Batman: The Long Halloween

I wanted to write something today Halloween-esque, (other than my review of Halloween costumes this year!) and the first thing to come to mind was Batman: The Long Halloween. While normally I start to fan-girl out here about an awesome story in Batman, this is a comic that you might not have read, are probably familiar with since the content shows up in other mediums, and why it’s probably one you can skip reading.

The Long Halloween is another noir style story in the Year One continuity – we’re seeing the early days of Batman, Lieutenant Gordon, Harvey Dent, and more. While I love this time period in the continuity (see my gushing of Batman Arkham Origins for a great example of story in this setting!), the noir here wasn’t something that I was particularly blown away by. What this story is great for though, is giving us the best insight and character development into Harvey Dent and Two Face, that we hadn’t seen previously. Harvey Dent is the district attorney for Gotham that makes a pact with Lieutenant Gordon and Batman to do what needs to be done to stop the mafia man “The Roman” Falcone, and in doing so, Harvey ends up getting splashed with acid in the face, losing his mind, and becoming the villain Two-Face. Sound familiar? It’s a good chunk of the plot used for The Dark Knight movie!

So while this story is important in bringing us a collective framework to understand Two-Face, I really think this is an over-rated Batman title – which pains me to say, as it was written by Jeph Loeb, whom I believe has written some of the best Batman stories to date like Hush. The original run of the Long Halloween (a mystery story of a serial killer who is taking out the Falcone family that no one knows the identity of or how to stop) ran for 13 very long issues. While we all love the rouges gallery for Batman, it seems like nearly every single one was used for this story line. Joker, Catwoman, Poison Ivy (who to quote from another review “looks like she is farting confetti everywhere”), Solomon Grundy, Riddler, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, and more. It’s too many people to keep track of, that don’t serve a real point other than to distract the reader.

Many parts of this story feel like they are borrowed from others. Falcone and his drama seems to be pulled directly from The Godfather, and Batman’s consulting of Calendar Man who is in prison, to find the identity of the Holiday serial killer, is very Silence of the Lambs-esque. It really felt like there wasn’t enough content to make 13 issues, so they borrowed someone else’s content to beef up their own. Lastly, the red herrings pulled on the readers on who the actual killer(s?) were, didn’t make a lot of sense – 3 people that could have killed people, but not one of them could have killed them all, and in no way could they have consulted together on this plot.

While I appreciate that this book brought us a good back story for Harvey Dent and Two-Face, I appreciate more that it seemed to be a good dry run for Jeph Loeb to write Hush (also several villains and a who done it, but with a reveal at the end that makes sense and blows your mind a bit in the simplicity of it all). And if you want good noir for Batman,  check out The Doom that came to Gotham from DC’s Elsewords series!

Have you read this series? Let me know if i’m off the mark!