The Long Halloween

[gocryemokid]

How did you guys like this story? I thought it was one of the best I've read yet. I only read it once and that was earlier today but I'm a little confused about who was actually "holiday". Alberto wasn't but confessed to doing so right? I thought it was going to be him until he got shot, which was obviously staged somehow. That's where I getreally confused.. If it was harvey/gilda why would they not kill him? And what happened harvey killed in the beginning and gilda at the end? And if harvey didn't know about hjer doing so ( which from the end I assume he didn't but could be wrong) wasn't he curious as to who was copy catting him?

Idk these are questions that could provably be answered when I reread the book but I thought I'd see what you guys think.

And on another note: I've heard Dark Victory is the sequel to it. Would you guys consider that a mandatory read? If not "mandatory" then what are your opinions on the sequel (without giving any major plot points away please :) )?

[gocryemokid]

Oh one more question ( I couldn't edit my post idk why? )

Since when is Barbara Gordon Jim's wife? Isn't that his daughter?

[Lemurion]

The Long Halloween makes sense without Dark Victory. The reverse is not true. I enjoyed both, but Long Halloween was better.

[bongoes]

I definitely recommend Dark Victory.

[Jorriss]

Dark Victory is the superior comic imo. Definitely worth a gander.

[jgiannantoni05]

but I'm a little confused about who was actually "holiday".
I think this one part of wikipedia offered the most likely explanation, and I think the one most tend to subscribe to.

There was more than one Holiday killer. When taken into custody, Two-Face asks Batman and Commissioner Gordon if they are aware there were two killers. While they are unable to determine his meaning, we readers are shown in a private confession by Gilda Dent that she claims credit for the first three murders and stopped only on New Year's when Alberto Falcone was supposedly killed, she assumed Harvey had taken over for her. In truth, Alberto fakes his death on New Year's and begins killing the enemies of his father, as well as anyone who might know he is still alive. So Gilda and Alberto (in that order) were probably Holiday. And Dent somehow knew Gilda was responsible for some of the murders, and wanted to not reveal this (DV has a small part that lends further credence to this), but apparently taunt Batman and Gordon with it.

And on another note: I've heard Dark Victory is the sequel to it. Would you guys consider that a mandatory read? If not "mandatory" then what are your opinions on the sequel (without giving any major plot points away please :) )
Definitely not mandatory. I'm not a fan of DV, I have to say. A dull retread of Long Halloween.
________
Vaporgenie (http://vaporizers.net/vapor-genie)

[Lorendiac]

How did you guys like this story? I thought it was one of the best I've read yet. I only read it once and that was earlier today but I'm a little confused about who was actually "holiday". Alberto wasn't but confessed to doing so right? I thought it was going to be him until he got shot, which was obviously staged somehow. That's where I getreally confused.. If it was harvey/gilda why would they not kill him? And what happened harvey killed in the beginning and gilda at the end? And if harvey didn't know about hjer doing so ( which from the end I assume he didn't but could be wrong) wasn't he curious as to who was copy catting him?

Idk these are questions that could provably be answered when I reread the book but I thought I'd see what you guys think.

Since you've just finished reading "The Long Halloween," you probably haven't heard that some fans have been arguing off and on, for over a decade, about these questions: "How seriously should we take Gilda's really weird monologue in the final scene of the story?" and "Who really committed which of the Holiday murders?"

Rereading the book doesn't help us all reach a consensus on those questions, so it isn't your fault that you weren't sure of the answers on the first pass! Lots of other people struggle with those problems too! :smile:

Years ago I wrote a summary of what were, at the time, the three major schools of thought I had seen online regarding who committed which Holiday murders. Time to dust it off, throw it out into the arena again, and see how it does!

***** OLD POST BEGINS *****

There seem to be at least three schools of thought.

#1. The Gildist School. Gilda's confession at the end was largely true; she killed thugs on the first three holidays of the year-long period depicted in "The Long Halloween." Then Alberto took over, faking his own death on New Year's Eve, and killing various people on subsequent holidays after that until he finally got caught. Gilda, upon hearing of the "death" of Alberto, leaped to the conclusion that her husband Harvey had taken over the operation from her without ever explicitly discussing it with her -- but she was dead wrong!

#2. The Albertist School. Crazy, unhappy Alberto, who never got enough attention from his daddy the Roman, spent a solid year killing people on holidays every chance he got. He was the one and only Holiday Killer, except for what Two-Face did at the very end of the series. Gilda's mind snapped after her beloved "Apollo" (Harvey) went bonkers, and now she's hallucinating a world in which she convinces herself she had more control over events than she actually ever did have, i.e. a world in which she was able to track down the gang who had blown up her home and put her in the hospital, and shoot them full of holes on Thanksgiving Day, without ever getting caught.

(Note: By the same token, it is possible that Harvey became aware of Gilda's deranged behavior and came to fear that she might actually have committed at least one or two of the previous Holiday murders -- even though, under this theory, she had done no such thing in reality!)

#3. The Triple Combo School, as I call it. This theory goes that the first three cases of Holiday killings were done by Gilda, just as she says in her weird monologue at the end. After that, all the others were split between Alberto and Harvey, beginning (I think) before Harvey actually got the acid in his face and became Two-Face. But Gilda and Harvey never actually discussed this face-to-face, even though each had strong suspicions of the other one's involvement in one or more of the Holiday killings.

One weakness in that Triple Combo Theory is that if none of the three Holiday killers were actually sitting down and coordinating their plans with each other, then why didn't we see cases where two or three different targets all got wiped out almost simultaneously on the same holiday by different killers acting independently in an effort to maintain the proud tradition of having mobsters drop dead on holidays?

A few months ago I reread both TLH and DV and also read a lot of online discussion, old posts by other fans about their competing theories and possible evidence. Here's a few things to keep in mind.

1. As far as I know, Jeph Loeb has never committed himself on who did which killings in the Long Halloween. I don't know why not.

2. Sometimes "Holiday" fired with the gun in his right hand, sometimes he fired with the gun in his left hand, and sometimes we don't get to see which hand he was using to fire the gun. Some fans feel Gilda favored one hand and Alberto favored the other and that the panels we see of gloved hands firing guns are the strongest evidence we'll ever get.

3. The Irish gang who blew up the Dent house were shot dead on Thanksgiving. Harvey is supposed to have been sitting beside his unconscious wife Gilda's hospital bed all night. She was on an IV and everything. If we take her confession at face value, we have to assume a series of unlikely events: She woke up, felt strong enough to run out and kill some people, removed her own IV, found men's clothes and a .22 somewhere, miraculously knew where to find the Irish gang right away, burst in on them, gunned them down, and made it back to her hospital bed, re-inserted her own IV . . . all without leaving any noticeable evidence that she'd been away from her hospital bed for an hour or two, and without Harvey waking up to scream in panic when he saw her empty bed, and without any nurses noticing her coming, or going, or absent if they checked her room during her little jaunt outside . . . a bit hard to swallow as a "fair" solution to the Holiday mystery.

I personally favor the "Albertist" school of thought, but I nurse a deep dark suspicion that Loeb thinks the Gildist school is correct, despite the massive problems I mentioned for her being able to run out and quietly murder a few people that Thanksgiving.

[F1uke]

There should have been another choice between "Absolutely! It's necessary reading if you've read TLH" and "Probably. It was a good read.", because DV was a great read, but TLH was better, and perfectly fine without DV. I wouldn't say it's necessary, but Dark Victory was definitely better than "good".

[gocryemokid]

Wow it is much more confusing than what I confused myself with lol.

Yeah I'm actually rereading again now (lol) and how could Gilda have gotten the Irish? Hmm..

Opinion to be formulated in the near future...

Oh and barbara gordon? What's the deal with that I've read Loeb books that recognize her as Gordon's daughter if I'm not mistaken..

[carabas]

Oh and barbara gordon? What's the deal with that I've read Loeb books that recognize her as Gordon's daughter if I'm not mistaken..Blame Frank Miller. He gave Gordon a wife called Barbara, who is not at all the same character as Oracle, a long, longtime ago in Batman: Year One (an infinitely superior story to The Long Halloween, by the way).

[gocryemokid]

I wanna read year one but I can't find it

[FanboyStranger]

Dark Victory is well worth a read, but like others have said, it's not as good as The Long Halloween. (And Year One is much better than both, in my opinion.) I consider Tim Sale to be the definitive Batman artist of the past fifteen years.

[Lemurion]

The thing with Year One (which I read and loved as it came out) is that it and the Dark Knight Returns are essentially Frank Miller's bookends to Batman's career.

[Captain Jim]

Blame Frank Miller. He gave Gordon a wife called Barbara, who is not at all the same character as Oracle, a long, longtime ago in Batman: Year One (an infinitely superior story to The Long Halloween, by the way).

To further elaborate, this Barbara Gordon was Jim Gordon's first wife. She is also the mother of their son. The Barbara Gordon who was formerly Batgirl and is now Oracle is Jim Gordon's biological niece, his brother's child. When this Barbara's parents were both killed, Jim adopted her. Jim was later married again to Sarah Essen, who was later killed by the Joker in No Man's Land.

[Captain Jim]

If you liked Long Halloween, you will likely like Dark Victory. Like most sequels, it is probably not quite as good as the original, but I still liked it quite a bit.

[Captain Jim]

I couldn't edit my post idk why?

I don't know either. What were you trying to do and how did you go about it? Posters should be able to edit their messages, but not thread/ post titles or polls.

[carabas]

I wanna read year one but I can't find itThat is odd considering it gota brandnew edition not two years ago. It's definitely still in print. Tell your comic book guy to oredr it, or get it from Amazon (plenty of second han copies there too)..

[dancj]

Both have passable stories and fantastic art.

[Lorendiac]

I'd say that if you liked "The Long Halloween," you'll also like "Dark Victory."

But I'll just warn you now: There's nothing in "Dark Victory" that really helps us "solve the mystery" of whether or not Gilda was telling the simple truth at the very end of "The Long Halloween" about having been the original Holiday killer. She doesn't even appear onstage in DV, although she is mentioned occasionally (as having long since left town by the time the new story gets rolling).

[Karl O'Neill]

This is an awesome story.

tim sale's art is incredible.

[gocryemokid]

Sale knows how to draw that's for sure

[Karl O'Neill]

Sale knows how to draw that's for sure

He does, Even if all his characters look like gangsters out of a dick tracy comic:biggrin:

[Lorendiac]

He does, Even if all his characters look like gangsters out of a dick tracy comic:biggrin:

I wouldn't say his female characters usually looked like gangsters. They often look like sweet, fragile, delicate little things compared to those big brawny men looming over them . . .

(Granted, there are exceptions. Sofia Gigante didn't exactly look sweet and small and helpless.)

[Quinnhop]

Loeb needs to stop writing shitty "Ultimate"-verse stuff for Marvel and work with Sale on his next Batman project. It should take the year-long style and change it to a five year-long epic, detailing Robin's growth into Nightwing and Jason Todd's becoming Robin. Use it as a way to change Todd back to being the red-head that he was Pre-Crisis.

[Lorendiac]

Use it as a way to change Todd back to being the red-head that he was Pre-Crisis.

Do you really care that much about his natural hair color all by itself, or do you just mean that as shorthand for saying, "Make Jason Todd exactly the sort of guy he was before the Crisis, in all ways -- including his hair color, and also including his not being a murderous vigilante"?

[Jared]

Because of Dark Victory, for the first time I now accept and even embrace Robin's right to exist outside of the Adam West show.

I also think it's better written than TLH, but as a direct sequel that doesn't stand alone, I would never recommend it first. But if you like TLH, I can't imagine you won't like DV.

[SpideyZERO]

Long Halloween is my first Batman comic and I love it the best. I also recommend Dark Victory as well

[Lorendiac]

Because of Dark Victory, for the first time I now accept and even embrace Robin's right to exist outside of the Adam West show.

That statement about your pre-"Dark Victory" opinion just makes me wonder: Before you read it, how many other stories had you read with one Robin or another in them? Which writers were involved?

I'm just curious because I don't remember the last time I saw any fan on these boards say that he felt, or used to feel, that Robin was totally unnecessary within the "comic book continuity," which apparently used to be your opinion? I find myself wondering what you had read which had led you to form that opinion for awhile.

[nepenthes]

Loeb needs to stop writing shitty "Ultimate"-verse stuff for Marvel and work with Sale on his next Batman project. It should take the year-long style and change it to a five year-long epic, detailing Robin's growth into Nightwing and Jason Todd's becoming Robin. Use it as a way to change Todd back to being the red-head that he was Pre-Crisis.

Wow. Good call :cool:

[Castel]

Loeb needs to stop writing shitty "Ultimate"-verse stuff for Marvel and work with Sale on his next Batman project

Ho yes, please, for god's sake take him OUT of the Ultimate Universe once and for all.

And make sure he will NEVER come back !! The UM universe just can't deal anymore with such huge crap as Ultimatum !! :biggrin:

[Sn4tcH]

Loeb hasn't written anything readable since Superman/Batman started, and even that is debatable. But he's only gotten worse since.

[DetectiveDupin]

Loeb hasn't written anything readable since Superman/Batman started, and even that is debatable. But he's only gotten worse since.

I'm convinced Loeb's work is best when he writes Batman or his "color" series for Marvel.

[DKR]

It's right up there with The Dark Knight Returns and Year One. Totally get Dark Victory if you like this one.

[RubberLotus]

I'm convinced Loeb's work is best when he writes Batman or his "color" series for Marvel.

As someone else has said before, Tim Sale's art magically boosts his writing quality 1000%.

[carabas]

As someone else has said before, Tim Sale's art magically boosts his writing quality 1000%.I think the difference is that, when you look at the credit, it does not say "Jeph Loeb: writer". It saysLoeb & Sale: storytellers.
Obviously, Sale has a bigger influence the story than on Loeb's works with other artists.

[Mulbard]

Loeb needs to stop writing shitty "Ultimate"-verse stuff for Marvel and work with Sale on his next Batman project. It should take the year-long style and change it to a five year-long epic, detailing Robin's growth into Nightwing and Jason Todd's becoming Robin. Use it as a way to change Todd back to being the red-head that he was Pre-Crisis.

I quite liked Nightwing: Year One myself, and don't think Loeb needs to bother (especially considering he isn't as good as he used to be)

[Mateus_ds]

To further elaborate, this Barbara Gordon was Jim Gordon's first wife. She is also the mother of their son. The Barbara Gordon who was formerly Batgirl and is now Oracle is Jim Gordon's biological niece, his brother's child. When this Barbara's parents were both killed, Jim adopted her. Jim was later married again to Sarah Essen, who was later killed by the Joker in No Man's Land.

well that clears up the "gordon has a son? i thought he had a daughter?!?" question from TDK movie.
thanks jim!

[Brack360]

I voted "probably." Dark Victory is a great story but is certainly not necessary for The Long Halloween. If anything, I thought DV was a little disappointing because it was too derivative of TLH, which was a more unique and original story. Unlike TLH, DV has a straightforward ending.

Oh one more question ( I couldn't edit my post idk why? )

Since when is Barbara Gordon Jim's wife? Isn't that his daughter?

You need to read Batman: Year One, not only because it's one of the best Batman stories ever but because The Long Halloween picks right up where Year One left off. Year One introduces Jim's wife, a separate character also named Barbara.