Batman: The Long Halloween

Some of my favorite books to come out of either Marvel or DC Comics are the collaborations by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale.  Batman: The Long Halloween is the start of the Holiday Quartet by Jeph Loeb in the other books in this are Batman: Haunted Knight, Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome.  Batman: The Long Halloween takes place after Batman: Year One.  These stories are composed more in the vein of crime noir tales than Batman stories and that is what makes them so intriguing this is the era when crime shifted from the mob to Batman’s rogue gallery that we know and love today.  This first book showcases the downfall of Carmine Falcone aka the Roman and the main kingpin of Gotham City.  This book also gives us the origin of Two-Face and the downfall of Harvey Dent.

First off before we move on to story the art work is spectacular on every page a Tim Sales drawings are amazing and the colors work so well with the setting and tone of the story.  Pretty much all of Batman’s villains appear in this book at one point or another.  I really like the character development that was put into this story as we see the building of the relationship between Batman and Jim Gordon, Gordon and Dent, Batman and Catwoman.  Again back to the art work in this book Tim Sale is masterful at framing and perspective.

The story centers on the Holiday killings in which a different member or groups of members are killed each holiday of the year and all of the victims have connections to the mob.  This is truly a different type of crime noir story because it takes so many of those tropes and it turns them on their heads.  The mafia is on the defensive the entire book instead of being on the offensive.  Batman is trying to solve the case one way while Gordon and Dent are attacking it from another angle.  This book also perfectly captures Bruce Wayne’s public life balanced with his private life something that can rarely be seen outside of Batman the Animated Series.  The fall of Harvey Dent is the perfect cliff hanger to leave this book on because for those of us who are comic fans or Batman fans in particular we already know the story or at least the broad strokes of the story.

I fully recommend this book if you are a Batman fan by any means this is a title for you.  I may be a little longer to get through but in the end you will be rewarded for sticking with it.