So as you may recall, I reviewed the somewhat recent series “Batman R.I.P.” a while back and thought it was completely terrible. Well, rest assured the stuff DC is putting out right now isn’t any better.
Spoiler Alert: Batman is “dead.” He died at the end of “Final Crisis” at the hands of DC’s most hardened villain, Darkseid. The writers tried to make his final battle immensely poetic by having Batman break his oath and use a gun to stop an immense evil but it just looked really corny.
I say Batman is “dead” because there are innumerable accounts of superheroes “dying” but coming back for no good reason. However, even if Bruce Wayne himself does not come back from the dead, at least there will be some sort of “Batman.” DC is almost done with their event “Battle for the Cowl” whereby someone else will supposedly take up the Batman personae.
This is all well and good but honestly I have no desire to buy a wealth of comics about some lame Batman sidekicks bickering over who deserves to be Batman. If they didn’t already screw it up with “Batman R.I.P.” or “Final Crisis” they certainly are doing it now.
There is an old saying that goes something along the lines of “Hell hath no fury like a nerd’s scorn.” When you take away our favorite superheroes, change the rules of our favorite role playing game or raise the prices for our hobby games, we get angry. And yes, that anger doesn’t really mean much. But you know, it’s there, and you better watch out for it.
There is always a reassurance when the powers that be change our nerd world: we still have all the stuff we have amassed over the years. In the case of Batman, that means numerous great stories, such as “Batman: The Long Halloween.”
If you are looking for a great Batman detective story full of intrigue, mystery, murder and obsession, then look no further. Written by Jeph Loeb, and illustrated by Tim Sale, during the late 1990s, “The Long Halloween” tells the story of the infamous Holiday killer. The story is also a retelling of Two-Face’s origin.
This is the kind of story that Batman needs, not some deep psychological, though wholly corny, look into the mind of Bruce Wayne, but merely what Batman does best: being a great detective. Yet, if Bruce Wayne is truly dead, then maybe we’ll never see a story like this ever again.
Anyway, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are an amazing team-up, with Batman and many other superheroes. I suggest picking up “The Long Halloween” first, but also be sure to check out “Dark Victory.”
Jon Monteith is a history senior and Mustang Daily’s comic book columnist.