Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Haunted Knight. Whats your Fav?

[luke1234]

Whats your favorite of the 3 and explain why. I could see a lot going for Long Halloween but i want to see what the people that liked the other 2 better have to say to prove their point.

[Nathan Petrelli]

The Long Halloween, as I have yet to buy the other two, but TLH will no doubt still be my favourite, amazing story, great art.

[Kevin Roegele]

Originally Posted by Nathan Petrelli

The Long Halloween, as I have yet to buy the other two, but TLH will no doubt still be my favourite, amazing story, great art.

Dark Victory is essentially part two of Long Halloween...it really could all be printed together as one big book.

[TruerToTheCore]

I am not fan of these works at all, but I think "Dark Victory" is better than TLH.

[BubbaGump]

-Haunted Knight
-When in Rome
-Dark Victory
-TLH

[Armored Avenger]

I like Dark Victory the best, followed closely by The Long Halloween.

[Yurka]

TLH easily. I love the art/writing.The story is great. There are so many iconic images, and the deciding factor is the origin of Two-Face. I absolutely love it.

[Zacky]

The Long Halloween. FTW

[Omega Wizard]

I enjoy Haunted Knight...not a fan of TLH

[Kevin Roegele]

Apparently Christian Bale favours Dark Victory.

[dru-zod2501]

Dark Victory's story was more visceral than TLH, with the cop killer hunt and Bruce struggling not to drown in the isolation his mission requires. And Two-face was unspeakably badass in action even more than the first

[Cain]

Originally Posted by Kevin Roegele

Apparently Christian Bale favours Dark Victory.

He has good taste.

[Batz]

DV is excellent, i prefer the stories that have a main villian, protaganist throughout the whole story, or for the most part, like wuith Two face in DV, unlike TLH which feels like all the villians are just taking turns in pissing Batz off untill the end.

still i love TLH and DV, Haunted Kngiht is ok, was my first ever GN purchase.

[Cornelius Stirk]

Dark Victory, had a more intriguing overall mystery. TLH's mystery actually gets worse the more times you read it.

Some nice incidental characterization in all of them though.

[TruerToTheCore]

Originally Posted by Cornelius Stirk

Dark Victory, had a more intriguing overall mystery. TLH's mystery actually gets worse the more times you read it.

Yes, at least in DV the mystery is played fair. Although the Hangman game, well, that didn't make sense

I cannot understand why Loeb is so praised.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by TruerToTheCore

I cannot understand why Loeb is so praised.

Neither do I. Only time I ever really found him to be a bit more than average was the first few arcs of his Superman run with Ed McGuinness in the early 00's.

[TruerToTheCore]

Originally Posted by Cain

Neither do I. Only time I ever really found him to be a bit more than average was the first few arcs of his Superman run with Ed McGuinness in the early 00's.

wasn't it Loeb who turned Superman from the "yuppie Clark Kent" into "just a naive farmboy with superpowers"?

I do not even like ONE of these two interpretations.

[Cain]

Originally Posted by TruerToTheCore

wasn't it Loeb who turned Superman from the "yuppie Clark Kent" into "just a naive farmboy with superpowers"?

I do not even like ONE of these two interpretations.

That's you but a lot of people prefer a Clark Kent that actually acts like a real person and not a charicture. This is why I prefer what little we saw of George Reeves as CK than what Christopher Reeve did. Anyway this was going on since before Loeb even wrote a Superman story. But what he did was make him even more 3 dimensional by emphasizing on the way he handled married life and his relationship with his parents. Nothing wrong with fleshing out a character IMO especially one that goes through reinventions damn near every decade.

Back to the topic I won't even get into HK to compare due to it's anthology format. However like DV best because I feel it's a more well rounded piece of work than TLH. The one thing I like about TLH is that it like some of the best Batman stories managed to make Gotham City an actual character. It showcased how alive the city itself really was. But aside from that I found the mystery uneven and predictable and I'm not much of a fan of the "where's Waldo" type "spot the character" moments that it was so fond of. I like DV for having a better mystery a better handle on multiple character and for actually focusing on further characterizing Batman something TLH really didn't do much of.

[luke1234]

Originally Posted by BubbaGump

-Haunted Knight
-When in Rome
-Dark Victory
-TLH

aw how could i forget when in rome. Thats an awesome comic

[TruerToTheCore]

Originally Posted by Cain

That's you but a lot of people prefer a Clark Kent that actually acts like a real person and not a charicture. This is why I prefer what little we saw of George Reeves as CK than what Christopher Reeve did. Anyway this was going on since before Loeb even wrote a Superman story. But what he did was make him even more 3 dimensional by emphasizing on the way he handled married life and his relationship with his parents. Nothing wrong with fleshing out a character IMO especially one that goes through reinventions damn near every decade.

First of all, Christopher Reeve took the disguise to an extreme, that's because it was supposed to work on screen without some excuses (Hypno-glasses, vace vibration or something like that). And I think George Reeves is actually the wrong example - because in his "adaption" Superman and Clark Kent were exactly one and the same. But in 1986, when Byrne's Marvelman (you know, normal guy who happens to have power. That's Marvel style, not DC's heroic larger-than-life guys who simply ARE heroes) took over they made "Clark Kent" real and "Superman" an act - and so they made the "greatest American hero" and everything he stood for a LIE. After Byrne left there was the great "Exile" arc - truly one of the few great stories of the post-crisis area - that re-focused on Kryptonian things. But then everything became a mess - and I guess one of the reasons is that Superman writers weren't really "fans" of the character, unlike Batman. Batman became smarter and smarter, better and better, because the writers liked him so much. A Superman was dumbed down. Why? No really love from the writers and there in-ability to write challenging stories for this character. SO they reduced his intelligence (although the post-crisis Superman was never shown to have "super-intelligence" like his predecessor, always felt that was stupid because isn't Superman supposed to represent the best things in humanity. And what makes someone human - intelligence) more and more. And then he ended up to be the "stupid farmboy". I'm glad with OYL they fixed a lot of these things, but Superman is seriously hurt.

And don't use such buzzwords like "relatable". Superman isn't supposed to be "relatable". He is - much like James Bond - the ultimate man wish-fullfilment. And that was so great about the Pre-Crisis Superman. A "normal" guy in real life but if you look behind the glasses you will see the true hero and not the other way round. That was the basic concept. Shuster and Siegel were outsiders, so they incorporated that. From the early Golden Age till the Bronze Age that was a constant factor. Unlike other things (newscaster, reporter, powers, Superboy...). He wasn't a Marvel mutant who developed powers in his adolescence, he was "born different" from the beginning and had to hide his true self all the time. From the melancholic "stranger in strange land" tragic, being the "perfect man" but yet "not on of them" he turned into a successful WASP from the establishment (yeah, and then into a "country buffoon". Was his introduction meant to be "strange FARMBOY from another planet... eh ranch" at that time? )

And what has this to do with TLH?!

[Cain]

Originally Posted by TruerToTheCore

.....

Nothing to do with the topic which is why I originally digressed. But I will entertain 2 points George Reeves acted like a real person that is my point there was no stupid facade. This is why his Clark will always be my favorite live action CK until we see otherwise. Why make Supes relatable? for the same reason other characters are made relatable they evolve even Bond which you mentioned had been given relatable elements in more than just one movie and even in Fleming's stories.

The whole Golden and Silver age gimmick while a favorite of mine was outdated already. It's good to see that frame of thought come back in alternative titles like All-Star Superman but the truth is the main books probably wouldn''t have survived if things remained that way. Cause a lot of writers just don't know how to write an all powerful character interestingly.

The majority of comic readers did demand more from the characterizations of their superheroes they wanted to see them fleshed out. Make all aspects feel like real characters. This is why Marvel hit so big in the first place and this is why so many people still wrongly say "Superman is boring cause all he is is powerful and perfect" cause they think the character is still stuck in the same old school rut.

As comic readers for decades both DC and Marvel have made us sympathize with rich playboys which none of us are because they were given relatable elements. Space cops which none of us could possibly ever be because they were given relatable elements. So I see nothing wrong with doing that with Superman especially since we have even seen characters from both DC and Marvel who are Gods far from anything we could ever be being given relatable moments.

Clark Kent is a major character of the Superman mythology it's only right that he evolves too. Even post OYL he is still in many ways "naive farm boy" because he is a commentary and comic poster boy for the classic "nature vs. nurture" argument. This is the reason these characters stayed around for so long in the first place, they were made 3 dimensional and forever keep evolving through different interpretations. This is why the industry hasn't collapsed yet because it keeps evolving as a whole, and fleshing out characters from new ones to icons was just an example of the many evolutions the comics industry has gone through.

[RazTheGreat]

I easily prefer Dark Victory over The long Halloween. For me, near the middle, TLH just started to drag on.

[batpawn]

Originally Posted by Kevin Roegele

Apparently Christian Bale favours Dark Victory.

do i look like christian bale?

the long halloween, basically because dark victory feels in my opinion too much like the same thing in green. it was just new, and fresh, it was kinda like the godfather of all batman comics in terms of the story, in dark victory - loeb just changed the mobkiller into a copkiller, added a stupid game that just didn't make sense at all (if someone can explain to me that hangman thing, be my guest) and, oh well, all turns out to just add nearly every batman villian there is only for the sake of having them there, no more further explaination why. (c'mon, the story also would work with two-face alone).

i love dark victory, but the matter of fact that loeb didn't even tried to make some things fresh, new and different makes me kinda angry. same goes with his hush storyline - a criminal mastermind in the background, many batman villians without any further explaination why they are there, at all. with the only difference that i get what the plot was in tlh and dv, but hush... well... i read the comic three times and still never understood what it was all about.

[Riven]

Out of Long Halloween/Dark Victory, TLH has the better story and DV has the better art, but TLH still wins.

[The Guard]

DARK VICTORY. Much more interesting characterization, and just a different angle on most of the elements of the Batman mythology compared to THE LONG HALLOWEEN. I find HAUNTED KNIGHT to be very derivative. I don't think I need to see any more Christmas Carol ripoffs.