Batman: The Long Halloween

Last year, I managed to snag new deluxe editions of Dark Victory and When In Rome; the sequel and threequel to Batman: The Long Halloween. Having already owned an original copy of the first edition hardback, I just didn't see a point in purchasing a newer yet more expensive copy for a few extra pages of material. It just didn't make sense to me. My goal was once the Halloween season came around, I'd read the Long Halloween trilogy from beginning to end. However, as I started seeing the amazing glut of Halloween specials and horror titles being offered for the 2024 season, I had serious doubts that I could read the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale masterpiece and it's follow ups during the month of October.

I like to be seasonal in my readings. If I read a Christmas themed comic, I better be reading it in December. It's only the first of September! 

Well, folks have started to call September Halloween Eve on social media. 

A serial killer has begun to terrorize Gotham City by murdering citizens on holidays. At first, it looks like only the Falcone crime family is being targeted. However, when other seemingly random Gothamites wind up dead, it's up to a trio of law enforcers, Batman, Captain Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent to identify the killer. However with assistance from the Arkham inmate, the Calendar Man,and warped view of support to stop the killings by the Joker, this trinity of law keepers will be challenged unlike ever before.

I had read The Long Halloween a long time ago. Long enough for me to not remember everything. So I really got to enjoy it almost as an entirely new story. The copy I read was different from this book as I don't remember all of the extra material in the back nor do I recall the foreword by Jeph Loeb. That's because honestly I didn't realize that this book and the trilogy as a whole was a sequel to Frank Miller's Batman: Year One. 

Wait... What?

According to Loeb, the great Archie Goodwin challenged Loeb and Sale to take the work they had done on their Batman Halloween specials and frame a larger story set after the events of Batman: Year One. With Miller's blessing, The Long Halloween was born. Yet, how can this be a sequel. Year One was groundbreaking for introducing a black Selina Kyle to readers. Here, Kyle is white. Plus, didn't Jim Gordon's wife leave him for his affair with a fellow cop? Well, Barbara Gordon is back and so is infant son James Jr. 

The Long Halloween was published in 1996, finishing in 1997. Maybe the editors felt that having a white Bruce Wayne romance a black Selina Kyle would be too shocking for readers. If that's the case, how do you explain Captain Kirk's interracial slobber knocker with Lt. Uhura in the 1960s?! At least I can say that I don't think you can blame the whitewashing on Archie Goodwin as he passed away before issue #1 debuted in stores.

The Long Halloween is an essential Batman read. It might even be required reading for all fans of comics and graphic novels. The art is very Impressionistic. How else can you explain the Joker's gaping maw full of no less than 96 teeth? Such a great read. If you love holiday comic books like I do, you will be thrilled with this story full of a dozen special days of the year; some of which had never had a holiday themed issue until now!

Worth Consuming!

Rating: 9 out of 10 stars.