Batman: Madness- A Legends of The Dark Knight Halloween Special (1994)
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: Tim Sale
Colorist: Gregory Wright
Letterer: Todd Klein
Rating: 
This week, I’ll take a look at another Tim Sale story that he worked on- ” Batman: Madness” one of the Legends of The Dark Knight Halloween Specials that came out during the mid-1990s and reunited Sale with Jeph Loeb for the first time since their very first collaboration in “Challengers of the Unknown”
The story starts off with Barbara Gordon (The niece of Gotham’s then-police captain, Jim Gordon) running away after a considerable blowout with her uncle in regards to letting her go out on Halloween and right into the clutches of The Mad Hatter (He’s without a doubt one of the eeriest and distributed villains in Batman’s gallery, not to mention his rather disturbing fixation on “Alice in Wonderland”); Soon after, The Hatter has Barbara dresses up as Alice but she comes to the realization that he’s insane (Which is typical of most Batman villains)
The story then gets really intense when both Batman and Captain Gordon rush in to save her so I have to say that this special really lived up to the premise of being a Halloween story; The psychological elements concerning the Hatter worked very well within the story because Loeb and Sale really went out of their way to make Hatter extremely creepy yet deadly so he’s definitely not looked at as a huge joke but an immediate threat. Sale’s art, however, brought the darkness and severity of the story to life in a way that really captures the spirit of Halloween. Before “The Long Halloween” and “Dark Victory” became such iconic Batman stories while solidifying Loeb and Sale’s partnership. This story, along with the other LOTDK Halloween specials, brought out the best in their collaborations and gave Tim Sale a huge profile in being an excellent artist, especially in the 90s when everything in comics had to be extreme.
Well, that’s it for me this week. Thanks for sticking around and will see you all next time with another look at a Tim Sale book, this time around I’ll look at a Marvel title.
See ya then.
About Author
