Batman: Leob/Sale style

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have made quite a name for themselves crafting Batman stories. Typically, they focus on early Batman, and do tell quite the good tale.

Haunted Knight kicks things off with three tales, all set at (different) Halloweens. Halloween is a key time for them. The first two are quite good, but the third... they're better than that. (Not sure how this version is different, aside from a few pounds dearer.)

Long Halloween is the big epic they are known for. It's a long spanning story that covers a year, and retells the Harvey Dent story as well as bringing in many a known villain. Many people would say this is an essential collection to get, and I agree. (The set I link to comes with two really fantastic figures of Joker and Batman. However, the book itself was a bit of a let down, in that it was missing something vital, namely glue. The cover pulled away at the spine, and the first set of pages separated.)

Dark Victory is the follow-up to that, which brings in Robin as well as continues the story. To be honest, I liked this story better than Long Halloween, with the developing story line and the more interesting villain.

In more recent continuity, Jeph Loeb penned Hush, which was illustrated by Jim Lee, not Tim Sale. It still references the early years of Batman, although fails to be set at Halloween. Still has plenty of twists to the tale. (Here's another version.) There is a 'Return' story as well, but haven't read that, and it isn't written by Loeb.

(The site I linked to, Book Depository, is a great site. Although overseas, it generally has cheaper prices than anything local, and even from other sites, eg. Amazon. Especially when you take shipping into account. As in... it doesn't have any! Even if the straight book price isn't cheaper than Amazon, Amazon+shipping is usually higher.)

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