Hey there people its me checking back in with the first of many reviews I’m going to do. Incase you don’t know me to well I do love comic books and graphic novels. So you can imagine my look on my face when I saw this bad boy sitting on the store shelf. And to make it even sweeter Batman is also one of my favorite characters of all time. But all that went away when I turned it around and saw the price tag which was $75!!! Damn that’s a lot of money for a comic book! The sticker price alone will scare most people off, but I did have a gift card to that comic shop so I would have gotten it for free so I figured why the hell not it definitely will look nice on my bookshelf along with my other graphic novels. So after getting home with my brand new treasure secure in a Vulcan death grip to protect it from any mortal danger, unwrapped the sucker from its plastic prison and pulled it from the slipcase to bask in all its greatness.

First off it is nicely bound in a thick leather and heavy book which does make it feel very expensive and worth the seventy five clams they were asking for it. The slipcase is also very sturdy cardboard and should last a while and keep the book very well protected. So far so good, Its when I opened up the book itself I was slightly disappointed. The paper used in the book although thick and durable, didn’t have a nice glossy finish to it like the absolute sandman did or any of my marvel omnibus’s I own. I know it’s a small issue but hey they asking a lot for this book and the paper does feel kind of cheap and the artwork doesn’t really jump off the page like most other books in this format do. Included with the story is interviews with the writer and penciler, a proposal for the book, a built in bookmark as with all absolute editions, and also a interview in the beginning of the book with David Goyer and Christopher Nolan explaining how this story greatly influenced them when making the recent batman movie and its characters. But my favorite of all the “DVD style” extras included with the book were the artwork of all the covers from 12 issue mini-series that comprise this book. I’m a big sucker for artwork collections and also its fun to read how the artists came up with the ideas for the covers, great stuff!

Now as for the story I must say I did enjoy it a lot. It took around 2 hours to read and pretty much kept me in suspense the entire time. With out spoiling it with details the basic idea is…. Major crime boss family member gets killed on Halloween .Batman cant figure out who did it and the murders continue every holiday by a killer who is called believe it or not “Holiday”. So its pretty much a noir inspired murder mystery were all the clues lead to one person but when you get to the end things are not what they seem. So in all the story was fantastic and the presentation of this novel even with the “cheap” feeling matte paper is definitely worth a looking into. So is it worth $75 dollars I would say no, but if you can find it online at places like www.instocktrades.com for around $50 which is their current asking price I would defiantly recommend adding it to your library!!! Now with my first review knocked out the box ill post up some other ones I have a few absolutes and omnibus’s I have to go through…. Keep it locked people…….