Oooh, this was a good one.
An epic nod to Batman: Year One, The Long Halloween follows a series of murders that occur on holidays. A young Bats is there to try to solve the crimes, which revolve around a crime boss named "The Roman."
We get to see a lot of interesting things here. You start to see the supervillains taking over from organized crime. You see Batman struggling with a crime his great detective skills can't crack. And you get a lot of a young Jim Gordon and Harvey Dent (foreshadowing abounds!) and their troubled relationships with their wives.
Even though the graphic novel clocks in at more than 350 pages, it is tight and well-crafted, with no filler. Each of these 13 issues means something, and I was flipping back and forth as clues were revealed to see if they had been hinted at in previous issues. For the most part, they were.
The art has a noir feel without being too gritty, and Poison Ivy's appearance is as trippy as it should be. This was a great read, and I'm pleased to say I didn't predict the killer 100 pages before the end. It's nice to not always know what's coming in a mystery.
I'm going to call this an essential read for Batman fans. It'll help if you know your Gotham history first, but if you don't, it's still a damn good detective story.
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