Batman: The Long Halloween has always felt like a Pandora’s box of stories that should never be opened again. Only a tragic ending can come out of it. That being said, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have had plenty of success with sequels, including this 2021 one-shot. With Tim Sale gone, Loeb is now using different artists for each issue and publishing The Long Halloween as Batman: The Long Halloween – The Last Halloween as his final attempt. I’m super nervous about DC being able to pull it off.
Color artist Dave Stewart and letterer/designer Richard Starkings return to Loeb, so in a sense this is a reunion of most of the band members, and that’s evident from the very first page, as the colors remain completely unchanged since the previous foray into this world.
The rest of the series follows a fairly strong canon that remains unchanged, so if you haven’t read the previous sequels you might feel left out, but there are plenty of familiar characters to see in this issue, including Two-Face, Catwoman and Robin.
This page is great!
Credit: DC Comics
The issue opens with Two-Face flipping a coin, followed by a gorgeous double page spread by Eduardo Risso. A crisp shadow of Two-Face and an X cross looms over the image, evocative of Tim Sale’s style. Is his end near? After our meeting with him, we next see James Gordon and his family, but his family life is not going well. James is so consumed with his work that his marriage is falling apart.
Batman, on the other hand, remains as calm as ever, expressing his doubts about Robin in the caption: While he knows Robin is in danger, especially at his cocky age, he takes a fairly realistic view of him.
As for the story and the big mystery, Loeb has laid the groundwork with a possible connection between the surviving Falcone and Catwoman, and there are hints that a major Batman villain will show up, so not everyone will come out of this unscathed. There aren’t enough clues to really understand where the mystery is going, but children are kidnapped and Batman has to save them.
The art in Batman: The Long Halloween – The Last Halloween is fantastic. The visuals are consistent with previous films, and the mystery slowly unfolds. Loeb said he planned to craft this story with Sale, and it’s clear that the film doesn’t stray one bit from Batman’s past adventures.
Batman: The Long Halloween – The Last Halloween #1 Review
Batman: The Long Halloween – Last Halloween #1
The art in Batman: The Long Halloween – The Last Halloween is fantastic. The visuals are consistent with previous films, and the mystery slowly unfolds. Loeb said he planned to craft this story with Sale, and it’s clear that the film doesn’t stray one bit from Batman’s past adventures.
It’s hard to deny that the visuals are stunning and rival the brilliance of previous chapters in this saga.
A familiar layer of villains and heroes
Laying the subtle foundations of mystery…
…not much has been said about it since the first issue
