The Long Halloween

[thecolorsblend]

In any event, I love these stories.  I don't find the ending of TLH all that ambiguous.  My interpretation: the killers were The Dents.  Alberto killed one person, and claimed to be Holiday for attention, etc., but ultimately wasn't really anything more than a red herring.

The whole point of a whodunnit is to eventually be told who the fvck did it. With TLH, there's so much double-dealing, lies, secret agendas, etc, that there's no clarity to the reveal. Was it Harvey? Gilda? Grouch Marx Falcone? Hell, I read a blog entry years ago that suggested it was Catwoman. There shouldn't be this amount of confusion over the killer's true identity. I think it's foreign to the genre Loeb is toying with.

Mind you, my opinion of Jeph Loeb as a writer is pretty abysmal to begin with so TLH is actually better than some of his other stuff.

[greggbray]

^ Fair enough. 
Maybe I'm just oversimplifying it, but looking at the last few pages of the book, Gilda's confession seems to be it.

True she never directly states "We were Holiday," but she goes over the murders one by one as she's burning the evidence.  Maybe I'm just being too much of a literalist in this case.   

[The Dark Knight]

The whole point of a whodunnit is to eventually be told who the fvck did it. With TLH, there's so much double-dealing, lies, secret agendas, etc, that there's no clarity to the reveal. Was it Harvey? Gilda? Grouch Marx Falcone? Hell, I read a blog entry years ago that suggested it was Catwoman. There shouldn't be this amount of confusion over the killer's true identity. I think it's foreign to the genre Loeb is toying with.

I can absolutely see what you mean and that's an entirely valid point of view to have.

Personally I like the ending of the book as I like mystery in most things. It's like with Lost as a TV show. We have lingering questions that were not answered even with the final episode. Some people hated it and said it was a cop-out. That they invested so much time into the show and it was for nothing. I don't hold that viewpoint. Regarding that, I love that things weren't answered. It gets me thinking. It makes me re-watch (or re-read) the content again to see if I missed anything, or if I can get a different perspective/insight. It may be frustrating to some, but not so much with me. Albert Einstein said one of the most beautiful things we can experience is the mysterious, and I am with him.

[thecolorsblend]

^ Fair enough. 
Maybe I'm just oversimplifying it, but looking at the last few pages of the book, Gilda's confession seems to be it.

True she never directly states "We were Holiday," but she goes over the murders one by one as she's burning the evidence.  Maybe I'm just being too much of a literalist in this case.

Or maybe she's burning a bunch of junk she found in the garage and she's shatbit nuckin futs and has convinced herself of something that never took place. Or maybe she's telling the truth and little Falcone confessed to crimes he never committed. Bottom line, there's no resolution to it and a mystery should have resolution. Ambiguous endings work fine sometimes but not for this.

[greggbray]

You know, I had just made an assumption about a 'universally agreed upon ending,' and I can see how off base I was.  You're right.  In hindsight there is a great deal of ambiguity there, and I can see how it could feel like the Sopranos Finale.  The WTF of it all.

Though, and this falls under the realm of taste and really nothing else, it doesn't necessarily interrupt my enjoyment of it.  Though I can see how it could be a hassle.

Not to derail the topic, but what are some of your favorite writing teams or story arcs from the Batman books?   For instance, if one were to say 'TLH is the greatest B'man story of all time,' aside from the criticisms you've brought up, what would you recommend instead?

[thecolorsblend]

Apologies in advance for the length here.

Though, and this falls under the realm of taste and really nothing else, it doesn't necessarily interrupt my enjoyment of it.  Though I can see how it could be a hassle.

And that's the hell of it. You delete the last, what, page or two of TLH? And suddenly it IS everything people say it is. Says something about how important two pages really can be, yes?

Not to derail the topic, but what are some of your favorite writing teams or story arcs from the Batman books?   For instance, if one were to say 'TLH is the greatest B'man story of all time,' aside from the criticisms you've brought up, what would you recommend instead?

It's hard to come up with an exact alternative, partly because I'm not as familiar with Batman comics as Superman comics and partly because the Batman comics I am familiar with are largely before the trade paperback-friendly market we have now.

That said, I'm a BIG fan of the Alan Grant/Norm Breyfogle Batman. It was a time of experimentation at DC and that's really how Alan Grant got a shot at the character. True, you could argue he erred in putting a bit too much social/political commentary in his book but he delivered the goods more often than not. Plus, to this day Breyfogle's Batman is MY Batman. He's definitive as far as I'm concerned. Not specifically a Batman story necessarily but the pair did a Catwoman two parter (Batman #460 and 461, I think) which really typified what Catwoman was up to in the early 90's. The cat thing isn't just an affectation. It's emblematic somewhat of her character and personal traits. She doesn't have "cat powers" or some such, she just has more than a few of the same characteristics.

I'd be an idiot to ignore the Steve Englehart/Marshall Rogers Detective Comics run from the 70's. It's funny how they worked completely differently from Grant/Breyfogle. They were a partnership from the get-go and became more of one as time went on. By contrast, Englehart was planning to get out of comics entirely and his Detective Comics run was supposed to be his swan song. He wrote the scripts, turned 'em in and left town. He says he was overfreakingjoyed when he saw just how much ass Marshal Rogers kicked in pencilling his scripts. They had little or no creative interaction... but you'd be hardpressed to guess that based upon the finished product. Their run on Detective plays for me because it is what Hush tries like fvck but fails to be; a love letter to Batman that hits upon a lot of his core mythos, rogue's gallery and supporting cast. If I'm not much mistaken, Englehart is the one who made the Joker criminally insane. I yield this to Silver Nemesis ultimately but my understanding is that prior to Englehart, the Joker up to that point was more or less a more whimsical version of what we saw in Batman #1. He had the demented sense of humor but not necessarily out-and-out psychosis. If that's true, we fans owe Englehart an unspeakable debt of gratitude.

I'm developing a taste for the Doug Moench/Don Newton stuff from the early to mid 80's. There's a lot of heart and character in those issues. I can't endorse this era personally just yet but if someone else were to do so... well, I could see their argument, put it that way. I dig on Batman's fallibility here. If Grant Morrison was writing this stuff, Batman would have fifteen billion different contingency plans and such. Here? He can make mistakes in judgment or tactics. To me, that's just more interesting.

Speaking of Moench, his run on Batman with Kelley Jones from the mid 90's is likewise cool. True, Kelley Jones is an acquired taste as far as art goes but each panel oozes the kind of darkness that Tim Burton has nightmares about. Seriously enjoy those issues.

People talk all different kinds of smack about "the 60's Batman", as if Adam West is the sum total of it and that's a real shame (A) because the West show is awesome and (B) because that sentiment tends to overlook the Frank Robbins/Irv Novick stuff. What I've read of it... well, Frank Miller it ain't. Even so, it was darker than people remember. A lot of stories taking place at night and such. The coloring was a boon too. Somebody took the time to do the coloring work in a pretty creative way. You see a lot of monochromes and also a kind of different color palette than we commonly associate with 60's comics, particularly post-Adam West Batman comics. I like the atmosphere and tone of these comics.

One of my favorite eras is Detective #27 to #37. Batman was a hard, brutal vigilante and the stories were dark ("mysterioso" as Bob Kane would have it) and Batman doled out justice, no apologies, no excuses, no regrets. The mysterious, slightly supernatural bent of a lot of those stories shaped my sensibilities as to what a Batman ought to be.

A tragically overlooked incarnation of Batman is the BTAS adaptations (Batman Adventures, Batman & Robin Adventures, etc). I'd put some of those stories up against even the best episodes of BTAS.

What've you got?

[greggbray]

I think your list is terrific, and I'd have to concur with the Grant/Breyfogle praise.  NB is without a doubt my favorite take on the visual world, with any number of close seconds including Adams, Rogers, and Sale.

I was a pretty big fan of Kelly Jones' art.  He won me over with his brief affair with Sandman. 

Some of the mid-80s stuff I found got a bit tepid.  After the remarkable run in the 70s (in particular the material that was collected in 'Strange Apparitions') I kind of felt like the 80s had *Way* too much wheel spinning.  Not that it was particularly bad, it just didn't progress very well.  Then again, the Crisis comics, BYO, etc. may have been at play during that time.

Burton seems to have channeled a great deal of the early work in his material--I can see the affinity. 

[Silver Nemesis]

If I'm not much mistaken, Englehart is the one who made the Joker criminally insane. I yield this to Silver Nemesis ultimately but my understanding is that prior to Englehart, the Joker up to that point was more or less a more whimsical version of what we saw in Batman #1. He had the demented sense of humor but not necessarily out-and-out psychosis. If that's true, we fans owe Englehart an unspeakable debt of gratitude.

That's correct. A few stories had already depicted the Joker as a dark psycho killer – for example, 'The Joker's Five-Way Revenge' (Batman #251, September 1973) and 'Death Has the Last Laugh' (The Brave and the Bold #111, March 1974) – but it was Englehart who introduced the idea that the Joker's insane motives were completely devoid of rationality; that he just does stuff for the hell of it, because he thinks it's funny (e.g. shoving one of his henchmen in front of a lorry). Englehart had Batman summarise the Joker's mindset in one succinct line: "The Joker's mind is clouded in madness! His motives make sense to him alone!" And that pretty much set the tone for all subsequent Joker stories.

Interestingly, Englehart was one of the few people to criticise Heath Ledger's Joker. And the basis of his criticism was that the Joker's objectives in TDK were too rational.

Reflector: What's your opinion on how Heath Ledger handled The Joker, especially in light of your stories? How credible is it to say he might get an Oscar for Best Supporting Actor?
Englehart: ... Close but no cigar. His Joker is more nihilistic than insane, I thought; there was still a core of rationality in there. It's someone very like the Joker, but not the Joker. But I liked the character on screen a lot.

http://www.norwalkreflector.com/content/writer-looks-back-batman-stories-films?similar

People talk all different kinds of smack about "the 60's Batman", as if Adam West is the sum total of it and that's a real shame (A) because the West show is awesome and (B) because that sentiment tends to overlook the Frank Robbins/Irv Novick stuff. What I've read of it... well, Frank Miller it ain't. Even so, it was darker than people remember. A lot of stories taking place at night and such. The coloring was a boon too. Somebody took the time to do the coloring work in a pretty creative way. You see a lot of monochromes and also a kind of different color palette than we commonly associate with 60's comics, particularly post-Adam West Batman comics. I like the atmosphere and tone of these comics.

I agree completely. And thanks for highlighting the Frank Robbins/Irv Novick run. A lot of people blindly attribute the darkening tone of the Batman comics to Denny O'Neil. But while O'Neil does deserve a lot of credit, there were plenty of writers and artists before him who were struggling, often against editorial edicts, to take Batman back to his roots. Stories like 'Operation Blindfold' and 'Batman Walks the Last Mile' had the same dark urban grittiness that would define Batman comics in the 70s. Only these stories were published in 1968, the same year the third season of the Adam West show was broadcast! Way too many people unfairly dismiss the sixties era, both in terms of the TV show and the comics. It's a shame, because they're missing out on some truly classic Batman stories.

[zDBZ]

In any event, I love these stories.  I don't find the ending of TLH all that ambiguous.  My interpretation: the killers were The Dents.  Alberto killed one person, and claimed to be Holiday for attention, etc., but ultimately wasn't really anything more than a red herring.

I always assumed the killers were Gilda and Alberto. After New Years, the targets change to figures who would have to have been involved in Alberto's cover-up of his death, and later to the enemies of his father.

And I love Long Halloween - not much to add that hasn't been said.

[M_deVries]

Adding my own two cents: The Long Halloween is my all time favourite Batman Story from start to finish.  I have no problem with an ambiguous ending; I loved Inception and I loved The Dark Knight Rises because I'm able to fill in the end that best suits my own sensibilities.

The Long Halloween is a fantastic mystery that never disappoints each time I read it.  Add on Dark Victory and you have a fantastic Batman primer.