Dustin Gebel
In anticipation of Mark Waid and Chris Samnee’s Batman and Robin: Year One, Comic Watch is going back to the Dark Knight’s earliest days in Gotham. In a week-long series of reviews and features, our staff will dive deep into Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli’s seminal origin story, exploring its influence on comics and beyond!
At the heart of Batman, both the in-text character and literary hero, is a duality; pulpy crimefighter and foundational superhero. His origins in cheap crime comics ensure the former, while the latter results from his place in the pantheon of DC superheroes. That duality gives the character such a flexible core that can be twisted into endless variations, from time-traveling comics to gritty detective films and everything in between. To understand how the character transitions from simple crimefighter to bombastic superhero, one needs to look no further than Batman’s Year Two.
…Not the Year Two in name, which is an okay comic follow-up to Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli’s seminal Year One. The Year Two penned by Mike W. Barr and illustrated by Alan Davis and Todd MacFarlane is a flawed follow-up, offering a few interesting concepts but largely falling to the wayside. The best parts of the comic served as the inspiration for Batman: Mask of the Phantasm.
In actuality, the comic that best fits the mantle of Year One’s follow-up is Batman: The Long Halloween, a 13-issue limited series from Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Gregory White, Richard Starkings, and Comicraft. The series follows a killing spree by the Holiday Killer, who makes it a point to punctuate each of their murders on a specific holiday. Taking place over the course of a year, Batman, Captain Jim Gordon, and District Attorney Harvey Dent have decided to work together to dismantle the Falcone criminal empire while also investigating the Holiday Killer.
That set-up alone would make the series a clear continuation of Year One, which spent time establishing the criminal underworld of Gotham as Batman and Gordon integrate into the city. Even Dent’s crusade against corruption is established by Miller, laying a solid foundation for the story. Throw in callbacks to the Waynes’ connection to the Falcone family, Gordon’s promotion, and Catwoman’s continued action in Gotham, and it’s a surefire sequel structure.
However, what cements The Long Halloween as the heir apparent to the definitive origin of the character is the focus on Gotham’s transition which is mirrored by Batman. Year One is filled with mobsters and crooks, never one depicting a true supervillain or rogue. (Joker does get a mention at the end, setting up a cliffhanger that Ed Brubaker explores later on.) Only Batman, and for the briefest moment Catwoman, make costumed appearances in Year One, showcasing the grounding that Gotham begins with.
By the time that The Long Halloween picks up steam in its unfolding year, villains like Joker, Poison Ivy, and Calendar Man are on the scene. The limited series is the point of inflection for Gotham, transiting the criminals of the city from mobsters and thugs to costumed freaks (as the Falcones or Maronis would say). That notion becomes so prevalent, that one of the explanations for the Holiday Killer is a result of Alberto Falcon, son of the mafia head, who dons the mantle because he knows that the old ways are not long for the city.
The strongest case for this transformation is Harvey Dent’s journey in the book. The man goes from well respected and morally upright to a twisted version of himself when scarred by the Falcone via a Maroni proxy. The splash of acid turns Dent into Two-Face, spending the former attorney underground until he’s ready to enact revenge. Part of that includes releasing all of the fledgling supervillains captured by Batman over the years, including Joker, Poison Ivy, and Scarecrow. That splash page crystalizes the turn of Gotham’s underworld with the supercriminals subsuming the standard gangster.
Just as the writing of The Long Halloween signals the shift in the way it takes the dangling plot threads of the straightforward Year One, so too does the art capture that change. Mazzuchelli’s art is built on the foundation of clean, concise lines that prioritize a sense of realism in the simplest cartooning possible. That results in a story that comes across as timeless, to the point that it feels contemporary when read today.
Sale’s artwork carries a similar sense of enduring appeal, though instead of striving for realism, Sale goes for the hyper-stylized. Evoking a noir aesthetic, the art thrives in the grotesque anatomy of its villains and atmospheric tension designed through shadows. Where Mazzuchheli would strive for simple lines to bolster the story, Sale enriches the complex mystery with packing of detail. Just as Gotham, its criminals, and Batman evolve, so too do the artistic sensibilities.
The Long Halloween is a central moment of transition in Batman’s ongoing journey, taking him from the darkest crevices of Gotham to the eventual fights for the multiverse. Going from crimefighter to superhero is a journey that necessitates the breaking down of systems in Gotham, which Loeb and Sale do masterfully in The Long Halloween, couching it in a compelling mystery. On both a narrative and artist level, The Long Halloween captures the feeling of the years passing, taking a fresh-faced and barely experienced concept and adding experience and complexities. That becomes the basis of its minting as Batman’s true year two, carrying the spirit of what came before and teeing up that which comes next.
