Batman by Loeb and Sale Omnibus finished!
What can I say, it's a great book. Not Batman as a character's best book, but a great Batman book. It pulls together so many elements of the post-Year One Batman concept, bringing together the gangster and detective half of Gotham and its "freak" half as well. The killers in both The Long Halloween and Dark Victory never mattered. Rather, their murders served to show the continued descent of Gotham from violent but understandable crime to the madness of Batman-era Gotham. If Year One is the ideal Batman living up to his aspirations, Loeb's run is the canon example of how everything went wrong.
This is more of meta reading regarding what Loeb's Batman has become over the years, of course. Loeb's said before his idea was to tell a cool crime story that provided opportunities to showcase the various big bads of Batamn -- while also establishing certain post-Year One ideas like Batman coming to terms with needing to trust people, Dent becoming Two Face, Catwoman + Batman's complicated relationship. It's just become so much more since then, since all the post-Year One worldbuilding is so taken for granted anymore.
Salte's look for all of the villains are undeniably iconic, from Joker's ever-growing toothy smile to Poison Ivy's every growing cloud of vines surrounding her. What stands out to me is how well Sale uses shadow in his art. He doesn't flood a page with black like Mignola does, but definitely exaggerates shadow so there are rarely gradients of color. This makes each character stand out, often just based on their color. Pink -- Catwoman. Green -- Ivy. Purple -- Joker. And Batman, oven blending with the darkness, fringed with greys and dark blues.
Outstanding book. Legendary Batman story. A classic for all the right reasons.
Backlog RNG has picked Batman: The Golden Age Omnibus Vol. 1 👀 here we go
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