Batman: Year One (1998)

$29.95 DC Comics, hardback

Credits:

Writer: Jeph Loeb

Artist: Tim Sale

Colors: Gregory Wright

Overview:

There’s a serial killer in Gotham, and everyone from Batman, to the Joker, to the most powerful crime families in town, want him - - or her- - dead. A taut, gripping mystery stretching from October to October in Gotham City.

Review

I've admired Jeph Loeb’s Uncanny X-Men writing in the past, but I had no idea he was capable of this. Batman: The Long Halloween, is a real thriller, almost rising to the level of the classic it dovetails to the end of: Batman: Year One. Placing it there means we still have a Batman still being felt out by his compatriots at the Gotham City Police Department. It also means there’s a certain guaranteed thrill, if you’re a Batman fan, of seeing these early conversations re-imagined by Loeb.

Truthfully, there’s so much cool stuff in this story I have a hard time knowing what to point out. The plot is born of a classic gangster tale: a rivalry between two Gotham crime families somehow triggers a series of deaths on one side. But who’s doing the killing? Is it the mysterious Catwoman, out to protect herself? Is it Harvey Dent, the good but reactionary DA? And why has the Joker suddenly declared war on the serial killer, as intent on finding him or her as Batman?

What really makes the story sing, though, it its attention to detail. The mystery itself is masterfully executed, as we get to know Jim Gordon, Batman, Harvey Dent, Catwoman and the crime families over the course of a whole year. Loeb maintains a consistent mood that is uniquely his- - neither the oppressive ghoulishness of Arkham nor the noir cynicism of Miller’s Dark Knight. Loeb, instead, gives the story a certain grim jauntiness, like a Bogart picture. These people are in danger, but it’s sexy.

Speaking of sexy. You have not seen Selina Kyle, Catwoman, until you have seen her here. Yow. It’s rare that Selina is sexier than her feline alter ego, but a wild hairdo and a wicked smirk as rendered by Tim Sale give us here the best Selina I've ever seen. Bruce Wayne and Selina have a steamy relationship here, ballroom dancing while gangsters die.

Most interesting is Jeph Loeb’s exploration of Harvey Dent, who has never really been all that interesting to me in the past. (Usually the writer merely as Batman remark. “Harvey was a good man.”) Here, he is a good man, and a complicated one, and because everyone knows he’s bound to become Two-Face soon enough, every line he speaks is ripe with meaning. You mourn for him before he’s gone, but beyond that, you’re interested in him as a character somewhere between Gordon and Batman. What happens to Harvey has never seemed so tragic as it does here.

What else? No less than about the whole Rogues’ Gallery, for one thing. And Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday,) a sad, mountain of a man in the tunnels below Gotham.

Enough. Read it.