Retro Review: Batman Noel

Synopsis: Inspired by Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Christmas Carol, BATMAN: NOEL features different interpretations of The Dark Knight, along with his enemies and allies, in different eras.

Review: Released back in November of 2011, ‘Batman Noel’ is the brilliant work of writer and artist  Lee Bermejo who had the genius idea of casting Batman in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

With a forward by Jim Lee, which sings the praises of Lee Bermejo. This book has a great endorsement and it’s well deserved.

The story centers on a delivery man named Bob who has fallen on hard times and takes a job dropping something off for The Joker. Unfortunately, Bob gets ambushed by the Batman before he is able to fulfill the first part of the job.  Bermejo frames the story so that Batman is none other than the hard-boiled Mr. Scrooge. A vigilante who shows no mercy to the cons and crooks that he goes after. His mission to reduce the surplus criminal population.

Most of the story is being narrated by a third party who takes us through the story as things develop.

Bob is so behind on his son’s medical bills that he has to resort to taking work from Mr. J.

I’ve owned this since 2011 and back then Wayne Hall, who used to write for scifipulse.net reviewed it and said that he’d make it his Christmas tradition to read it every year. Indeed I have had a tradition of reading it every year as well and thought I’d review the book a second time because sadly we lost all of Wayne’s reviews when we were forced to start the site over with a fresh database.

The book makes clever use of the various eras of Batman comics and the reason for Batman’s Scrooge ways all comes down to a tragic loss that he took very personally.

I loved how the various different characters were cast. Cat Woman was fantastic as The Ghost of Christmas Past while Superman was a natural choice for Christmas Present.

The artwork, which is also done by Lee Bermejo is absolutely brilliant. His line work is smooth, but also edgy when it needs to be. Barbara Ciardo’s colors are fantastic. I especially loved how she played with light and shadow within the context of Bermejo’s line work. Also really good was Todd Klein’s lettering, which has a very ghostly and festive feel to it.

Overall. If you didn’t pick it up like I did back in 2011. Then you really need to do so now. This is a holiday classic for comic book fans. I’m surprised DC and Warner have not animated this year. It would make for a stunning movie.