star my younger brother in Michael J. Fox's multiple roles in that film, and I will play Doc.  If anyone wants to make Batman in Brooklyn, however, I will gladly help to produce the film and help with the screenwriting.  Moving on...

Shortly after this (still on "War") it is Halloween night--the one year anniversary of "The Roman's" death.  Amazingly, we see Batman visit Two-Face in Arkham Asylum, during which mayhem ensues.  Poison Ivy makes an appearance, "Holday" stays in his cell even though the glass has been shattered, and Two-Face escapes.  Then, the scene shifts to a courtroom, where Judge Harkness allows "Holiday" to be kept under house arrest with an electronic monitor kept on his leg at all times.  Then we see that one police officer has been hanged, and many of Harvey Dent's files have been stolen from the D.A.'s office.  Attached to the hanged policeman's chest is a note, with a drawing of the children's game Hangman:

"N_NE _F Y__ _RE S_FE" (64)

The next chapter, "Secrets" involves Batman's attempt to solve the riddle by asking, who else, The Riddler.  We then see what happens to former Commissioner Loeb.  At this point, I am going to stop with the plot retelling because I do not want to spoil the rest.  Suffice to say that The Long Halloween is about a series of unsolved murders of members of crime families, and Dark Victory is about a series of unsolved murders of police officers.  In a sense this makes it like Year One, but that is more about Batman's first forays into crime-fighting and police corruption.  Dark Victory is sort of like all of these books mashed up into one--with Robin as the defining element, as noted on the cover.

All villains in the rogue's gallery make appearances: Poison Ivy, Joker, Catwoman, Riddler, Two-Face, Solomon Grundy, the Calendar Man, Scarecrow and notably, Mr. Freeze.   But this is really about the crime families.  And it is really about The Long Halloween, or a new way to interpret that book.

There is a great scene where Harvey Dent represents himself in court, and when asked if he swears to tell the truth he says, "I can't answer that question...because I'm not Harvey Dent.  The name is Two-Face."  (304)

There is also a nice little tidbit that Janice Porter went to Gotham University Law School while Harvey Dent was a young professor there, and that she transferred to Harvard.  In her Harvard yearbook it reads "Voted most likely to be D.A.  Favorite subject: criminal law."

Brooklyn Law School will not be putting out a yearbook this year, sadly.  I would like to put this under my picture if it did: "Voted most likely to be the first Supreme Court justice with a mediocre performance in law school; favorite subject: bankruptcy."  Of course our school does not take such votes, probably because few people know a majority of their 477 classmates.  Harvard is even bigger, and I would be interested to know if they publish such a yearbook (I have my doubts).

Before we conclude, it is worth noting in passing that Batman "sees himself" in Robin and initially is not really cool with the idea of having a sidekick.  Mostly we see Alfred supervising Dick Grayson (who is about 13--maybe slightly younger than his female version in The Dark Knight Returns), but Batman does offer a few words:

"Dick Grayson has been living in Wayne Manor.  It has been a...difficult transition.  For both of us.  And I cannot help but wonder if I have made a mistake by interceding in the boy's life.  My attention has been splintered.  I will find out who killed Dick's parents.  He needs that closure.  But, tonight is a holiday and I am needed elswhere." (264-265)

Later, Batman reveals his true identity to Dick Grayson and it signals the moment in which their partnership will begin.

That's most of what I wanted to say about this book.  It's a quality read (and as always, the illustration is fantastic) but it's not an example of the height of the genre.  There may be still another sequel to this book (Haunted Knight?) and I would gladly read it, though I would not have high expectations.

As a final note I do not think the Superman franchise was catapulted into the same league as the Batman franchise by its most recent film.  I did not see it, but the popularity at the box office is the barometer by which I measure the popularity of the superheroes.  Red Son should be made into a movie--THAT would be AWESOME.  But I don't think the world is ready for that yet.

The Long Halloween and Dark Victory could be made into movies, but they'd be too complicated.  And  I recently watched an animated film of Batman: Year One which was a very faithful and quality adaptation of the book.  But I don't think there's enough material for a movie--or at least people might not be as interested in it, because I really believe Jim Gordon is the protagonist of that book, and not Batman.  Still (since Batman in Brooklyn is on indefinite hiatus) The Dark Knight Returns could be made and I have very little doubt that it would do every bit as well at the box office as any of the three recent films (if not better).

Batman: The Long Halloween - Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale

The Long Halloween will be the first comic book/graphic novel that I review here that gets less than a perfect review.  This is not to say that it is a bad book, but it cannot touch any of the four previously reviewed works (which all very well may be nearly impossible to equal).  At the very least the introduction (by Jeph Loeb) states that Batman: Year One is actually the "preferred" classic in both his and Tim Sale's opinion, "while not as much the pop culture icon" as Frank Miller's other highly-acclaimed Batman book (reviewed here - it all seems so long ago....).  Ultimately, this "failure" is understandable, as The Long Halloween is a collection of a 13-issue series.  So it is more like a regular comic book than any of those previous four.  And that tends to show.

Now we cannot fault Loeb & Sale for filling in the "latecomers" to the series and repeating information previously reported in earlier issues, but this is the primary defect I can state.  This book is 370 pages long and I read it in one day.  That may sound impressive but it's really not.  Red Son is 151 pages long and took me two days to read.  Watchmen took me a very long time to read (mainly because I wanted to savor the experience).  The Dark Knight Returns took me a good four days or so to read.  The only one I read faster was The Killing Joke and that is only a single-issue "one-off" (and it was also much more dense than The Long Halloween).

And yet this book is definitely worth reading, even if it goes down too fast.  It seems like finally here, we have the closest influence on the new Batman trilogy.  This is a story about Carmine "The Roman" Falcone--who is a mob boss--and his competitor Maroni--both of which appeared in Batman Begins and The Dark Knight (The Dark Knight Rises did not have the "mafia element" in it, from what I recall) respectively.  That I cannot recall their "subplots" in those films with any confidence is perhaps a sign that when Batman tries to weave into "Mafia territory," general interest seems to dip.  Still, this is a good story.  It is, however, a little bit cheap in the way three or four twists are introduced in the final 30-40 pages (and especially the epilogue, which, while not terrible, stands in deep contrast to the peerless ending to Red Son).

The story concerns Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and D.A. Harvey Dent (it is worth noting that this book was especially useful for me as I continue to visualize Batman in Brooklyn) and their efforts to bring down Falcone, whose family is the "evil" that is terrorizing Gotham City.  There is nothing particularly strange about this Batman or this Gordon--but this Dent is perhaps the strongest element of the book and probably the most compelling portrayal of the character thus far.  I will not reveal the manner in which Dent "becomes" Two-Face in this, but it does happen, and while The Dark Knight certainly gave a better treatment to Two-Face/Dent than Batman or Batman Forever, it seems modeled off of this book, and dressed up for greater dramatic effect.

However, Falcone is not the main focus of the book--that would have to be Holiday--which is the name of the serial killer that drives the plot of the book, killing another person (generally from Falcone's extended family) on each holiday.  The identity of Holiday becomes the major question in the book and as mentioned above, is ultimately somewhat unsatisfying.

Yet along the way there are an insane number of other villains: Catwoman (?), the Calendar Man, the Joker, "Solomon Grundy (?)," Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, The Mad Hatter, The Riddler, and even the Penguin (though I must say his appearance is abbreviated).  There is no Robin, and there is no Batgirl (no Superman either, though Metropolis is referenced once).  They may be getting used to add "padding" to an otherwise thin plot, but I really don't want to be too uncharitable to this book, because it really is a fine effort.  I would give it four out of five stars (if I am using a 5 star system for books instead of a 4 star one) and all previously reviewed comics five stars.

Again, it is not very easy to transcribe passages from the work, but there is one part that stands out:

"My father had an old Dictaphone.  He kept it in his study.  He would make recordings.  I can still hear his voice...'When faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem...your only option is to act swiftly, some might even say irrationally.  Removing the most dangerous elements first....and methodically attacking each subsequent challenge in a separate, but deliberate manner.'  He was referring...to surgery." (347-349)

I hope this review has not come off too harshly, because the book itself is drawn extremely well, and it is never boring (if it were boring I would not have read it in a day).  So I recommend it--but not ahead of the other two Batman books previously reviewed.