What is this book about?

Taking place during Batman’s early days of crime fighting, The Long Halloween tells the story of a mysterious killer named Holiday, who murders people on holidays, one each month. Working with various confidant’s, Batman races against the calendar as he tries to discover who Holiday is before he claims his next victim each month.

Why should you read this book?

Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale are such a perfect creative team. They’ve created a style that continuously works, which is proven in the sales of their books they’ve worked on together. (Batman: Dark Victory, Spider-man: Blue, Daredevil: Yellow, Hulk: Gray, Superman: For all seasons, etc. etc. etc.)

Loeb reignites the mystery genre and puts Batman back into his roots by solving crimes through detective work, rather than his fists.

I think the things I liked about this so much was that Loeb mixes Batman and Bruce Wayne’s lives so well. So many writer’s overlook Bruce Wayne and that side of him and what kind of impact Batman makes while out of uniform, but Loeb portrays this perfectly.

I really enjoyed the brotherhood shared by Batman, Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent. Only to see it deteriorate as opinions on how things should be handled are weighed against the heat of solving these crimes.

But again, like all other reviews I have been writing about in regards to Batman, (Batgirl Volume: 1, Batman, and Batman: Gotham knights), the underlying point and real true reason to read any Batman book is how deeply rooted it is in the idea of family and how what that means and how it affects the people and things around you.

Which you can see in nearly every character of this book. For instance:

Alberto Falcone, his father favored his older siblings, igniting a deep, pathological jealousy. He fought his way up on a scholarship to Harvard University and later went onto Oxford. Alberto was always eager to follow in his father’s footsteps and offered his service, but his father refused to let Alberto get involved in his “business,” apparently wishing for Alberto to live a normal life.

Carmine “The Roman” Falcone, leader of a mafia family which this whole story revolves around him and his actions or lack thereof; specifically in regards to how he manages his family.

Catwoman, is convinced that Carmine “The Roman” Falcone is her father so she tries to get closer to him and his family.

Jim Gordon, is police commissioner of Gotham City; which makes him work insanely late shifts, which keeps him away from his wife and son. Which the ties to his family only weaken more because of the serial killer on the loose that Jim hasn’t been able to catch for nearly an entire year.

Batman, this story takes place early on in Batman’s career and still mourns greatly over the loss and vengeance of his parents death. Not to mention his father saved the life of Carmine “The Roman” Falcone so he feels somewhat responsible for the fact that Carmine is still alive and has only made Gotham worse.

Harvey and Gilda Dent, are trying to begin their life together but Harvey was recently put on the Holiday killer case and it’s beginning to strain their marriage because Harvey spends very little time at home. Gilda, being forced to stay at home waiting for him to come home, Gilda yearns for a child to raise.

and the list goes on and throughout all the rest of the main characters and supporting characters that family is ultimately the driving force behind the motivation and purpose behind all these characters.

Why I think it might be interesting for people to read this story, is because how closely people could find themselves relating to it. All these characters are trying to do is bring their families together or fix and mend the ties to their families. Even the criminals and sociopaths realize the importance and the role that family plays because they’re from broken homes that suffered from a lack of family.

It amazes me that this point isn’t seen or written about much when reading reviews online given how crystal clear the message seems.