Although not my very favorite of the Batman series, Loeb and Sale did an excellent job capturing the atmosphere of Batman's first year. They brought in a lot of the mythology surrounding him and created a dark yep captivating world for him to live in. It was no Frank Miller, but I still found myself interested in what would happen next. Overall, an enjoyable read and a good addition to my collection. ( )

After watching The Dark Knight last summer, I read that there were several comic book stories that Christopher Nolan drew inspiration from when creating the movie. One of them, The Killing Joke, I had already read. The other, The Long Halloween, promptly went on my To Read list. I finally bought it on a recent trip to the bookstore, read it, and loved it.

The Long Halloween is set early in Batman's career, shortly after the events of Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. Harvey Dent, the District Attorney for Gotham City, Police Captain James Gordon, and Batman unite to take down the criminal empire of Carmine "The Roman" Falcone. Viewers of Batman Begins will remember him as the gangster who worked with the Scarecrow. In this story, he is a part of a large family of mobsters, all struggling for control of money and entire cities. But Gotham is a different city than it was when Batman first appeared. The gangsters are slowly being replaced by the likes of the Joker and the Mad Hatter, costumed answers to the Dark Knight. In the midst of this, someone murders Falcone's nephew on Halloween, leaving behind a gun and a small jack-o-lantern. This is only the beginning of the string of murders committed by the person the newspapers dub Holiday, since they all occur on holidays and the killer always leaves behind a trinket related to the holiday.

Since the Holiday victims are all members of Falcone's mob or his relatives, Harvey Dent isn't terribly upset about them. Falcone believes his rival mobsters are behind them. Batman begins to suspect Dent, a man he considers a friend. Along the way, links between Falcone's father and Bruce Wayne's father lead Dent to suspect Bruce of corruption.

Batman's rogues gallery is well represented here, with one popping up in almost every chapter. Catwoman appears throughout the story as a sort of ally to Batman, while others like Poison Ivy and the Joker are obstacles in Batman's hunt to find the killer.

Ultimately, the killer is captured on Halloween, a year after the first murder. Harvey Dent meets his inevitable fate and becomes Two Face, and the mob's hold on Gotham grows weaker.

I really enjoyed the storyline, but this volume does have its faults. Because it was originally published in 13 issues, there is quite a bit of repetitive exposition. Harvey Dent's state of mind is not explored as well as it could be, so his fall into madness seems a bit sudden and random. The dialogue is a bit sparse and some subplots are not neatly tied up. The artwork is sometimes very good and sometimes very bad. The action scenes in particular are very well done. It's a few quibbles like that that prevent me from giving The Long Halloween 5 stars. ( )

Very entertaining, but not as great as I expected. It moves too quickly - major villains come and go over the course of what feels like just a few pages. And for being a noir mystery story, Batman does very little detective work; the majority of his time seems to be spent chatting with Gordon and Dent. ( )

I've only read a small number of Batman graphic novels but this is the best of the best. A great origin story for one of Batman's most insane adversaries. ( )

This was a great series. The writing and the art all capture the noir spirit of the Batman. ( )