The Long Halloween is a semi-sequel to Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. Writer Jeph Loeb continues the tale of a Gotham City that is still partly controlled by mobsters and gangsters, but more and more crazy Batman villains are starting to make their voices heard. A serial killer is slowly killing off members or the Falcone crime family on holidays and Batman has to find out why. He enters a crime fighting pact with Police Captain James Gordon and the new district attorney, Harvey Dent. Over the course of the 13 issues, Harvey Dent transitions himself from a moral and upstanding person to a psychotic villain known as Two-Face. If that spoiled anything for you, I’m not fucking sorry. Everyone knows that Harvey Dent becomes Two-Face.
A notorious mobster named Carmine “The Roman” Falcone tries to get Bruce Wayne to get the Gotham City Bank to launder money. This sets off a chain of events where Batman starts to investigate that Falcone family, allying with James Gordon and Harvey Dent in an attempt to stop organized crime in Gotham.
On Halloween, Jonny Viti (The Roman’s nephew) is shot and killed by an unknown assassin. Each month the killer returns to wipe out another mobster on a holiday, each victim is associated with the Falcones.
Batman, Gordon, and Harvey Dent become intent on catching the killer, who they start referring to as Holiday. Catwoman is constantly spying on Batman and always seems to be present when he’s meeting with Gordon and Dent, or whenever he’s creeping around at nighttime doing his Batman duties. Haha, Batman doodies. Batman’s not sure which side she is on, but he’s got bigger fish to fry.
Harvey Dent finds a link between the Falcone family and the Wayne family that results in Bruce Wayne getting arrested. That puts a slight damper on Batman’s relationship with Harvey Dent.
The crime war between the Falcones and their rivals, the Maronis reaches the point where Maroni agrees to testify against The Roman. Instead of a damning testimony, he hurls acid into Harvey Dent’s face. And Harvey Dent goes crazy and becomes Two-Face.
So now Batman has a new crazy villain to deal with and he still has to find out who the Holiday killer is. And there are a lot of suspects. And there’s a twist so brace yourselves.
Not only does Batman have to deal with the Falcone mobsters and the Maroni mobsters, but there’s a virtual who’s who of Batman villains that make appearances. Catwoman, the Joker, Two-Face, the Calendar Man, Solomon Grundy, the Scarecrow, the Riddler, the Mad Hatter, and Poison Ivy all show up. Even though there are a few sideshows, the main storyline is tight and focused. Just sit back and enjoy where the story takes you.
Tim Sale’s artwork is gorgeous. Loeb and Sale worked together for a few projects; this is one of their better collaborative efforts (check out Superman for All Seasons for a good Superman read).
If you’ve seen any of Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy (and I’m assuming you have, because who hasn’t?), then you will notice a lot of things that the movies took from this comic, especially in The Dark Knight. This story is better than The Dark Knight. It’s a murder mystery that can only be solved by the world’s greatest detective and he dresses up like a bat when it’s dark outside.
This is one of the best Batman stories ever. And one of the best comic book stories ever. It’s just a great story period. So read it.
Critically Rated at 15/17
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