Even before its recent two-part cinematic adaptation, Batman: The Long Halloween is one of the Dark Knight's definitive modern tales. The story continues seamlessly from Batman: Year One, and highlights the Dark Knight's progress as both a detective and a crimefighter in the early days of his career. Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Richard Starkings and Gregory Wright's classic story sees Batman encounter many of the major members of his iconic rogues' gallery as he investigates a series of murders that coincide with Harvey Dent's downfall and his subsequent transformation into the villainous Two-Face.
Over the years, Batman has gone from fighting gangsters, robbers, and hoodlums to deranged serial killers and colorfully garbed psychopaths. The Long Halloween shows the end of organized crime in Gotham City and the rise of the supervillain. While many of the characters and ideas of this world were followed up on in Loeb and Sale's Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome, Tony Daniel, Steve Scott, Ryan Winn, Andy Smith and Walden Wong's "Pieces" in 2011's Batman #710-712 serve as a largely forgotten follow-up to The Long Halloween.
The plot deals with Dick Grayson's Batman dealing with the fallout of Black Mask's gang war. This leads to the resurgence of the Falcone crime family, led by Mario, the son of the Capo and Godfather, Carmine. In the issues leading up to Batman #710, Mario had a mysterious femme fatale at his side, and the revelation of her identity established a firm connection to The Long Halloween.
The ending of the original Long Halloween series was left deliberately open-ended. The entire story dealt with Batman and the GCPD trying to apprehend a murderer known only as Holiday -- who killed criminals and gangsters on public holidays -- and the identity of the killer was left open to interpretation. The wife of Harvey Dent, Gilda, was one of the people suspected as the murderer.
In the years after this series ended, Gilda Dent largely disappeared from the comics and was presumed dead. However, the identity of Mario Falcone's mysterious female companion was revealed to be the former Mrs. Dent, much to the surprise of Two-Face. Having the Falcones, Batman, Catwoman, Two-Face and Gilda Dent front and center in "Pieces" made the story feel like a tribute to The Long Halloween. The three-issue arc even gave readers a fairly new Dark Knight, this time in the form of Dick Grayson, which cleverly mirrors Bruce Wayne's Batman, himself starting out on his vigilante career in The Long Halloween. It was also a great way to end DC Comics' post Crisis On Infinite Earths continuity in favor of the imminent New 52 reboot that wiped away that era of DC history for several years.
While this might seem to close the book on The Long Halloween, DC is set to release a 48 page, one-shot Batman: The Long Halloween special later this year, which will return to the world of The Long Halloween. With this epilogue, Jeph Loeb, Tim Sale, Brennan Wagner and Richard Starkings will complete the tale that started 25 years ago, and perhaps put the mystery of the Holiday killer to rest once and for all.