The Long Halloween and Dark Victory

[mosdef]

Anyone here read these two? I'm thinking about getting them and wanted to know how they are. Are they worth the buy?

[Nics23]

The long Halloween is well worth the buy. Had a great cast of Villians and shows Dent becomming Two-Face. I saw pick it up first chance you get.

[BrikHed21]

Buy them, buy them, & if you are not sure then BUY THEM!!!

[carabas]

I think we need a Long Halloween sticky thread...

[mosdef]

Cool, I'll check 'em out.

[Lorendiac]

I think we need a Long Halloween sticky thread...

I disagree. Because then every single time someone started a new Long Halloween thread, it would get merged into the old Sticky Thread, and after a while it would be 20 pages long, and nobody new would ever want to bother reading the whole 20 pages just to see if their question had already been touched upon 10 times or not . . .

[Lorendiac]

Anyone here read these two? I'm thinking about getting them and wanted to know how they are. Are they worth the buy?

I've seen other people ask for general opinions of "The Long Halloween" (and sometimes "Dark Victory" as well) on other occasions, over the years. I'll offer something I've said before (with minor editing done on the fly, just now).



I remember when "The Long Halloween" started coming out as a 13-part miniseries in the 1990s. I bought something like the first 3 issues, I think, and then decided that while it was interesting, it was also moving pretty slowly, and I'd wait until there was a trade paperback collection and then read it all at once.

Years later, that's exactly what I did when I happened to notice the TPB collection at a local store.

It was very interesting while I was reading it. It has something of the tone and mood of one of the old mid-20th Century movies of the type they call "film noir."

It also probably helps a bit if you've already read Frank Miller's "Batman: Year One" graphic novel, since some of the characters Miller invented for that are recycled by Loeb, but it's not indispensable to do it that way.

Loeb is a good writer in several ways - good dialogue, good tricks to build suspense, giving us a mysterious killer in a trenchcoat and hat that shades his face, who is running around shooting people (usually mobsters) on holidays for some unknown reason.

On the downside, a) Batman didn't really show much detective ability in this case, and b) there was some really weird stuff at the end (DON'T peek ahead!) that made it hard to figure out just what had really been going on and why during that series of murders. As a story with building suspense, this was very good. As a "fair play" mystery, a whodunit where clues are provided and you are able to figure out how it all logically fits together and so forth, this was not very good. It all depends on what kind of experience you want.

[nepenthes]

Not the greatest fan of Long Halloween (ridiculously over-rated) but it's definitly worth the read. It's the definitive Two-Face story.

I've found that most libraries that stock comic books have a copy of TLH. I've taken it out a few times but I don't really feel the need to own it.

I'd also recomend TLH to virgin comic readers (or new batman readers) before many other batman stories, its fairly easy going and a great introduction to Batmans cast and central premise. This is probably the best reason to buy the tpb actually. so you can lend it out to people.

[dancj]

The stories passable, but the art is fantastic. It's worth getting for that alone

[Greg Anderson]

Think of it as a Two-Face: Year One story. And it's definitely worth it, buy it!! NOW!

[Seraku]

No matter how much Loeb's Marvel work sucks so badly (minus Fallen Son), I look at my copies of TLH and DV and continue to give him the benefit of the doubt.

These are that good.

[caboose]

Certainly both worth a look see, but...

...Batman comes off a bit of a douche and Long Halloween in particular has some plot holes, some forgivable, some not so much.

The art is some of the best Batman you'll see however.

[JayC]

These books are amazing. Hands down.