Review time! with ‘Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween’

“When I wrote about parties, someone always died; when I tried to write happy, yo, I knew I lied”

I mean, at this point, I hope DC realizes that this should be the last iteration of the “Long Halloween” nonsense. Sale is no longer with us, and Loeb … well, Loeb doesn’t get any worse, true, but it’s clear by this point that he’s never getting any better, either. I hope he doesn’t decide he wants to do another of these, because without Sale it doesn’t quite feel the same. I get why he did this one, but I hope his itch is well and thoroughly scratched. This one, the clunkily named Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween (I imagine DC didn’t do the colon after “Batman” because, come on, having two colons in a title so elegant is just stupid), costs $39.99 for a nice hardcover, but it is a hefty 288 pages long, so there’s that. Loeb writes it, Dave Stewart colors most of it, Brennan Wagner colors some of it, and Richard Starkings and Tyler Smith letter it. The Murderers’ Row of artists is: Sale, Risso, Janson, Chiarello, Chiang, Sienkiewicz, Marini, Johnson (Dave), Cloonan, Samnee, and Scalera. That ain’t bad at all!

I’m not going to spend too much time with this, because it’s kind of pointless. Most people who want to read this have already read this, and most people who are interested in this know a bit about Loeb’s writing. It’s … you know how Loeb rose to fame writing Commando? It’s true! Ever since then, he’s basically written Commando. I don’t mean Arnold killing people and cute l’il Alyssa Milano getting kidnapped and Rae Dawn Chong shrieking a lot and the unrequited love between Arnold and Vernon Wells which is only sated when sweaty Arnie plunges a big dick substitute into Wells’s sweaty body, I mean that Loeb is very good at writing zingers (“I lied”) and fun action scenes, but he doesn’t really get too in-depth with the characters. Everyone knows that Loeb writes very much for his artists, and that’s kind of the equivalent of Arnie dropping poor Sully off the cliff like that, and it makes his comics very nice to look at and not that great to read. I contend that Loeb’s best comic is Challengers of the Unknown, because they weren’t the icons of DC and Marvel and he had to do a bit more with the characters. Once he got to Batman and Spider-Man and Captain America and Superman and Daredevil and others, he simply lost interest in doing anything clever with the characters (or DC and Marvel didn’t let him), and his work just got … somewhat boring. It looked wonderful, but it was kind of dull. His “Long Halloween” series was such — beautiful and fun, but kind of empty calories. In an interview at the back of the book, Loeb mentions that he was going to do a prequel to the story, but then Sale died. Loeb decided to tweak the story a bit and make it kind of the end of Batman’s fight against the Falcone family, as well as a culmination of the gangsters-vs.-freaks thing that creates some interesting tension in Batman stories. Of course, because it’s Loeb, there’s entirely too much with Harvey and Gilda Dent (Loeb has a true hard-on for the Dents), and of course he brings in every Batman villain, because that’s what he does, and of course Julian Day has a fairly prominent role in the story (Loeb has a true hard-on for Calendar Man). Loeb references his Catwoman: When in Rome story, which is not terribly good at all, and it’s weird that he relies on it so much, especially because I’m not sure how popular it was. It’s basically your standard Loeb story — bad guys doing bad things, Batman kind of fumbling around for a while, all the villains showing up because Loeb wants to let his artists draw them, and some really dumb plot twists. You know what you’re getting with a Loeb story!

Of course, the interest in this book comes from the art. Sale drew the first chapter, back in 2021, it seems, and then Loeb enlisted a bunch of very good artists to draw each issue. It was smart to get Eduardo Risso to draw the second chapter, because Risso’s art is similar enough to Sale’s without being a copy, and it eases us into the story nicely. Klaus Janson draws the third issue, and his meat-and-potatoes always works well for the grittiness of Batman. Mark Chiarello has an unusual style, and I wonder how much Loeb got him because of Mitch Gerads drawing Tom King’s Riddler story, as Chiarello’s work is a bit reminiscent of that and his chapter is the “Riddler chapter” of the story (I always like how Chiarello uses chiaroscuro a lot, because that’s neat). Cliff Chiang also has a vaguely Sale vibe, so he’s another excellent choice for a chapter. It seems very clear that Loeb wanted Sienkiewicz to draw the “Joker chapter,” because that’s a perfect fit. It feels like Loeb got Enrico Marini just because he can draw a drop-dead sexy, tough-as-nails, Disco Amanda Waller, even though she only shows up on one page. Dave Johnson’s rough line work also feels perfect for a Batman story. Becky Cloonan is a terrific horror artist, and her chapter feels the most “horror-ish”: she draws a very scary Penguin and a very creepy Two-Face. Chris Samnee is also another very good Batman artist, and Matteo Scalera, with his looser style, gets to draw a frenetic final chapter. All the artists are very good, and Loeb, as he always does, figures out what they can draw to maximize their skills. Loeb might not be the best writer, but he does know how to write for his artists, and his books always look wonderful.

I don’t really love The Last Halloween, but I don’t regret getting it. Loeb is like that — he’s never written anything really terrible (ok, we’ll ignore Ultimates 3) — but he gives us kind of audience-pleasing stuff that barely skims the surface of what it could be. It’s fine, but kind of forgettable. It’s nice to see some nice Sale art, and of course the other artists are terrific, too, and Loeb keeps the plates spinning, but it’s just kind of there. If you’re a Loeb fan, you’ll probably like this, so there’s that!

Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ ½ ☆ ☆ ☆