Collecting all 13 issues of this limited series.
Writer: Jeph Loeb
Artist: Tim Sale
Publisher: DC
Before they gained widespread acclaim tackling the early years of Marvel heroes like Daredevil, Spider-Man and the Hulk, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale made their reputation as a partnership working on DC’s Batman character. Whilst a few initial single-issue attempts are collected in the “Batman: Haunted Knight” TPB (worth a read for Loeb & Sale enthusiasts), it was with the highly-acclaimed miniseries “The Long Hallowe’en” that the pair really made their mark on the character. The 13-issue mystery – originally published over one year, the same time period as the storyline itself – introduces the murderous “Holiday”, a serial killer intent on striking to coincide with a different holiday every month. As the World’s Greatest Detective sets about investigating the killings, we witness his burgeoning relationships with Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent take a sinister turn, as a courtroom ambush leads to the creation of the monstrous Two-Face.
Picking up where Frank Miller’s Batman: Year One left off, Loeb plunges us back into the mafia-driven underworld of Gotham City. In focusing on Carmine Falcone and his close-knit cosa nostra as much as Bruce Wayne and his surrogate family, Loeb challenges us to feel sympathy for the villain as his nearest and dearest begin to be picked off. We get to examine the Falcone empire in close detail from the very start of issue #1, only to have it fall apart as the tale unfolds. There’s an almost Shakespearean sense of grand tragedy as the family is picked off and the killer finally revealed, and this is only underlined by the dramatic irony that comes from knowing how District Attorney Harvey Dent is destined to end the tale. Even if the plot never quite wraps itself up as tightly as we might like, it’s an absorbing and epic mystery. We’re also gifted with a slew of popular villain guest-appearances, ranging across as many of Batman’s rogues’ gallery as Arkham Asylum can hold in one go. Loeb shows a deft handling of each character, insinuating these classic foes into the story in a far more deft and meaningful way than his villain-of-the-month approach in the recent “Hush” storyline. Indeed, it’s the successful melding of the hard-boiled mafia noir aspects with the colourful and ridiculous characters that populate Batman’s world that makes this comic such a pleasure to read for both the “serious” comic fan and the superhero enthusiast. This book proves that the two aren’t mutually exclusive.
For a book where the visuals are as important a part of the plotting and storytelling as the script, it’s important to have an artist on board who can equal the writer in greatness. Happily, Tim Sale again proves why he’s Jeph Loeb’s perfect partner, capturing the brooding nature of Batman and Gotham City with unparalleled class. His detailed renderings retain something of the watercolour fell that we saw in the 3 Marvel “colour” miniseries, but there’s a muted, toned-down approach here which really suits the grittiness of the story. The garish villain costumes are modified and lit in such a way as to reflect the characters’ true menace rather than their theatricality, and the grandstanding moments are always story-relevant rather than an indulgence for the artist. It’s worth crediting Gregory Wright’s colours here too, as they undoubtedly go a long way to enhance the subdued effect that Sale applies to Batman’s various antagonists. From the chilling Scarecrow to the chaos of the Joker to the pervasive seductiveness of Poison Ivy, this is an acutely observed and well-disciplined piece of work. True, there may be grittier precedents for Gotham than Tim Sale’s impressions, but the art-deco stylings and 1920s-30s modes of dress help reflect a bygone era that suits the story well, and it’s all the better to capture and maintain such a consistently excellent noir-ish atmosphere throughout
This is a great volume to have on the shelf, standing out as a superior retelling of the origin of Two-Face, as well as a great – if a little obtuse – mystery in its own right that’s even more fun to read a second time over. The holiday gimmick and year-long timespan provide a perfect framing device for Loeb to tell a twisting turning mystery, with more than enough red herrings thrown in to make it difficult (if not impossible) for the first-time reader to guess where the story is going. The Long Hallowe’en is also required reading for those who wish to tackle Loeb and Sale’s second grand Batman mystery “Dark Victory”, as well as their forthcoming “Catwoman: When in Rome” series which – if memory serves – spins out of her appearances here. And with the pedigree of these two creators exemplified by their work here, both of those titles are bound to be next on my reading list.
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