It Starts As A Mist, Batman & Dracula: Red Rain

This week I read Batman & Dracula: Red Rain by Doug Moench and Kelley Jones.

    The new flavor this story brings to the selection of Batman Elseworlds we've looked at is that Batman, at least as of the start of the story, is completely unchanged from normal. This world is a normal Gotham, with a normal Batman that anyone could pick up and read. The difference for this story from the norm is in its events. This story follows Batman being roped into a world of magic and mystery as Dracula (this version having survived the events of Bram Stoker's novel) comes to Gotham and leaves death and destruction in his wake. 

    The story begins with a fairly normal Batman premise: him investigating a series of killings perpetrated against the homeless of Gotham that is being made difficult by Gotham's corrupt mayor of the week attempting to cover them up as to not hurt his reelection chances, but even the beginning has hints of something strange as the rain of Gotham has over the past few weeks become acidic and red and Batman has begun to dream of a woman made of a crimson mist. The dreams only become worse when Batman finds what he at first thinks is the killer (and later discovers is only one of them): a rabid vampire, which is a discovery that plunges the caped crusader into an investigation into the occult eventually culminating into him discovering a conspiracy by Dracula to take over the city and eventually the world. 

    There are far more twists and turns in the story than that, but I do not wish to spoil them here as the story is more than any other story I've read for this blog worth checking out. The art by Kelley Jones is absolutely breathtaking, with intricate lineart invoking works such as Bernie Wrightson's Frankenstein illustrations and draping the story in a perfect gothic tone. The way Jones draws Batman's cape is particularly worthy of praise as it bends, blows, and impossibly expands into everything from a shadowy mass to dark angel wings that engulf Batman and make him look far more like a supernatural deity than a man all without feeling off or out of place.  

The Gothic tone is only bolstered by Doug Moench's writing, who chronicles the story through moody narration split between Batman and Commissioner James Gordon and who keeps the pace at just the right speed for the story's horrors to feel like they're being slowly unveiled without meandering. A story like this could've easily become bogged down by standard superhero action but by deemphasizing the action and leaning more into Batman's mental state like a traditional Gothic novel, Moench avoids that possible misstep masterfully.

   There really isn't much to talk about in terms of flaws, as this story I believe accomplishes everything it sets out to do. Maybe at a few points Alfred looks a bit off but that's such a minor nitpick it's barely worth saying. Overall this is the best story I've read for this blog and I absolutely recommend it to anyone who knows even the smallest bit about Batman. 

That leaves us with this end ranking:

1. Batman & Dracula: Red Rain
2. Batman: The Blue, The Grey, And The Bat
3. Batman: Holy Terror
4. Batman: In Darkest Knight

  Next week will be our final book, which will then be followed by a concluding post the week following. Many of the complains for some of our prior posts has been a lack of page space to properly flesh out the characters, so next week will be a little different as we will be covering not a one issue story, but a two issue story in Batman: Dark Knight of the Round Table.