"Batman & Dracula: Red Rain" offers a unique take on the Caped Crusader. More Dark Knight than Adam West camp, this tale plops Bruce Wayne into an apocalyptic Gotham (even more so than usual), as the very sky weeps tears of blood.

Wayne's dreams are tortured by haunting images of beautiful-yet-doomed women, but even more disturbing are the mysterious scars on his back when he awakens. Soon, as the title subtly hints, Batman is matching fists (and to a lesser extent, wits) with good old Dracula himself.

This is a very violent take on the Batman saga, with more emphasis spent on blood and carnage than Batman's detective skills. Several panes offer horrifying visions of Batman's world, and it's safe to say that this is a story for older Batman fanatics.

While the look of this pulp is fantastic, the story lacks a bit of heft. After all, we're talking about the leading comic hero taking on one of the leading villains in Western Civilization . . . and yet Dracula comes across as a rather pedestrian nasty than world-class. There's also an unsatisfying clank of deus ex machina in Batman's climactic fight against the Old Count Dracul, and is not worthy of either our hero or our villain.

Still, "Batman versus Dracula" is an entertaining, if brief tale, and is sure to thrill fans of Batman to their core. Worth a read, but not worthy of the pantheon of great Batman tales.

Sure, Killing Joke, Year One, Arkham Asylum and Dark Knight Returns are the best, but this book, an Elseworlds, deserves to be ranked up there with it. Kelley Jones is by far the best Batman artist and though the late Malcom Jones III inked it (vs. his usual inker John Beatty), the pencils and inks are perfect.

Doug Moench took a rather cheesy idea and made it great! It honestly scared me when I was younger, about 12 years ago when I first read it, esp. the scene when Bruce shows Alfred why he won't be needing the car anymore. SCARED ME, folks!

The first sequel was all right, but the final book in the trilogy was great, but not quite as good as Red Rain.

if you like vampires and are a batman fan then you will love this book. It's written by one of the all time best batman authors, Doug Moench, and illustrated by the outstanding Kelley Jones. kelley's art in this book is absolutly fantastic as is all his other art. The story and plot could not be any better. Dracula comes to gotham to feed and build up his legions with a vampire huntress hot on his heels. batman befriends this vampire killing chick and aids her in her battle. During the book batman actually becomes a vampire which is awesome. And, again as i said before, Kelley Jone's art is amazingly good and chilling and sometimes even gory. This book is the first in a trilogy of batman vampire stories and i highly suggest you pick all of them up they are great reads and the art is, i can't stress this enough, fantastic.

Batman and vampires. It seems an obvious match. Who better to take down creatures of the night than the Dark Knight, himself? Of course, in Gotham, things are always a little more complicated than they appear at first. I really enjoyed this book, once I got past the artwork. It can be too stylish at times. But the idea and the story are nicely done.