Batman: Haunted Knight is an anthology trade paperback published by DC Comics

DC Comics

DC Comics, Inc. is one of the largest and most successful companies operating in the market for American comic books and related media. It is the publishing unit of DC Entertainment a company of Warner Bros. Entertainment, which itself is owned by Time Warner...

 in 1996. It reprinted three one shot specials from the previous three years. Each of the stories were written by Jeph Loeb

Jeph Loeb

Joseph "Jeph" Loeb III is an American film and television writer, producer and award-winning comic book writer. Loeb was a producer/writer on the TV series Smallville and Lost, writer for the films Commando and Teen Wolf and was a writer and Co-Executive Producer on the NBC TV show Heroes from its...

 and featured art by Tim Sale

Tim Sale (artist)

Tim Sale is an American Eisner Award-winning comic book artist. He is primarily known for his collaborations with writer Jeph Loeb.-Early life:...

.

Plot

During the story "Fears", Batman

Batman

Batman is a fictional character created by the artist Bob Kane and writer Bill Finger. A comic book superhero, Batman first appeared in Detective Comics #27 , and since then has appeared primarily in publications by DC Comics...

 is hunting down and trying to capture Scarecrow

Scarecrow (comics)

The Scarecrow is a fictional character, a supervillain, that appears in comic books published by DC Comics. The character first appeared in World's Finest Comics #3 and was created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane...

, with Scarecrow finally being caught at the end. As the title suggests, fear plays a large part in the story, with Batman nearly dying of fear while trapped in a large, poisonous, thorn maze. "Madness" tells the story of James Gordon's daughter, Babs, being kidnapped by Mad Hatter

Mad Hatter

Hatta, the Hatter is a fictional character in Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and the story's sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. He is often referred to as the Mad Hatter, though this term was never used by Carroll...

 and forced to be in a twisted tea party with other kidnapped children. Batman and Gordon finally save Babs and bring down Mad Hatter. "Ghosts" is basically a Batman universe version of A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol

A Christmas Carol is a novella by English author Charles Dickens first published by Chapman & Hall on 17 December 1843. The story tells of sour and stingy Ebenezer Scrooge's ideological, ethical, and emotional transformation after the supernatural visits of Jacob Marley and the Ghosts of...

, with Bruce's father taking the place of Marley, and the three spirits being Poison Ivy, Joker

Joker (comics)

The Joker is a fictional character, a comic book supervillain published by DC Comics. He is the archenemy of Batman, having been directly responsible for numerous tragedies in Batman's life, including the paralysis of Barbara Gordon and the death of Jason Todd, the second Robin...

, and a Grim Reaper figure who turns out to be Batman's ghost. The message from the spirits is that Bruce should not let Batman take over his entire life.

Time of Events

Little is known of when Haunted Knight takes place in the Loeb/Sale Batman series. During the story "Madness", the villain Two-Face is referenced in the line "Joker. Scarecrow. Two-Face. Each has their own private madness that drives them." however Two-Face did not exist in the Loeb/Sale series until the end of the Long Halloween, so this story cannot precede it. Catwoman, who was in Rome for six months following the events of the Long Halloween (from Valentine's Day to Thanksgiving in Dark victory) but had returned by the end of Dark Victory, is absent and Jim Gordon still has the rank of Captain in the Gotham City Police Department even though he was promoted to Commissioner by the beginning of Dark Victory. The stories "Fears" and "Ghosts" especially, as they involve Batman's home life, are not likely to take place after Dark Victory because they makes no reference to Robin, who had debuted at the end of Dark Victory. However, all three stories take place on different Halloweens.