Batman: Dark Victory/Jeph Loeb

Batman: Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb (story) and Tim Sale (art); graphic novel; 392 pages

I love almost everything I've read by Loeb, so I was really excited to stumble across a Batman story by him that I hadn't read. Unfortunately, this was so close to one of this other works, that I may as well have.

This is the sequel to Loeb's fantastic The Long Halloween, which follows a series of killings through a year in Gotham (the killer only strikes on holidays). The story is set early in Batman's career--only a year or two after Frank Miller's Year One storyline, so it contains some milestones, like the creation of Two-Face. In what I'm coming to see as his trademark, Loeb tries to cram as many of Batman's villains into Halloween as possible, with appearances from the less well-known foes only after the famous ones have had their walk-on. Dark Victory is meant to be the following year, when Batman is a little more experienced, but it wound up feeling like a rewrite of the Halloween storyline. Once again, a killer is striking on holidays, and Batman takes most of a year to track him down. Again, all the major players are here, and I found myself wondering how, exactly, this was different than the first story. I'm glad I read this--it was entertaining, and was an interesting take on Robin's origin story--but it felt more like a reread than fresh material. I do recommend reading the spin-off Catwoman: When in Rome between this volume and The Long Halloween, as it ties the two arcs together quite nicely.