Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight #2 – Jeff Parker, Writer; Michele Bandini, Trevor Hairsine, Artists; Alex Sinclair, Colorist
Ray – 9/10
Ray: The most ridiculous concept for a holiday special to come out of DC since Santa delivered coal to Darkseid, this comic kicked off last week with an issue that introduced us to a badass Santa who roams the world as an immortal warrior, a mad Krampus aiming to bring his unique brand of holiday terror to Gotham, and an army of immortal Norse vampires. This issue, Parker takes that concept and fleshes it out quite a bit with an excellent flashback to the origins of the Klaus/Krampus rivalry. The two were partners, playing good-cop/bad-cop around the holidays—but Krampus’ taste for sadistic pranks went too far, as he took his torment of bad kids to emotional trauma and became obsessed with eating them. When one of his pranks was tragically misinterpreted, Klaus cast him into the void—a mistake he has been trying to fix ever since, but couldn’t before it was too late.
In the present day, Santa is focused on trying to cure Zatanna of the poison that Krampus hit her with last issue, removing the team’s most powerful magical asset. At the same time, the Draug are on the rampage again, preparing their next attack. This is turning out to be more of a Santa/Justice League crossover, with Green Arrow and Black Canary playing a key role in the event here. But I was also pleasantly surprised to see Miss Martian make an appearance, for the first time in a while save a short Superboy backup that is likely already out of continuity. Despite the novelty subject matter, it feels like everyone involved is treating this as a legit adventure and crisis for the Justice League—except the character who shows up in the cliffhanger and is maybe a little too starstruck! I never would have thought “Batman meets Santa” could create a story as entertaining as this one, but that’s the current golden age of DC.
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GeekDad received this comic for review purposes.
