Product Description

It's refreshing when you find a Batman story that both is epic and successfully explores the core of a resolutely explored character. Taking as its catalyst a sub-plot from the seminal Batman: Year One, the story revolves around murders occurring on national holidays, the victims connected to Mob boss "The Roman." Dubbed "Holiday," the killer uses an untraceable handgun and leaves small trinkets at the scene. Plenty of suspects are available, but the truth is something the Dark Knight never suspected. This series scores two major coups: it brilliantly portrays the transfer of Gotham rule to the supervillains and charts the horrific transformation of Harvey Dent from hardened D.A. to the psychotic Two-Face. Both orbit around the sharply portrayed relationship between Dent, Commissioner Gordon, and Batman: a triumvirate of radically different perceptions of Justice. It is always great to see the formative incarnation of Batman, drenched in noir here.Jeph Loeb's writing is keenly aware that Batman is a detective, and Tim Sale portrays a Gotham that is a fertile breeding ground for corruption and madness. Here, Batman is coming to terms with the potent image he projects and the madness it attracts. There are many fine Batman stories, but the ones that capture the spirit with extreme clarity are few. On this alone, The Long Halloween comes highly recommended. Masterfully executed, this is an excellent chance to revisit the world of Batman as fresh as in the summer of 1939. --Danny Graydon

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2407 in Books
• Published on: 1999-11-01
• Released on: 1999-11-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 368 pages

Amazon.com Review
It's refreshing when you find a Batman story that both is epic and successfully explores the core of a resolutely explored character. Taking as its catalyst a sub-plot from the seminal Batman: Year One, the story revolves around murders occurring on national holidays, the victims connected to Mob boss "The Roman." Dubbed "Holiday," the killer uses an untraceable handgun and leaves small trinkets at the scene. Plenty of suspects are available, but the truth is something the Dark Knight never suspected. This series scores two major coups: it brilliantly portrays the transfer of Gotham rule to the supervillains and charts the horrific transformation of Harvey Dent from hardened D.A. to the psychotic Two-Face. Both orbit around the sharply portrayed relationship between Dent, Commissioner Gordon, and Batman: a triumvirate of radically different perceptions of Justice. It is always great to see the formative incarnation of Batman, drenched in noir here.

Jeph Loeb's writing is keenly aware that Batman is a detective, and Tim Sale portrays a Gotham that is a fertile breeding ground for corruption and madness. Here, Batman is coming to terms with the potent image he projects and the madness it attracts. There are many fine Batman stories, but the ones that capture the spirit with extreme clarity are few. On this alone, The Long Halloween comes highly recommended. Masterfully executed, this is an excellent chance to revisit the world of Batman as fresh as in the summer of 1939. --Danny Graydon

Customer Reviews

A Must-Read for Batman Fans
This has become one of my favorite Batman stories of all time, and I've been reading Batman for 35 years.

The story-telling is crisp. The artwork is beautiful. And this builds a great foundation under the Batman mythos that has grown over the past decade.

Since this story is built around Batman's encounters with the Falcone and Moroni mob families, I love the homage paid to our greatest mob movies (The Godfather I & II, and Goodfellas). I re-read the book just to see how many scenes and lines I could connect to those movies (as well as its tribute to another of my favorite movies: The Silence of the Lambs).

This really shows us the descent of Harvey Dent into the psychopath known as Two-Face, but we root for him anyway.

One of the all-time best!

the best out of the 3
Amazing fun and deep read. Tons of Twists a must for any batman fan. Excellent take on the Harvey Dent plot line
Art is great amazing characters
READ THIS BEFORE YOU READ DARK VICTORY

Vastly overrated comic
"The Long Halloween" is way too long and marred by a detective plot, that just doesn't add up in the end. On the positive side it has great, moody art-work and some very decent character descriptions of central figures in the Batman-cast, however it is not a satisfying read.

Jeph Loeb is obviosly in love with his idea of a killer using the holidays to mark his murders, but he hasn't got the ideas to keep the plot fresh for long. Therefore he turns to throwing the classic super-villains from Arkham at Batman. This only provides utterly unnecessary action-scenes and distracts from the main plot o hunting down the holiday killer and Harvey Dent's attempt to convict "The Roman". If Jeph Loeb had written a stunningly surprise finale to the very thin plot he might have pulled of a decent comic, but instead we are left with a showdown in an office (how epic is that...) between Batman, Catwoman and super-villains galore. And... tadaaaa... three different characters claiming to be the holiday killer. It doesn't add up. And what's with the appearences of Catwoman. A mystery throughout the book and a mystery at the end. Very sloppy script. Avoid this one unless artwork is all you care about. The art is great.