This is the moment those who read my reviews have been waiting for. I am finally reviewing a Batman book, and since Halloween is right around the corner, I decided to look at Batman: The Long Halloween. This book is a kind of sequel to Batman: Year One. The Long Halloween is written by Jeph Loeb and has art by Tim Sale, and many believe it to be one of the greatest Batman stories of all time right up there with The Dark Knight Returns, Batman: Year One or Killing Joke. I personally like this book because the focus is more on Batman’s costumed villains like Scarecrow, Joker, and The Riddler, whereas Batman: Year One was more about organized crime in Gotham.

   The book takes place over the span of a year as a killer known as “Holiday” goes around killing members of the Falcone and Maroni crime families. The reason he is called Holiday is that the killer only kills on holidays like Halloween and Christmas. Now you may be thinking if that’s the case, should it be called Batman: Holiday? I can see why people would think that, but it’s called The Long Halloween because the first victim dies on Halloween and is caught one year later on Halloween Night.

   Now I could go ahead and tell give you a synopsis of the story, but that would ruin your experience of reading it. It plays out like an actual detective story.  It will have you guessing all the way until the killer is caught. There is also a sub-plot on Harvey Dent’s transformation into Two-Face that plays into the story, if that’s your thing.

   If you are not motivated yet to read this book, what if I told you that this book was the groundwork for The critically acclaimed movie The Dark Knight?  Enough said.

   If you love Detective stories or even Batman stories for that matter, I definitely recommend this book. There basically is no excuse to not have read this if you claim to be a Batman fan.