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Title: Batman: The Long Halloween by Jeph Loeb ISBN: 1-56389-469-6 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 November, 1999 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.37 (49 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: A great book!
Comment: The Falcone crime family has been used to running Gotham City for a long time, but they now find themselves in a state of siege. Somebody is killing Falcone operatives, a murderer who kills on holidays, the Holiday Killer. District Attorney Harvey Dent wants Falcone's power broken, Salvatore Maroni wants his syndicate to move from number two to number one, a number of super-villains have been broken out of Arkham Asylum, and Catwoman is running her own game. Batman wants the Holiday Killer, but there are too many suspects. This is going to take some real work to unravel!
This is a great graphic novel! I found the story to be gripping, and thought that the characters are quite interesting. The "normal" characters are well done, and the super-villains (Joker, Riddler, Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, Mad Hatter, Solomon Grundy, and (introducing) Two-Face) are used excellently, with Catwoman being quite fascinating. This is a great book, with a great story and excellent illustrations. I highly recommend this book to all Batman fans!
Rating: 5
Summary: My favorite Batman book, part 1
Comment: This is the book that got me back into comics! I've been a Batman fan for years but these two guys reeled me in to the comics.
This story takes place early in Batman's career. How early? No Robin, Harvey is still "Apollo" Harvey Dent, and James Gordon is still married to his wife. It's essentialy a murder mystery involving the Falcone crime family, back when there were REAL criminals running Gotham as opposed to the classic Bond-villians-on-acid criminals! Members of this family are being hit and the killer leaves macabe souveniers related to the holiday on which the murder occurs. Everyone is suspect, the conclusion is startling; everything I love in film noir murder mystery!
The art is more realistic than other Batman books. My only quip is the way catwoman was designed. They reached the design apex on the animated series. But in this book she has large eye holes, large ears, and whiskers in a attempt to make her more cat-like. Selina Kyle is WONDERFULLY done! The best drawn character is the Joker, he's my favorite anyway!
This is my favorite book because it's back to the essentials: Batman kicks the crap out of criminals, no supernatural stuff, and a great emotional comples for our hero! Bravo!
Rating: 3
Summary: Great Two-Face Story, Terrible Batman Story!
Comment: Here's another offering from the kings of retro, Jeph Loeb (writer) and Tim Sale (artist), reexamining Batman during his mythical "Year One" period. If you believe the intro to this volume, this story was meant to be a sequel to Frank Miller's classic retelling of the Dark Knight's early days in "Batman: Year One" (1986/7). As a story, this work is pretty weak in many areas; as a sequel, is simply falls short of the tight, mature storytelling of Frank Miller's original.
The story centers on the Roman family (originally introduced in "Batman: Year One"), a serial killer who offs people in creative ways during holiday seasons and the trio out to stop the crimes - Batman, Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent. Tim Sale is especially suitable for a work like this - his moody, atmospheric and splash-pages art are truly a sight to behold. You feel yourself being sucked into Batman's Gotham. My primary complaint is with Jeph Loeb's writing. Like my previous review of "Superman for All Seasons", my views of the man's writing hasn't changed. I like HOW he writes - I just dislike WHAT he writes! He's a great scripter, providing witty, timely and simply apt dialogues and caption boxes that the whole thing read very smoothly even though it runs into 300+ pages. The problem is with his insipid plotting. He should have someone else plot his tales and script over them. For example, in order to maintain the novelty of "holiday-themed killings", the story is stretched across THIRTEEN months and countless murders - and finally Batman catches the killer (but we are told that he got the wrong guy). And this is the "World's Greatest Detective"? Meanwhile, Batman consults a Hannibal-Lecter-like Calendar Man who is incapacitated in prison but seemingly knows the identity of the killer (?!?). See the problem? Batman, Gordon and Harvey are supposedly super-cops and they run around like madmen without a clue to the killer and you have this locked-up guy knowing the truth behind everything? Granted, Loeb was trying to set up a "Silence of the Lambs" scene with Calendar Man but therein lies the weakness of the whole thing. It is a scene set up for its own sake and doesn't contribute anything to the STORY. We live in times wherein comic writers are a lot more influenced by TV and movies than literature. And Loeb, former screenwriter, epitomize this new breed of writers who set up cool scenes, writes clever dialogue, provides the atmosphere with the right artistic collaboration but ultimately delivers something very hollow and shallow. "The Long Halloween" is often compared to the pulp classics of Chandler and Hammett. I disagree vehemently. Loeb and Sale gave us "mood" and "cool scenes" but ultimately the story is without gusto, the characters lack the machismo and grit of true noirish anti-heroes, and though the atmosphere is there, it lacks the tight, all-encompassing claustrophobia of the great noirish works.
The only redeeming factor in this work is the retelling of Two-Face's origin. Loeb is especially great in the quiet "character" moments and here, the tragic story of Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face is beautifully retold. But Loeb's strength is often his most-glaring fault at the same time. For example the book begins with a full-page drawing of a grim-looking Bruce Wayne muttering, "I believe in Gotham City" - a scene I found to be laughably out-of-character for the flamboyant playboy persona of Bruce Wayne! This kinds of out-of-character scenes abound throughout the story. All in all, this story should have been better written by a more gritty writer like Greg Rucka or Ed Brubaker (both of them have written far better Batman stories than Loeb here).
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Title: Batman : Dark Victory by Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale ISBN: 1563898683 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Batman: Year One by Frank Miller ISBN: 0930289331 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 October, 1997 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
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Title: Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore ISBN: 0930289455 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 December, 1995 List Price(USD): $5.95 |
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Title: Batman: The Dark Knight Returns by DC Comics ISBN: 1563893428 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.95 |
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Title: Batman: Hush Vol. 2 by Jeph Loeb, Jim Lee, Scott Williams ISBN: 1401200842 Publisher: DC Comics Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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