My anticipation for The Dark Knight has been pretty high all summer, and as it reaches its high point this week, I went back and read some old Batman tales, and picked up a few new ones.

Of course, DC has (re)released a wide variety of trades, hardcovers, and single issues over the last few months to coincide with the movie’s release, and most of these have focused on the main villain of the film, the Joker, and also the film’s second villain, Two-Face.

Here’s a close look at six Batman trade collections that deal in particular with The Joker and/or Harvey Dent/Two-Face, some of which were already in my collection and others I’ve checked out for the first time. I’ve also included some other Joker/Two-Face Batman suggested reading.

Batman: The Long Halloween
Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Tim Sale

This is of course the modern classic tale of Batman trying to discover the identity of the so-called Holiday killer, a serial killer who murders his victims on holidays and leaves little party favors behind after every killing. More than the actual plot though, this is a story about the different methods and philosophies behind three men and how this case affects them: Batman, (at the time) Det. Jim Gordon, and Harvey Dent before he became Two-Face. The interactions between the three of them form the backbone of the story and is what propels the action forward. This is probably my third or fourth time reading this story, and what struck me most this time though is the major flaw of the story, which is its over-reliance on the guest villain of each issue. Much like Jeph Loeb‘s collaboration with Jim Lee on the Batman: Hush story, too much page space was taken up explaining and dealing with the villains that don’t end up really adding anything to the story, and actually take away from space that could have gone to building the actual mystery of the story.

Despite its flaws though, this is still a really good story, probably the best Batman story of the past 15 years. Tim Sale‘s pencils are fantastic, and my major complaint with the story is forced to become a compliment, as Sale draws some very nice looking batman villains. This also has the last word on the transformation story of Dent into Two-Face, and gets to the roots of what caused his change step over the edge. Not having seen the movie at the time of this writing, I can’t tell how much the creators of the film lifted in the making of The Dark Knight, but it looks like a lot of the plot is being borrowed. We did see at least one of the characters make a big appearance in Batman Begins, with Tom Wilkerson’s performance of Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, who is the main villain of The Long Halloween, but was more of a side character in Begins.

Batman: Dark Victory
Written by Jeph Loeb
Art by Tim Sale

Created as a sequel to The Long Halloween, Dark Victory reunites Loeb and Sale, as they examine the next year of Batman’s life, bringing back most of the characters from The Long Halloween, but this time telling the mystery of the Hang Man killer, a new serial killer who seems to be taking revenge for the events at the end of The Long Halloween, and who has some connection to Harvey Dent. The big theme of the book focuses on Batman’s isolation, and how the loss of Dent affected him, eventually leading to him taking a young Dick Grayson under his wing, and the first appearance of Robin.

While this is a good sequel, it doesn’t quite live up to the quality of the first series. Loeb focuses less on the Batman rogues, and more on the mystery which is an advantage, except the mystery isn’t terribly interesting, and just kind of cruises along in the background of other events. There’s quite a bit going on in the story, and none of it resonates quite as well as the Long Halloween did. Sale’s pencils also seem rushed at points and lack the detail found in the first series. Again though, this is a perfectly fine story, well worth the money, and if you enjoyed the Long Halloween, you’ll want to read the follow up, as well as the kind of finale/side-story to the whole shebangabang, the six issue mini, Catwoman: When in Rome, also by Loeb and Sale. I’m going to assume that not much of the plot of this story wound up in The Dark Knight, but hey, you never know, and we may see some of the story show up in the next Batman movie, which we all know will happen eventually.

Batman: Arkham Asylum
Written by Grant Morrison
Arty by Dave McKean

Now here was a new one for me, even though I’ve been reading comics for a while and I should have read it at some point before. For whatever reason, I never jumped on the Grant Morrison bandwagon, but I’ve been catching up on a lot of his classic stuff lately — Animal Man, Doom Patrol, and now this. And I got to be honest, I can understand why people enjoy his work in general, and this one in particular, and I have to say, this really didn’t do much for me. The story is pretty interesting; there’s a mass break out at Arkham Asylum, and the inmates take over and kidnap a bunch of folks and their main request is that Batman comes in and joins them. What follows is a parallel story showing Batman’s own mental breakdown compared to the history of the founder of the asylum, Amadeus Arkham.

I can see why the story is good. Morrison uses lots of allegory and symbolism to show Batman’s fragile mind, he uses a lot of repeated imagery from the Tarot to speak about the personalities of the different characters. He has a quite interesting take on a truly insane Joker, one that seems to have worked its way into the script for The Dark Knight, and Heath Ledger’s performance. Morrison also has a great version of Two-Face in this, with one of the therapists in Arkham moving him off his coin flip for decision making and getting him to first use a 6-sided die, and then a tarot deck. The ending of the book wouldn’t have near the same effect without Two-Face’s involvement in the story.

But still, I just couldn’t get into it. It’s just not the kind of story that I tend to enjoy, which is no fault of the creators. Your opinion of this work may vary, but is no less valid. The art by Dave McKean is, to say the least, unique. If you’ve seen his covers for The Sandman, you have an idea of what this looks like. Lots of collage pages, with lots of distorted figures. This is a weird story, and McKean’s art adds to the atmosphere and the storytelling. It has to be read at least once if you want to consider yourself a true comics fan. One thing I out and out disliked was the font and color used for the Joker’s dialog; I could understand the point of using it to demonstrate the Joker’s insanity, but it was just a pain to read, and I hate when books make things unnecessarily difficult to actually read.

So is this book good? Clearly. Would I recommend reading it? Well, I’d have to get to know you first, because everyone’s going to react differently to it. But a lot of people have read this already, so you probably already know how you feel about it.

Batman: Jekyll and Hyde
Written by Paul Jenkins
Art by Jae Lee, Sean Phillips

Kind of at the other end of the quality spectrum is this collection of a mini from a few years ago, re-released in time for The Dark Knight. This one is actually pretty bad, mostly because of the story, a nonsensical ret-con of Two-Face that tries to reveal that the evil side of Two-Face is actually Harvey Dent’s older brother who died in an accident when they were both kids. Then there’s random stuff thrown in about the Human Genome Project, experimental monkeys, and a zany scheme to poison Gotham City that would make the Joker proud. The biggest flaw is that writer Paul Jenkins reveals nothing new or interesting about Two-Face or Batman and the story just falls flat.

The art though comes from two very good artists whose work I generally enjoy, Jae Lee and Sean Phillips. The only problem is that the art comes from both of them, Lee with the first 3 issues and Phillips with the last 3, and it’s not like there’s a thematic reason for the change in art, I can only assume that Lee got behind or switched to a different project. And they both do a decent job, Lee in particular has a very creepy-looking Two-Face, but the difference in style is jarring, and the story doesn’t hold up well enough for me to over look the art change.

I have to suggest passing on this one. It’s just a predictable story and there’s no reason to give this a shot when there are much better stories to read. Like this next one”¦

Batman: The Killing Joke
Written by Alan Moore & Brian Bolland
Art by Brian Bolland

Swinging back the other way on the quality scale, we get another modern classic, Alan Moore and Brian Bolland‘s The Killing Joke. This is, of course, the story famous for crippling Barbara Gordon, changing her from Batgirl to her eventual role as Oracle. But there’s more to the story than that, as it looks to tell one of the ultimate Joker stories. Joker has decided that he’s going to prove anyone can go crazy after one bad day by kidnapping Jim Gordon, shooting Barbara in front of him, and the torturing Gordon until he loses it. Of course, the good commissioner is made of sterner stuff, and survives the assault until he can be rescued by Batman, who wants to kill the Joker, until Gordon restrains him and upholds the rule of law and justice. The story of Gordon’s kidnapping really takes a back seat to a possible origin for the Joker, told in flashback.

Now this is a well regarded story that I can get behind. You get a fascinating story, great art by Bolland, and a great look at the relationship between the Joker and Batman. I bought the recent hardcover collection of the story by itself, featuring all new colors and a few re-drawn panels all done by Bolland. I can’t really tell that much difference from this version to the original, at least not enough for me to notice. If someone hadn’t read the story before, I would suggest hunting down the Alan Moore’s tales of the DC Universe trade, which has not only this story, but also a bunch of other classic stories that are worth the read.

Of course, what you get here is THE perfect version of the modern Joker. Moore fills his Joker with a palpable insanity that is believable but incredibly creepy. Basically every story of the last twenty years involving the Joker has built off of this one, even Tim Burton’s Batman borrowed a bit from this story. If you want to understand the character that Ledger is playing in The Dark Knight, you have to read this story. You should read this story anyway though, because it’s a well-deserved classic.

Batman: Face the Face
Written by James Robinson
Art by Don Kramer, Leonard Kirk

Remember two years ago, when One Year Later was supposed to save the DC universe, make everything easier to follow, and reinvigorate all the characters? Yeah, I bought into that too, but quickly learned that it was same old same old. If things had gone like they do in the eight issues here, maybe I would have stuck around. This was the first Batman storyline coming out of the OYL gap, and while it’s not perfect, it does make for a good Batman and Two-Face story.

Batman returns to Gotham after a year away, to find that he’s been missed. He had left a reformed Harvey Dent in charge, only to now find there is someone using one of Two-Face’s old guns to take out some minor villains. Harvey doesn’t take the allegations well, and returns to his old ways. And then the big mystery of the story gets resolved in a way you couldn’t see coming, because, well there’s no real clues to give the reader any indication this would be the culprit, plus who the hell is this guy?

This is a story where you have to take the good with the bad. The main story and the artwork are very good. James Robinson does a good job of establishing the new rules of Gotham, and he writes some great scenes between Batman and Robin. The highlight of the story is the issue where Harvey and Two-Face are talking to each other (very Gollum-esque) and Two-Face wins out. The biggest problem with the story comes with the ending, where the supposed mastermind is revealed, and it’s someone I’ve never heard of before, and who never comes up in the previous issues, so it’s less a surprise, and more of a “huh” moment. It casts a shadow over the rest of the story.

I’d recommend this story if DC had been able to stick with the story elements and tone set in this story, but with Batman getting R.I.P.’ed soon, there doesn’t seem to be much point. Still, there’s a decent Two-Face story in here, and Don Kramer and Leonard Kirk trade off the art duties and turn in some great work, but honestly this ones a bit of a pass as well.

But, there’s other trades and issues worth checking out to get you pumped for the movie or if you want to continue that magic after having seen it include:

Batman: Year One, by Frank Miller and Dave Mazzucchelli, which was of course not the basis for Batman Begins, but did inform a lot of the themes and background for that film.

DC is currently publishing the Joker’s Asylum event, a series of five issues focusing on a different member of Batman’s Rogues gallery. Three issues have been released so far.

There’s also a new edition of Batman: Faces, which is written and drawn by Matt Wagner (Grendel) and predictably centers on Two-Face.

Then there’s the recent collection of the Joker’s Last Laugh event from a few years back.

Finally, there’s the new hardcover edition of Ed Brubaker and Doug Mahnke‘s story The Man Who Laughs, which is kind of a Joker-centric follow-up to Year One.

All in all, there’s enough here to keep even the most rabid of Batman fans happy. So read up, and be happy they haven’t tried to foist some crappy comics adaptation of the film on us.