Batman: The Long Halloween

• 1. Introduction

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  Batman: The Long Halloween begins with a dead man, a jack-o-lantern, an untraceable pistol and a baby bottle nipple used as a crude silencer. Those objects are the signature of a murderer who kills on holidays, one victim each month. The story is a 13-issue limited series written by Jeph Loeb, with art by Tim Sale. DC Comics published it in 1996 and 1997. It is set in Batman's early days of crime-fighting, when Gotham still belongs to traditional mob families. Who is the killer the press will call Holiday? Why does the city's underworld begin to change shape as the calendar turns? And what happens to three men who promise to bring down the mob while bending the law but never breaking it?

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• 2. A Pact Against Falcone

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  At a wedding in June, the mob boss Carmine Falcone asked Bruce Wayne to help launder his money, and Bruce refused. Soon afterward, Bruce went back out as Batman to search Falcone's penthouse. He found Catwoman already there, hunting through the same rooms. Batman then met with district attorney Harvey Dent and police captain Jim Gordon. The three agreed on a pact to end Falcone's rule over the city. Their rule was strict: bend the law if needed, but never break it.

  Bruce also had a weapon that did not need a cape. He sat on the board of the Gotham City Bank, and he used his influence to push out its president, Richard Daniel. The aim was to scrub Falcone's money from the institution. Falcone's nephew, Johnny Viti, killed Daniel on his uncle's orders.

  Catwoman next led Batman to a warehouse where the cornered Falcone had hidden his funds. Batman and Dent set the building on fire and burned the cash. Falcone answered by hiring the Sullivan family, a gang of Irish hitmen led by Donald "Donny Boy" Sullivan. They bombed Dent's home, yet Dent and his wife Gilda both survived. Falcone's hired killers, however, would not live much longer.

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• 3. The Holiday Killings

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  Johnny Viti, the nephew who had murdered the bank president, was himself shot dead by an unknown hand. On Thanksgiving, the Sullivan hitmen died the same way, and the killer left a Thanksgiving decoration beside the bodies. The press gave the murderer a name, Holiday. On Christmas, Falcone's bodyguard, Milos Grapa, became the third victim of the pattern.

  Most people assumed Holiday was a rival of the Falcone family. That belief seemed to hold on New Year's Eve, when Holiday killed Falcone's own son, Alberto, aboard the family yacht.

  The investigation then followed the weapons. The pistols left at the scenes, and the bullets taken from the victims, were traced to a Chinatown neighborhood. The trail ended badly. On Mother's Day, the gunmaker was found dead, another victim of Holiday. On Independence Day, the Gotham City coroner was murdered, which removed another person who might have read the evidence. Each killing seemed designed to cut a thread before anyone could pull it.

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• 4. Freaks for Hire

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  On New Year's Eve, Batman had another emergency in Gotham Square, where the Joker planned to kill the crowd with deadly laughing gas. Batman stopped him. That same night, Vernon Fields, Dent's corrupt assistant, turned up evidence that supposedly tied Falcone to Wayne.

  Holiday's attention soon moved to the Maronis, a rival crime gang. A war broke out between the Falcones and the Maronis. Falcone, losing ground, called in Gotham's "freaks", including the Riddler, Poison Ivy, the Scarecrow and the Mad Hatter. This is the shift the series is known for, as old-style organized crime gives way to costumed villains.

  Falcone's instructions had a personal target. On Valentine's Day, Poison Ivy trapped Bruce Wayne and forced him to launder money for Falcone. The result was that Batman vanished from the fight. Selina Kyle worked out what had happened on Saint Patrick's Day and, as Catwoman, freed him. Then came April Fool's Day, when Holiday spared the Riddler. Batman suspected this was a message aimed at Falcone.

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• 5. The Prosecutor's Fall

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  The day after Mother's Day, Harvey Dent had Bruce Wayne arrested. Dent built on Vernon Fields's earlier investigation. He argued that Bruce's father, Thomas Wayne, had once saved Falcone's life after a shooting, so Bruce must be loyal to the Falcones. Alfred answered in court. He testified that Thomas Wayne's report never surfaced because of police corruption. That helped clear Bruce, and the coroner's murder on Independence Day made the charge look even weaker.

  On Father's Day, Sal Maroni's father was killed, and Maroni, already under arrest, offered to testify against Falcone. During the trial, he hurled a vial of acid at Dent. Vernon had secretly passed the vial to Maroni earlier. The acid disfigured half of Dent's face. Dent was rushed to a hospital, but he slipped away into the sewers, where he befriended Solomon Grundy.

  Gordon began to suspect that Dent himself might be Holiday. Batman refused to accept it until he could speak to Dent face to face.

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• 6. Two Holidays

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  In August, Falcone's sister, Carla Viti, was murdered on Falcone's birthday. Batman went to Julian Gregory Day, the Calendar Man, to ask where Dent might be found. Day reasoned that Labor Day was coming, so Holiday would try to kill Maroni. Batman and Gordon staged a transfer of Maroni, giving the killer both opportunity and means. Batman disguised himself as a security guard. Holiday killed Maroni, and Batman took the murderer down. The mask came off to reveal Alberto Falcone, who had faked his own death.

  On Halloween, Dent returned as Two-Face. He freed most of the super-criminals held in Arkham Asylum, then hunted down Carmine Falcone and Vernon Fields and killed both, despite Batman's efforts to stop him. Falcone's daughter, Sofia, was apparently killed in a struggle with Catwoman.

  His revenge finished, Two-Face surrendered to Gordon and Batman with a strange claim: there had been two Holiday killers. Gordon was baffled, since Alberto had confessed to every murder. Batman first dismissed the claim, then noted that Two-Face had killed Falcone and the last of his collaborators on Halloween. In that sense, Two-Face could also count as Holiday. He went to Arkham with the recaptured criminals, while Alberto could use an insanity defense to delay his execution.

  Months later, on Christmas Eve, Gilda Dent packed boxes to leave Gotham. She carried one to her furnace and burned a pistol, a hat and what looked like her husband's clothing. As the fire burned, she recalled that she had taken it on herself to begin the Holiday killings. Her goal was to break Falcone's grip on the city and lighten her husband's workload, so they could have time together. She suspected Alberto had lied, and that Harvey had taken up the killings himself on New Year's Eve. She was content to let Alberto serve as the scapegoat, because the authorities could not find the second killer without Dent's help. She still believed her husband could be cured.

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• 7. Origins and Sequels

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  The project began at San Diego Comic-Con, where group editor Archie Goodwin approached Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale and asked whether they wanted to do more Batman work. The duo had already made three Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Specials. Those were reprinted in a collection called Batman: Haunted Knight, and The Long Halloween followed them.

  Loeb has credited writer Mark Waid with shaping the idea. Told that Loeb was developing a story within the Year One continuity, Waid suggested focusing on Harvey Dent's years before he became Two-Face. Nobody had explored that period in depth since the original Year One story. The series therefore doubles as an origin story for Two-Face, and it draws on elements of Batman: Annual #14.

  In continuity terms, the series carries on the Year One story for Batman, Gordon, Catwoman and Falcone. It is considered to replace the earlier effort Batman: Year Two in the character's history.

  Its success brought Loeb and Sale back together for two sequels, Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome. A third sequel, The Last Halloween, is a 10-issue limited series that began publication on the 25th of September 2024.

  The original run has also stayed in print in many forms. A trade paperback appeared in January 1998, followed by a hardcover in February 1999. An Absolute Edition came out in April 2007, a Noir Edition in October 2014, and a Deluxe Edition in October 2021. In March 2022, a box set gathered Year One, The Long Halloween and Ego and Other Tails in a slipcase with art by Jim Lee.

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• 8. Reception and Echoes

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  "Jeph Loeb has crafted a story that is unique to the characters. It's a complex murder mystery, but it's also a Batman story." So wrote Yannick Belzil of The 11th Hour. The series has drawn consistently positive reviews, and critics often name it among the definitive Batman stories, crediting Loeb's absorbing plot and Tim Sale's dark, moody art.

  Hilary Goldstein of IGN Comics praised the writing as tight and intelligent, and he admired how it shows the bond among Batman, Gordon and Dent. IGN later placed the book fourth on a list of the 25 best Batman graphic novels. Rhenn Taguiam of GameRant also ranked it fourth among Batman stories. CBR's Guillermo Kurten put it sixth among Batman miniseries and stressed how it blends crime noir with Batman's role as the "World's Greatest Detective." Loeb is also credited with making Calendar Man interesting and necessary.

  The story's reach extends well beyond comics. Elements of it appear in the fourth season of the television series Gotham. It significantly influenced Christopher Nolan's Batman trilogy, especially The Dark Knight in 2008. Matt Reeves's The Batman in 2022 drew on it for a Batman in his second year and for the development of Selina Kyle and Oswald Cobblepot. Reeves cited three graphic novels as major influences on that film, and The Long Halloween was among them.

  Video games borrowed from it too. In Batman: Arkham City, in 2011, players could unlock a Catwoman skin based on her look in the book. Batman: Arkham Origins, in 2013, offered a pre-order suit for Batman inspired by his appearance in it.

  A two-part animated film, part of the Tomorrowverse film arc, followed the comic closely. Part One arrived on the 27th of June 2021, and Part Two on the 27th of July the same year. A deluxe edition combining both was released on the 20th of September 2022. Jensen Ackles voiced Batman, Josh Duhamel voiced Harvey Dent, and Titus Welliver voiced Carmine Falcone. Naya Rivera played Catwoman in what became her final film role.

  In 2025, the story reached audio as part of the DC High Volume podcast. Jason Spisak played Batman, Adam O'Byrne played Harvey Dent and Two-Face, and Kevin Smith voiced the Penguin.

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