...and nice.

"Stick around a long time, you get a sense of what people want."

Santa Claus, Silent Knight Returns

Having done naughty, let's take a look at nice. For readers looking for a more positive (if still somewhat strange) comic book for the holiday season, we offer this year's Silent Night Returns, by writer Jeff Parker and artists Lukas Ketner and Michele Bandini.

 

The Silent Knight of the title is a corrupted Arthurian knight, who has returned from the dead to harvest the life force of humanity so that his master the Hollow Castle can claim sovereignty over the world.

Aided by Santa, his warrior wife Ulah of the Huldulfólk*, and a few other guest stars such as Etrigan the Demon, Mary Marvel, and Robotman, the Justice League defeats the Silent Knight and restores life to all the afflicted, just in time for Christmas.  The story ends with Superman and Batman presenting Klaus with a Justice League membership card.

To be honest, the story doesn't really come together, and the axe-wielding superhero version of Klaus is a bit unexpected. I can't think of any version of the myth in which Kris Kringle is a warrior king, and as such, his brief stint filling in for Batman in Gotham felt a bit out of place.** (Not to mention his wife Ulah, who is a LONG way from the Mrs. Claus that we're all familiar with.) Regardless, I acknowledge that if you're writing a comic book, you want to have heroes, and Klaus does manage to balance out combat with compassion, and a happy ending to a Christmas story is all you really need.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

- Sid

* The internet suggests that this should be Huldufólk rather than Huldulfólk.

** Although, full points for the classic Frank Miller Batman-and-Robin homage.