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You better watch out,
You better not fight,
You better be good 'cause
I AM THE NIGHT
The Caped Crusader's coming
To toooooooown...!

In the winter of 2023, DC released the kind of team-up you dream of as a comic book fan, as Santa Claus found himself chasing down a Krampus with the help of none other than Gotham's Dark Knight in the Jeff Parker-written three-issue miniseries Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight. Now, Parker is returning to this holiday hullabaloo, bringing along artist Lukas Ketner for Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns, coming to comic shops for Christmas 2024.

"I was blown away at how well last year's Silent Knight series was received, [and] readers really responded to us going full tilt with Norse-mythos Santa in the DCU,” writes Parker in a DC press release about the new series. “We followed the old tradition of telling ghost stories at Christmas (remember the line from ‘It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year’?). Then to be asked if I wanted to do another one AND have an extra issue? That was the Happy New Year."

Related: Batman: Caped Crusader's voice cast reveals how they created the new sound of Gotham City

But just because all is merry and bright for writer Parker doesn't mean it will be for Kris Kringle and the Caped Crusader. DC's official synopsis for Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns certainly invokes that old ghost story tradition, describing the adventure as beginning with "life-drained bodies litter[ing] the countryside." Things get even worse for Batman as he's plucked from our reality, leaving Damian Wayne behind to figure out what's wrong. Hopefully, if Damian can enlist the help of Santa Claus (and another powerful magic user in Zatanna Zatara), then Bruce Wayne will be home for the holidays. And if not, well, Joker might have to rethink his famous Jingle Bells parody.

Artist Michele Bandini, who partnered with Parker on the first Silent Knight, is returning to draw Batman and Co. at several points in the comic, but only in something called "The Lost Kingdom," which is undefined as of yet - my money's on it being a universe trapped in a snowglobe. And the art wouldn't be complete without a stockingfull of variant covers by some winter wunderkinds, specifically Dan Mora, Erica Henderson, Kevin Wada, and Dan Hipp. You can view their covers, plus the main cover by Bernard Chang, some interior pages and sketches by Ketner, and a page fully colored by Marcelo Maiolo, in the gallery below.

Quick heads up, though - Dan Hipp's variant cover is "still wrapped" in the image here. Guess you'll have to put it in your letter to Santa to see it. 

Hey is that Etrigan?? I love that guy! Though I didn't know Demons were allowed to celebrate the Birth of Christ; feels like a bit of a conflict of interests there.

Batman/Santa Claus: Silent Knight Returns #1 drops November 27, and will come out weekly until Christmas Day. For more comic book news, plus entirely too many holiday puns for the month of August, stay tuned to Popverse.

He is vengeance, he is the night, he is... one of Popverse's favorite subjects. Learn how to do a Dark Knight movie marathon right with our Batman movie guide, and for the true World's Greatest Detectives out there, dive deep into the heart of Gotham City by getting to know Batman with Popverse.