Batman: Noel

I have a slight obsession with Christmas.  No, I’m not the kind that advocates that you keep Christ in Christmas or even the kind of guy who goes to church once a year on Christmas Eve.  In fact, I’m not religious in the slightest.  What I’m all about are the Christmas specials, the movies, the music, the food and spending time with friends and family.  Every year it succeeds in making me feel like a kid again as well as bringing back the best memories of my life.

For as long as I can remember, my favorite Christmas special was Mickey’s Christmas Carol.  It took a classic Dickens tale and adapted it for those wacky anthropomorphized Disney animals.  You had Uncle Scrooge as well.. Scrooge.  Mickey was your Bob Cratchit and Goofy played Jacob Marley.  There’s also a whole cast of characters that round out the special including a very menacing Ghost of Christmas Yet To Come that scared the crap out of a 5 year old Brandon.

For a long time, it went uncontested as my favorite adaptation of A Christmas Carol.  Hell, it didn’t even really have competition.  That is until I finished Lee Bermejo’s spin on the classic tale with Batman: Noel.

Going into this book, I didn’t really have a whole lot of knowledge surrounding the plot.  I mean, I knew it was based on A Christmas Carol but I wasn’t aware of who was going to play what role.  Imagine my surprise when I found out that Batman would play the part of ol’ Ebenezer!  I was relieved that it didn’t feel gimmicky or spun in a certain way for the character to fit.  Bermejo does such a fantastic job relating Bruce Wayne to Ebenezer Scrooge that I wondered how could be written any other way.

The artwork is beautiful as well.  Not only did Bermejo write the script but he also drew the damn thing.  It’s not often that you’ve got someone doing both.  You can really see the passion that he empties onto the page with numerous full page shots and inventive dialogue – a lot of which was lifted from Dickens story, with a slight spin of course.

Overall, I thought this was an excellent book.  It was a little on the short side but it’s also very tightly constructed.  I may have to pick this up for myself and make it a yearly read around the holiday season.