Back Issues: "Batman: The Long Halloween" (1996)

- by The Rajun Cajun, 19 January 2013

It’s no surprise that I love Batman. Of all the various superheroes out there, I feel like I know the most about his colorful and rich history, from his creation in 1939 to the current goings on of Scott Snyder’s “Death of the Family” story arc. With that being said, the character has a plethora of classic stories, and I feel that it’s my duty as a writer and a longtime fan of the character to tell you what I thought about Jeph Loeb's and Tim Sale’s 1996, thirteen-issue-long story, “Batman: The Long Halloween.”

“Created by the Eisner Award-winning team of Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, this compelling look into the Dark Knight’s early career features some of the most deadly and cunning members of Batman’s rogues gallery and a dramatic retelling of the origin of the tragic villain Two-Face.”
- Enthusiastic Back Cover Copy

Because this particular book was written about seventeen years ago, this review will contain spoilers. If you do not wish to be spoiled, I suggest that you close this page immediately, buy this book, read it, and then come back. You’ll thank me later.

To begin, let me be frank with you: before reading this story, my expectations were insanely low. Jeph Loeb is a very hit-or-miss writer for me, and Tim Sale’s art certainly was not helping the cause.

After reading this book, however, all of my negative feelings towards Sale’s art have almost completely diminished, and he is now among one of my favorite Batman artists ever. Thanks to this particular story, I now desperately want to own a print of his Poison Ivy or Riddler covers that made their first appearances here.

Tim Sale's Poison Ivy.

The story itself starts off sound. The first chapter was lengthy, and it planted plenty of seeds that make for interesting plot twists later on. In a nutshell, the plot revolves around Holiday, a killer, much like the obscure Calendar Man, murders people on holidays, the first being on Halloween. District Attorney Harvey Dent makes his canonical debut in Batman’s career, and they, along with Captain Jim Gordon, team up and try to bring Holiday to justice. Along the way, however, the story seems to change into something much more than this, and the main focus gets put onto Harvey Dent, who, as any Bat-fan can tell you, becomes Two-Face. Going back to Sale’s art, he makes an effort to shadow half of Dent’s face in almost all of his appearances prior to him becoming Two-Face, which was a great touch, and insanely appreciated from this writer’s end.

As great as Loeb’s dialogue was overall, sometimes it came of either extremely cheesy or just plain uncharacteristic. It sounds a tad nitpicky on my end, but whenever Batman prepares to fight an opponent as seemingly mindless as villain Solomon Grundy was in this story, he usually goes in, says nothing, beats the bad guy, and then leaves. In this particular scenario, however, Batman literally says to Grundy “I have no quarrel with you,” before Grundy (who can only say “BORN ON A MONDAY,” apparently) proceeds to attack him. Of course, this isn’t exactly a big deal, but if there was anything that bothered me during the course of this story, it was exchanges like that, which is spread out throughout the book. But that’s as bad as the dialogue ever gets.

Loeb has beautifully-written dialogue exchanges throughout this story, specifically in scenes featuring Harvey Dent. Rather than try to explain to you how great these are, let me just show you an exchange between Dent and Jim Gordon:

Loeb also goes out of his way to emphasize specific words in Dent’s vocabulary, such as “I’ll have to work twice as hard,” and “A second chance.” Loeb even had Calendar Man, whom I’ll discuss later, mention the fact that Dent is a Gemini. For those of you unfamiliar with Greek mythology, Gemini were the twin brothers, Castor and Pullux. Twins. Two. Two-Face. You see my point. The little exchanges and hints such as those, which were almost everywhere in this story, is one of the best things about the book. Sale’s art also keeps you invested, as his noir-like style pops out at you in moments like these.

Various villains make appearances throughout this story. While I appreciate the scenes that feature Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, and even the Mad Hatter, I felt that a majority of them were unnecessary. I understand, however, that it would be almost impossible to tell a Batman story that takes place over the course of a year without mentioning any of his colorful rogues gallery. That being said though, their use in the overall plot felt forced. One villain that did make an appearance, and is definitely worth talking about, was Calendar Man. A very obscure villain, whenever he exchanged dialogue with Batman, I got chills reading it. What set him apart from the other villains is that he was written much more sadistically, even more so than the likes of the Joker. Calendar Man’s attitude and dialogue was comparable to Hannibal Lecter, and that’s exactly how I like my Batman villains written: realistically, twisted, and frightening as all hell.

Calendar Man

As great as the story began, at about chapter eight of the story, the pacing slows down to almost a stop. It was around this area of the story that I felt bored, and almost angry at Loeb, because he made me lose interest in the initial plot of the book: Who is Holiday? In the earlier chapters, you had great scenes of Batman interrogating various thugs, and you really felt another step closer to the end of the mystery. And then came chapter eight. Everything almost came to a stop, and the story began to change its overall focus. Instead of it being about the Holiday Killer, it began digging deeper into Harvey Dent’s character. Loeb brought the spotlight so much onto Harvey Dent, and then his transformation into Two-Face, that when Holiday’s identity was finally revealed, you’ve already lost all interest in that part of the story. The story’s end was a tad underwhelming, because not only did I not care about Holiday and his motive anymore, but then Two-Face just sort of comes and goes, and then everything goes back to normal.

Two-Face

While it may sound that I didn’t dig this story, I actually really did. Loeb managed to make me really care about Harvey Dent’s character unlike ever before, and that’s commendable because Dent managed to overshadow Batman as my favorite character in the story. Loeb is very good at setting up plots, as the first few chapters were the most investing, but it all fell short once the story changed into the origin of Two-Face. While I appreciated Two-Face’s first appearance, it would have been nice to actually care about who Holiday turned out to be once it was revealed. Still, as good as Loeb’s overall writing was, who really stole the show in this book was Tim Sale. I once really disliked this man’s style, but after some of those gorgeous pulp/noir-like scenes featured at the end and the beginning of almost every chapter, he’s now among one of my favorite Batman artists, all thanks to this book. I’d certainly recommend this story to any Batman fan, especially the ones who loved the Christopher Nolan’s The Dark Knight, which, fun fact, was heavily inspired by this particular book, if you haven’t already guessed.

"The Long Halloween" is often named one of the greatest Batman stories. Do you think Loeb's and Sale's story really stands among the greatest Dark Knight stories ever written? Do you agree with the Cajun's review? Let us know in the comments!

Tagged: comics, Back Issues.

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