The first issue of Batman: The Last Halloween came out on September 25th 2024, and mostly follows a monthly release schedule. This new 10-part series serves as the finale to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s Batman narrative that they started in 1996 with Batman: The Long Halloween and continued with Batman: Dark Victory. In addition to this, the series has come out with issue #0, which is really just a reprint of Batman: The Long Halloween Special from 2021. The Long Halloween is an important book to me because it is what really got me into comic books, so the news of this new series got me very excited to start reading it. So far, The Last Halloween has met my expectations but hasn’t done much to exceed them.
Starting off the series is issue #0. This story worked well standing alone and still works well as a start to this new, larger story. I did not expect Gilda Dent to be reintroduced after she was completely absent for the entirety of Dark Victory, but that was a good inciting incident to make The Last Halloween more intriguing while also not coming out of nowhere. The main thing that I liked about this story was that it fleshed out the character of Calendar Man. Previously in these books, Calendar Man was relegated to a side role, but here he is the main antagonist, and his backstory is alluded to for possibly the first time in the character’s history. Just like the reintroduction of Gilda, this choice felt new while also being familiar. This issue also had really good art by Tim Sale. I always liked how his art stayed away from realism and went all in on making certain characters look like caricatures, and this issue was no different. His art did have a different feel here, though, mostly due to how this issue had a different colorist than The Long Halloween and Dark Victory. This new colorist chose to make Sale’s art more vibrant than it was in previous comics. I definitely think that the old coloring fits the story’s mood better, but that’s not to say that it was bad in this issue. Unfortunately, this was the last comic drawn by Tim Sale, as he died back in 2022.
Moving onto The Last Halloween itself, the first stand out is the book’s art direction. Instead of choosing one person to replace Sale, DC chose to have the artist rotate every issue. I think that this was a good decision because it wouldn’t feel right to have someone completely take over his position. Also, while the artists do stay in line with their respective styles, they try to incorporate Sale’s style into their art, making the change in art between issues not too jarring. Right now, I think that my favorite artist in the series is Eduardo Risso, who illustrated issue #1. In my opinion, Risso has done the best job at capturing the moodiness that this story requires. What I think is lacking with the newer art is detail. While I didn’t notice it as much before, Sale’s art had a ton of extra detail that made the setting feel lived in. I think that Risso did the best at capturing this quality of Sale’s art, but overall none of the artists do as good of a job in this department. Although it is unfortunate that this brings down the quality of The Last Halloween a bit, I do like how this makes me more appreciative of the detail in The Long Halloween and Dark Victory.
Right now the mystery in this book is good, but not great. My main issue with the mystery is that I’m not entirely sure what it’s supposed to be. In previous Batman stories by Jeph Loeb, the mystery at hand was much clearer. The Long Halloween and Dark Victory are simple murder mysteries, and the mystery of Hush is about unraveling the identity of Hush. In The Last Halloween, the mystery is about who is shooting criminals and who kidnapped Commissioner Gordon’s son. While there is a clear connection between the kidnapping and some of the shootings, other shootings seem to be almost arbitrary. Adding onto this, nothing was really done with the kidnapping itself, as the kidnapper hasn’t used it to get any kind of ransom or manipulate Gordon in any way. Because of this, there really isn’t much of a motive that can be drawn from the crimes, which makes the mystery feel unengaging. Also, The Long Halloween and Dark Victory had tension in every issue because you know that every month that Batman fails to catch the killer, someone else will die. This tension doesn’t exist in The Last Halloween because criminals are only being shot, not murdered, and not even consistently either. Even though I don’t think that the mystery is that great at this point, I think that it could get better. Even though The Long Halloween did have a stronger start, the mystery did get better and better as the book advanced and added more details. Additionally, the ending of issue #3 suggests that the next issue will make some major reveals as to what is truly going on, which could clear up my issues with the mystery’s clarity. While it would be unrealistic to expect The Last Halloween’s mystery to end up being as good as the mystery in The Long Halloween and Dark Victory, it certainly still has time to get better.
Aside from the mystery, the book’s story is pretty good. Even though Calendar Man doesn’t have as central of a role as he did back in issue #0, the subplot of him trying to manipulate Robin while incarcerated is still intriguing. As for Robin himself, I am enjoying his presence in the story much more than I expected. Normally, I try to avoid Batman comics involving Robin because he usually serves as an uninteresting distraction when I just want to read about what Batman is doing. In The Last Halloween, however, I like Batman and Robin’s dynamic as well as the levity that his light-hearted attitude brings. Something that I don’t like as much compared to previous books is how there aren’t many new characters. The Long Halloween created tons of new mobsters and reinvented old ones to add a lot more life to the criminal underworld. Dark Victory followed suit by introducing even more mobsters and also a lot of characters in law enforcement. The Last Halloween, by contrast, has only really introduced the two FBI agents, Edwards and Sullivan. Because there just aren’t as many characters, the story feels so much less lively. Also, this means that there are fewer suspects, contributing to why the mystery isn’t as interesting.
Overall, I am enjoying The Last Halloween, although I do have some issues with it. These issues do have time to be resolved as the story unfolds, however. Because of this, I have no fear that this story will fail to live up to expectations, and can’t wait to see where it goes from here.
