Batman: Dark Victory

Batman: Dark Victory picks up where Batman: The Long Halloween left off.  The Holiday killer has been caught and is behind bars the Roman is dead, but our heroes are coping with the loss of Harvey Dent.  Two-Face has taken over and the last remnants of Harvey Dent are slowly being erased throughout this book.  There is a shining light in this book as it showcases how Dick Grayson became the first Boy Wonder to team up side by side with the Dark Knight.  There are new characters to make there appearances as well such as Janice Porter.  This book is sort of a mirror reflection to Batman: The Long Halloween because instead of the mob being targeted police officers are being targeted every holiday by a new killer called the Hangman and a piece of evidence is found at each scene linking Harvey Dent to each victim.  Janice Porter is the new district attorney but she is hiding something that when it is revealed is one of the greatest twist that Jeph Loeb has ever written in a Batman story because it’s not something you expect.  There is more of a shock value I think at the end of this book when it is revealed who the real Hangman killer is.

Like I mentioned earlier one of the shining lights of this book is seeing the origin of Dick Grayson how and why his parents died.  How he discovered the Bat-cave and how he became Robin.  It doesn’t take very long but it is something that felt quite fulfilling to see put to the page in this collection.  There is surprisingly little Bruce Wayne in this book compared to its predecessor.  The relationship between Bruce Wayne and Selena Kyle seems to dissolve in this book as he pushes her away in his grief over losing Dent.  But on a side not it is because of events in this book that there is a spin-off story of sorts about a journey that Catwoman goes on in between two of the chapters in this book.

If you read Batman: The Long Halloween then you mostly know what to expect with this sequel closing out some of the early adventures of the Caped Crusader.  I highly recommend it on the artwork alone as I love Tim Sale’s work but it is a very well crafted story.