Batman: The Long Halloween

I read this book years ago, and we recently acquired it, so I read it again. It's a pretty compelling mystery story with enough plot twists to keep you interested.

The thing that strikes me about Batman as a mystery story (and they are mystery stories; the character first appeared in Detective Comics) is that it lives on the fine line between fantastic and ridiculous. Batman himself seems more or less like a hard-boiled Dashiell Hammett-type, and recent versions like Loeb & Sale tend to play up the grittiness of it (see also Frank Miller's Batman: Year One). If he's such a badass, though, why does he wear a cape and pajamas? I have no problem with Catwoman in her catsuit - she reminds me a little of Diabolik, which is comparatively show more (i.e., next to Batman) realistic - but The Joker? Come on! And despite The Long Halloween's close and sympathetic portrait of Harvey Dent, despite how bad you feel for him when he's burned by acid, you can't help but think that his half-gray flannel, half-gangster pinstripe Two-Face suit is just tacky.

The Long Halloween brings out this contrast in stark relief because it's Batman vs. the Mafia. It literally begins in The Godfather and ends in Arkham Asylum. You could view it as the story of Gotham City's transition from "normal" mobsters to criminal "freaks" like The Riddler and Poison Ivy, but it's hard to shake the feeling that fairy tales and film noir just don't mix.

Unless, of course, you're Jasper Fforde.

Original post on "All The Things I've Lost" show less

In Batman: The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale rose to the challenge Archie Goodwin set them and crafted a follow-up to Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One. Though this 13-issue story followed Loeb and Sale’s stories from Batman: Haunted Knight, subtle story elements suggest it precedes them. The story focuses on Batman teaming with Commissioner James Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent to take on Carmine “The Roman” Falcone’s criminal empire, including Salvatore “The Boss” Moroni (both introduced in Year One). As they begin, a new villain dubbed the “Holiday Killer” begins killing members of the mob on holidays. Falcone, desperate for answers, enlists the aid of the Joker, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, Poison Ivy, show more and the Riddler. Meanwhile, Batman visits the Calendar Man in Arkham Asylum to gain insight into Holiday. Dent begins showing a desperation to defeat the mob and bring some stability to Gotham, while a tenuous link between the Wayne family and the Roman leads the police to suspect Bruce Wayne’s involvement. The story helps to fill in the backstory of Harvey Dent prior to his becoming Two-Face while also being a loving homage to the film noir and gangster movies of the 1940s. It successfully continues threads begun in Year One while remaining true to the later Batman mythos. Sale’s expressionistic style is perfect for this type of story and gives form to the gothic/urban chaos that is Gotham. Parts of The Long Halloween even influenced Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, specifically the partnership between Batman, Commissioner Gordon, and Harvey Dent. Bruce Wayne even says, “I believe in Harvey Dent” (pg. 20). A must-read for all Batman fans. show less

“Christmas Eve in Gotham City. A serial killer the newspaper has dubbed “Holiday” is on the loose.” Oh, and like always, “The Joker has escaped again.” Of course…

Joker as the Grinch/Santa is a great fit! Add a mob war, Catwoman, Poison Ivy the Riddler, Two-Face, The Scarecrow, Calendar Man, the Mad Hatter and Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday) and you have a decent story that includes someone killing people every holiday, Halloween through Labor Day. The long Halloween…

Chapter One is the Batman version of the movie “The Godfather”. In fact, quite a bit of “The Godfather” is copied in this book. It's a thin line between 'homage' and just plagiarizing. This piece of the plotline ran pretty close to jumping that show more line.
The rest of the story is a lot of different Batman villains jumping in between the warring factions and around the killings of the Holiday. Kind of frenetic. And a bit of re-writing of the Batman legend. Not necessarily needed, but interesting to read around the holidays! show less

Took me a long time to get around to reading this one, but I never doubted you all when you told me it would be great. It's deservedly classic, with all the parts that make up Batman done really well. It would be a good jumping-on point for new fans, because it's one of the stories that inspired the Christian Bale movies, and it has all the villains you've already heard of, but with an effective comic-book pace and style. It happened in a kind of real-time, with a murder every month, and each issue happening along with it, so you settle into a pace that's dense yet slow. There's a coherent mystery, and all the villain characterizations are excellent. Harvey's duality/randomness obsession comes a little out of nowhere, but other than show more that they all work well. The story touches the major Batman themes, but without beating them to death. Excellent. show less

With each Batman Graphic Novel I dig into, I realize how influential and perfect the animated series was. All the voices of Batman, Alfred, Joker, Harvey Dent, Jim Gordon, Catwoman still resonate with me and I can't help but hear them when I read past comics.

The art style took a bit of getting used to, but some of the panels are breathtaking. I enjoyed the liberties they took with some of the faces, the Joker in particular. I wouldn't say it looks as "good" as some of the newer comics, but it's just as compelling and stylish.

The story hooked me right away and felt both familiar and fresh. The ending is terrific. I'd love to see this as a movie...but, the Dark Knight took a lot of Long Halloween and adapted it, so maybe I already have? show more

The only thing I wasn't a fan of was Catwoman's design or character in this, but a minor complaint. This is a great Batman story. show less

You know, there's this thing about Batman. There are a lot of people out there who like Batman more than they like Superman. And I'm actually okay with that, because I know that when it comes down to it, Superman could beat Batman in a fight so easily, and that's what matters most of all when you're talking about superheroes. What I'm not okay with is their reasons. "Batman is more realistic than Superman." Or "Batman is more relateable than Superman."

Excuse me, what?

Who on Earth can relate to a man who saw his parents brutally gunned down in an alley when he was eight years old, spent his young adult life traveling the world and being trained by the greatest masters of martial arts, science, and awesomeness, and now uses his show more billionaire wealth and mega-corporation to fight crime in the alleys of Gotham City dressed up as a giant bat? He's nothing like anything anyone has ever experienced! Superman, on the other hand, is an ordinary decent person who woke up one day to find out he could fly. And shoot lasers out of his eyes. Incredible unrealistic in a sense, but-- you could be Superman. You could not be Batman.

As more more realistic? I think Batman's lack of superpowers make him less realistic, not more. Superman's powers come from a yellow sun and his Kryptonian heritage; if you happened to have that, you could do all of the things Superman does. Batman has got no excuse for the fact that he can do all of these amazing things. He just can. And no matter how much you or I trained, no matter how much we hung out with Liam Neeson in the mountains of Tibet, we could not be Batman.

This, I think, is the fundamental root of my problem with the Batman comics I have read so far in this incredibly drawn-out blogging series. (I mean, one comic a month? How hard can this be?) The Superman we see in Superman For All Seasons is a guy we can relate to, as I hammered home in that review again and again. Even the one in Birthright fairs pretty all right. But Batman... he's never really depicted as a character. He's just there, this force of nature that spends all his time disappearing mid-conversation with Commissioner Gordon and kicking people in the face. You never get a feeling that he's an actual person, a man with struggles and difficulties and problems.

Except for once. In chapters 8 and 9 of The Long Halloween, which take place on Mother's Day and Father's Day, respectively, Batman's long, drawn-out hunt for the serial killer known only as "Holiday" is paralleled with his youthful memories of his parents. Of course, Batman does everything he does as part of some almost insane devotion to his long-dead ancestors. And here, that really comes through-- you feel that when Batman's failed, he's not just failed himself, he's failed his mom and his dad. And for a man who's spent his entire life making up to them, that's a pretty crushing blow. For once in the book, you know what it is to be Batman. And these chapters were my favorite parts of the story.

Not that the rest of it is terrible. But... what it seems to come down to in the end with this, just like Batman: Year One is... it's not as good as Batman Begins/The Dark Knight. Everything this comic does, those movies do better. In them, Batman does feel like a person you can relate to and understand. His actions really do feel like a struggle. I think that's because the movies use his supporting cast, especially Alfred, much more effectively. In this comic, much like Year One, Alfred is a two-scene nonentity with no real impact. And I think Dent's descent into Two-Face was much more effectively handled in the films-- the coin thing feels incredibly random here, as it's scarcely mentioned before he goes evil. In the movie, it's an integral part of his personality from the beginning.

Of course, not being as good as Christopher Nolan's Batman films is hardly the worst criticism you can give something.

This comic is good. It's got some problems-- most of the time, it feels like our protagonists are just standing around waiting for Holiday to kill someone else. Which I suppose might happen with real serial killers, but it makes for dull reading at times. The final solution as to who Holiday is is at first a cheat and then just muddled. But aside from that, the story is decent enough.

Most of the supporting characters are well-handled, especially the members of Batman's Rogue Gallery. I really like how the Joker, the Mad Hatter, Solomon Grundy, and the Scarecrow were handled. I really liked how the Riddler was handled, which is surprising, as I usually find his character pretty stupid. Catwoman confused me more than anything else: in Year One Selina Kyle's a prostitute, in this story she's part of Bruce Wayne's social circle. The gangster stuff was very well done, too, and probably some of my favorite parts-- another area where these comics obviously influenced the Nolan films.

Jim Gordon continues to be awesome. Actually, I really like the stuff with the GCPD in general; Wikipedia tells me they got their own comic book series called Gotham Central, and I mean to check it out someday. This small group of people in their eternally-losing battle can't help but be appealing.

Tim Sale's art, of course, is fantastic, aside from the occasional panel where Batman is somewhat over-muscled.

Overall: it was decent, but the lack of real character in Bruce Wayne/Batman prevents it from becoming great. Not so much a mixed bag as just... average. (originally written September 2008) show less

Me and a colleague had a pretty interesting discussion a few weeks ago, about Batman as a potential myth. We came to the hypothesis that a thousand of years from now, the story of Batman could well be one of the classic archetypes of the 20th century. The story of the man who dresses up like a bat to avenge the death of his parents, the dark hero constantly battling the similarities between himself and the ones he's sworn to fight, has already been told and reinvented many times. It's proven to lend itself to such different retellings as the early detective stories, Warhol's 60ies clown show, Miller's gritty and dark realism and the dirty grotesque of the latest films. And with lots of interesting sub-myths to boot!

(Then we went on to show more debate our favourite villains.)

I was so inspired I went out and picked up this stylish graphic novel, one I haven't read in many years. And it was really nice visiting Loeb's Gotham again. "The long Halloween" is a "Year Two" story, taking place early in Batman's career. His more notorious foes are just beginning to appear, and one of the themes of this book is the dawning of a new era of crime in Gotham, where the classic gangsters are losing ground to the freaks. One interesting question brushed on in this book is if there's a connection between Batman's appearance and the arrival of the new strand of masked psycho in Gotham. Is Batman in fact attracting them, by being who he is?

Above all however, this is a nice, dark, crime mystery about a serial killer striking at different holidays. And a retelling of one of the more interesting sub-myths mentioned above: Harvey Dent's journey from struggling DA to the unpredictable Two-Face. A pleasant and stylish read all the way through, this. I'll be sure to check out more of Loeb's and Sale's work. show less