I picked this up yesterday and tore through it in about 3 hours. I thought the story was ok. I enjoy Batman being more detective and this was pretty close for that. I also like Batman vs. the organized crime aspect as well. The art was ok - not what I'm really used to for this type of book, but still enjoyable enough to make the story visually appealing.

Just wanted to see what you all thought of it story and art wise.

I read it a few years ago, and thought it was just okay, then I read Dark Victory, and liked that a lot. It made me reread Long Halloween, which I liked a lot better the second time. The art is interesting, an acquired taste for me. Most of the characters have dog-faces, but I love the noirish look, camera angles and so forth.

Loved the art, but like most of Loeb's stuff, it suffers from low panel count and strokes the artist's ego by relying on splash pages and 2-page spreads, which spreads a smallish story over lots and lots and lots of pages.

I actually sat down and counted a few years back, and TLH had something like 1 1/4 times the panels as Batman: Year 1, but has 3 1/2 times the page count.

It's a nice story, but I just can't help thinking I'm getting ripped off by a lazy writer.

You want to get ripped off by Jeph Loeb? Try Superman: For All Seasons.

Boy was I mad at the fact that I'm getting some big, full page spreads through a 6 dollar comic.

That said, I love Loeb's writing at DC.



And I enjoyed both the Long Halloween and Dark Victory, and I think I'm getting the Catwoman TPB or HC this month from DCBService.

And, I will likely break down and buy the Superman TPB too.

I'm so bad...

I liked it... nice art ... but Batman was much more intense than I generally like him.

Long Halloween is a quick read, and a good candidate for "wait for the trade." I can't imagine having gotten that monthly, I would have dropped it with the first issue that look 2 minutes to read.

Long Halloween and Dark Victory both worked really well as monthly comics, through, since you got a few more clues and another death at the end of each installment. There were enough solid cliffhangers throughout that it was pretty hard to stop reading after two or three installments.

Loeb & Sale's Marvel stuff definitely fell into the "wait for the trade" category, since they had trouble meeting the deadlines on at least one (Spider-Man: Blue) and basically re-told stories that Lee, Kirby, Ditko, Romita & Everett already gave us in the 1960s, but with a lot more splash pages. Not a lot of meat on those bones at $3.50 a pop.

Just like Andrew I did not enjoy Loeb and Sale's collaborations on the Marvel books..BUT the Long Halloween and Dark Victory were both very cool..i enjoyed the mystery aspects of it..the clues, red herrings, paranoia, suspicion..a nice detective story on both counts.

I dropped Spider-Man: Blue. Couldn’t even make it through the second issue because of all the yawning.

Thanks for all the replies. I do like the art. The artist, to me, had some great shots and the story telling to me was very fluid from panel to panel.

I think that if I was trying to buy this month to month I would have dropped it as well. And as a few of you said, it did seem like it was stretched out a little bit. Think I'll look for Dark Victory next. Anyone have any personal favorites for Batman they could recommend? And not necessarily monthly either.

THE BATMAN ADVENTURES 1-36, 1992-1995. About half the issues are also collected in TPB. Both TPBs are currently on sale at Mile High for $7 apiece.

http://www.milehighcomics.com/cgi-bin/backissue.cgi?action=list&title=08500241034&snumber=1

Batman Year one by Miller and Mazzucelli..classic.

There were some nice graphic novels written by Chuck Dixon: The Last Laugh (where the Joker is about to get the electric chair..and for once he may be innocent of teh crime..nice art by Graham Nolan)..and the Chalice (where what we beleive to be the Holy Grail pops up in Gotham and everybody (Catwoman, Penguin, Ras Al Ghul, etc) try to get their hands on it.

I was underwhelmed by LONG HALLOWEEN. I really liked the noir atmosphere, and the relationship between Batman, Gordon, and Dent, but that was about it.

Obvious recommendations of course are DARK KNIGHT and YEAR ONE (and for that matter, also DAREDEVIL: BORN AGAIN).

Any issues of DETECTIVE COMICS from the Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle era.

Matt Wagner's first BATMAN/GRENDEL series.

The first 50 or so issues of LEGENDS OF THE DARK KNIGHT.

I've read Year One - used to have mint condition first prints of that series... And I used to read Detective during the Breyfogle run - loved him! I used to collect LOTDK from Issue 1 as well, so I'm on board as far as those go.

Tim Sale's art is an acquired taste. I like it, but others might not.

I didn't dig "Daredevil Yellow" as much because it retold the brilliant Stan Lee-Wally Wood stories, but took more pages to do it in. I prefer their original works like "Long Halloween" and "Dark Victory", both of which make excellent sequels to "Year One" and both of which partially inspired "Batman Begins."

I liked Batman: Dark Detective by Englehart and Rogers just this last year. That was more of the old Batman I remember.

Mark - I started to pick it up, and it was pretty good, but was underwhelmed by the art for some reason.

I have not read LONG HALLOWEEN yet but plan too....hhmmm, sounds interesting.

Tommy - its a cool mystery and it features all the classic bat villains..i think you'll enjoy it. Let us know once you read it.

I found it entertaining enough to buy the other collected works of Loeb and Sale.