Batman: The Dark Knight Annual #1

I was very excited for this issue. As any continuous Sam's Pull-List reader knows, this series is one of my favorite Bat-Books at the moment. The writing is great, the narrative flows along nicely and the new art switch isn't half bad. This issue does not tie into the main series; so naturally I would suggest it to any reader who is not already picking this series up. It is an eerie issue at best. The whole story feels like Gregg Hurwitz was trying to write a halloween/horror story but decided he had to throw some Batman villains in at some point. This is not at all bad. The meeting of the villains is believable, they all receive a letter telling them to meet the other two. We don't get to see who the mystery-letter-sender is until the very last page, but anyone with half a brain could figure it out pretty quick. Anyways, these villains (Penguin, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter) stumble around a "haunted mansion" like fools, complaining about the goddamn Batman all the while. I think that Gregg Hurwitz's writing genius really kicked in about halfway through the issue when MILD SPOILERS Penguin trips a music player and Three Blind Mice starts playing. The paranoid bad-guys hatch a plan to escape that eventually leads them into a corn-field-type maze. The connection between the song and the situation is perfect and seems like a horror movie. The villains disband after a short mishap with Scarecrow toxin in which they all face their pasts a little bit. SPOILERS END HERE. I think this issue is hinting at a Penguin story-line after the Clayface one. All I can say is: this series is great and the sooner we get to a new arc the better. Mad-Hatter is ready to be put in jail.