Retro Review: Batman: The Long Halloween

The 13-issue limited series by Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale is a terrific Batman story. Originally published in the mid-1990s, it is set in Batman’s early crime fighting days. A mysterious killer is murdering people on holidays. Batman, DA Harvey Dent, and Lieutenant James Gordon work together to find the killer before each new holiday in the hopes of stopping his holiday murders. Batman also tries to stop a war between Gotham’s powerful crime families, the Falcones and the Maronis.

Unlike some stories in which Batman is relentlessly fighting, in The Long Halloween he is deep in investigations in a noir style mystery. His classic villains including the Joker, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, the Riddler, and Mad Hatter are weaved throughout the book. The Calendar Man, who knows the identity of the holiday killer, becomes a thorn in Batman’s side, offering riddles and cryptic hints.

It’s a very entertaining Batman story that is smart and clever, intriguing and complicated. It’s what we love about Batman.

–Amanda Sheriff