New To You Comics #104: ‘Batman: Dark Victory’ Catches Us Up In The Mystery

With the comics industry continuing to battle the effects of the pandemic, Brendan Allen and I are continuing to talk about comics that the other might not have read. I’m more of a capes, laser guns and swords guy, while Brendan loves dark magic, criminals, and things that go bump in the night. This week, the guys take a different tactic with a sequel to a Batman series neither have read!

Batman has decades worth of comic book stories that could fuel a column like ours, or podcasts or more. Just from the sheer volumes of Batman stories, it’s easily one of the highest quality franchises in comics. In the late 90’s, one of the best was the trilogy of Haunted Knight/Long Halloween/Dark Victory from Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Gregory Wright, and Richard Starkings.

These noirish tales of the Dark Knight’s early days cemented Loeb and Sale as a creative team to watch. They went on to do stories in both the DC Universe and Marvel Universe that are still considered some of the most timeless tales in each’s characters’ history.

In Batman: Dark Victory, the Dark Knight and newly promoted Commissioner Jim Gordon are still dealing with the after effects of the Holiday Killer’s rampage and Harvey Dent’s downfall. When another serial killer begins to strike on holidays, this one being dubbed the Hangman, the duo need to rush to stop the killer. But can they do that when the costumed “freaks” of Arkham Asylum begin to make war on the Gotham Mob?

Tony Thornley: So I think this is our longest book to date, clocking in one issue longer than House of X/Powers of X. It’s one of those that you can feel it in the length but not as a negative. What did you think?

Brendan Allen: It is a long one, for sure. There are a couple points where it drags a little, and I think it just has to do with where the chapter stops are. Not enough pages left to get into the next piece of the puzzle, so some of the stuff got drawn out a little longer in the middle to allow for those clean little cowboy cliffhangers between issues. 

Tony: So it’s worth noting- a lot of our reads come from Comixology Unlimited, and we usually only cover sequels and second volumes after we’ve done the first. But Long Halloween wasn’t on Unlimited so I thought it might be fun to do this old school. I’ve picked up more than my fair share of comics late in the game and had to catch up as I read. I really didn’t have any problem with this book. A few little nuances in the callbacks to Long Halloween were lost on me, but overall, this was pretty solid on its own.

Brendan: I saw a couple that I recognized, and a couple that I assumed I had just forgotten. It’s been a really long time since I read Long Halloween, so I blame middle-aged brain fog.

Tony: I think I’ve read Long Halloween, but it’s been at least 15 years if I did, so yeah, brain fog.

Loeb is an extremely complicated figure in comics. Among other things, he’s been accused of racism towards Asian cultures and people. So it’s absolutely worth noting that this is a situation where we are separating art and artist.

That said, I think this is a great, tense murder mystery. The building war between the Arkhamites and the mob is a truly interesting story that drives the plot forward but the Hangman mystery is the thing that kept me invested. The characters are extremely well fleshed out (Gordon is as big a presence as Batman himself). I also really enjoyed that the story took its time bringing in Harvey Dent. The specter of Dent, the White Knight of Gotham, hangs over the entire book, and his downfall is the driver for a lot of the plot.

Brendan: When we talk about Batman, it seems like it comes up every time, that Batman is supposed to be the world’s greatest DETECTIVE, and it drives me up the wall when writers forget that, and then get the readers to play along. This is the kind of Batman story I really enjoy. The dude is doing his job, and there is a definite noir tilt to the thing. In my opinion, this is the best kind of Batman story, calling back to the roots of the character and not relying too heavily on the gadgets and gimmicks.

You can’t strip away all of that stuff, though, because it likewise wouldn’t work without some of the camp, or without the classic villains. Speaking of Dent, I was so hoping they wouldn’t pull the obvious angle there. The frame-up was done beautifully, and preserved that sort of self-aware, ‘bad, but not necessarily wanting to be’ mystique surrounding the character. 

Tony: Oh absolutely. And the twist with Janice Porter and her involvement with Dent worked great for me too. I only have two big squabbles with the story. The first is that I wish we’d gotten more time with Porter, and saw her being a little bit more antagonistic to Bruce. I think the character needed a little more fleshing out.

Brendan: I thought Porter’s involvement was just a touch heavy-handed. Back to that detective thing I said before, she was the one person in the loop that was an unknown entity. Gordon put together a team of trusted agents, and she was the only one who was unvetted, yet it was a mystery who kept selling them out? 

Tony: Yeah, exactly!

And then I feel the same about Dick Grayson. We knew Robin was going to be a part of the story. It would have been nice to get more time to develop him, and his climb to become Robin. He was definitely one of the most interesting characters in the book and would have loved to have gotten more time with him.

Brendan: Was this the first appearance of Robin? Because it felt like an introduction, but it also felt rushed, as you said. Can’t have been, though. This is a fairly recent story, right? I’m so confused.

Tony: Robin’s been around since… 38? Like not long after Batman himself. And this story is less than 25 years old. But I do think this is one of the best versions of his early origin.

Brendan: Timelines always screw me up on these long-tenured stories. So, it’s this version’s introduction. Got it. Sort of.

Tony: Yeah, though this story was set in the past according to when it was published, it’s modern Dick Grayson’s origin.

Comics continuity is headache inducing.

Brendan: Right on. Let’s talk about the art. This definitely looks a few years old, like the early nineties. The dating aside, it’s still very legible and dynamic. There are a couple little issues I take with anatomy, like there’s NO WAY Batman’s legs are pointed the way they are when he’s climbing down a chimney, and he looks like he’s squatting to relieve himself on the roof at one point, when I think he’s just supposed to look poised to spring into action.

Tony: I think Sale is one of the greats of the comics industry. One of the top three to five best Batman artists in the character’s history. He’s also extremely consistent. He came into the industry more or less fully formed too.

But you’re absolutely right about how stylized he is. It’s extremely disquieting if you’re not anticipating it.

Overall though, outside of the weird quirks, I think this book is worth it for the art alone. Sale’s Batman is the platonic ideal of Batman- a little exaggerated when out in Gotham, but in the Batcave we see his human side. His Arkham inmates are all stunning- from Grundy’s bulky mass, to Ivy’s mess of leaves, and so on. He even takes the mob a step further than most do, and makes a point of making each member of the mob distinct visually from one another in not just body type but style. His Sofia Falcone is a terrifying presence, both as the horribly disfigured crime boss she’s seen as, as well as (spoilers for a twenty year old book) after we discover she’s the Hangman, and her physical presence just fills up the page.

Brendan: That Hangman reveal is a great take on an old trope. She was massive and commanding even when she was in the chair, though. The only real difference for me is once the ‘mask’ of disability is cast aside, that mass is suddenly something you have to deal with. Like, she’s actually going to take a swing at you now, because she’s no longer pretending she can’t, and all of a sudden it’s like, wait, she’s HUGE. This is going to hurt.

Tony: Yes, absolutely. I think that’s set up really well earlier, after we hardly see her out from behind her father’s desk. The fight between Sofia and the Joker, when she was still faking her paralysis, really set up how physically large a presence she was too, so when she casts aside her “disguise” it’s already fully there on the page.

I have to point out three characters in particular that I loved Sale’s interpretations of. His Joker is just about one of the scariest versions of the character ever- all impossible angles and teeth. His Two-Face is probably THE iconic Two-Face, the model that everyone since should use. He’s imposing in presence but not in physicality, which is important for Harvey.

Brendan: The alternating side angles for Two-Face work really well, too. You see him head on a few times, but depending on which side of his psyche is coming through in the scene, he’s shown from that side. Very effective.

Tony: Exactly, and the scars look so gross because they feel fresh and raw. They’re not plastic-y like you get with Tommy Lee Jones in Batman Forever.

Then last of all, I LOVE his Dick Grayson. Dick is never standing still. He’s not just a twelve year old boy, he’s a trained acrobat. So think of an energetic preteen, and add that acrobatics training- that’s what Sale puts on the page. He’s great.

Brendan: Reminds me of my six year old. The hell did that Grayson kid go? Oh. Swinging from the chandelier. Of course. 

Tony: Exactly. It’s great.

I think this book is the whole package. Wright’s colors are great, and they’re really subtle (which is why I think we haven’t mentioned them at all yet). He’s pretty muted until the story needs a flash of bright red flames, or Dick’s red and yellow costume bursting on the scene. Starkings’ work is much the same. It’s subtle but it carries the book.

What did you think?

Brendan: It’s a good one. This is one of the best Batman stories you’ve brought to the table, and while it is a tad on the long side, it’s complete. We talk so often about how frustrating it is to just start getting into the meat of a particular story, and then not have it wrap in a single arc. I prefer it this way, with a much longer book, but allowing the reader to have their beginning, middle, and end, all in one package. 

Tony: Yeah, it’s a well-plotted, densely packed story that accomplishes what it set out to. I don’t think it’s my favorite Batman story, but I really was glad to read it. And maybe we’ll go backwards to Haunted Knight or Long Halloween in the future.

What do we have up next?

Brendan: We talked about doing Umbrella Academy Vol. 1 to coincide with the release date of the third season, but with Netflix still holding the actual date close to the chest, I say we just go ahead with it. SEO be damned.