BATMAN: THE LONG HALLOWEEN - The Horrific Transformation of Gotham City 

Perhaps that is why Batman has lasted 80 years. We root for Batman's fight because we each struggle with our own version of a long defeat.

I wish Batman had events like this again, such a fun read.

I always loved how the long Halloween showed the transition of Gotham being run by gangsters to then being consumed by super crime. It’s also more tragic how Batman can take out regular organized crime but he can’t take out the rising super criminals he helped to partially inspire

In a way it's always Halloween in Gotham.

For those who don't know, The Dark Knight movie took this comic as one of its inspirations. This can mostly be seen through the close cooperation through Batman, Harvey, and Gordon.

Imagine being as talented an editor as Matt Draper? I can't relate.

R.I.P Tim Sale. We have truly lost an icon in the comic book world. His legacy will live on forever through his breathtaking and unique artwork.

I don't think you got the right takeaway from what the twist implied actually happened (because everything makes total sense). Gilda was only responsible for the first three killings, which were all in direct retaliation for someone threatening Harvey's safety (Viti for mudering Richard Daniel, the Irish for blowing up their house, and accidentally the bodyguard in place of Joker after he broke into their home). Alberto picked up the killings from then on in an effort to capitalize on the first three. Finally, Harvey killed Falcone, making him the final Holiday killer. Gilda thought Harvey was the one who picked up the killings, but it was actually Alberto. Nobody knew anything about Gilda's involvement (which further emphasizes how the Long Halloween was Batman's greatest failure).

You can really see the influence of this on Arkham Knight, this idea that Gotham is not a city that Batman can properly save, it's completely spun out from beyond something that was once grounded crime to something that's out of the realm of the real world, super-villany that is defined by how utterly depraved it is.

Dark souls player: oh god this painful crusade wont end! Batman: that's cute

This just makes me want to read this comic a whole lot more. I wouldn't mind it being adapted into a miniseries or a film. Keep up with the brilliant work.

Easily my favorite Batman story.

I love this book. Great transition from a city held in the grip of the mob and one torn apart by lunatics. The coloring of the city feels like it's a polluted place with an ugly soul.

These are the Batman stories I love. The character is supposed to have this sense of realism to him. These detective stories are so much more interesting than Batman being invincible cuz prep time.

FINALLY!!! I love this graphic novel. It was the basis for Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.

I actually kinda like those Godfather references in the Long Halloween. They're obvious, but fun to discover. I even imagine reading Falcone's lines with Vito's voice.

Cliche to say they don't make comics like they used to, but it's absolutely true. This is one of my favorite Batman comics and finding more than one issue of the story in person has been even more difficult than finding all issues of Year One and the Dark Knight Returns (both of which I have a complete set of)

This has to be my favorite Batman story ever. It's so cinematic in its presentation. Such a great and tragic story with striking art to boot Great video as always!

I love The Long Halloween. My personal theory is that Gilda wasn’t Holiday, she just convinced herself that she was out of grief for Harvey. He was Holiday until he made a deal with Alberto and then Alberto took over.

I wish calendar man had more of an appearance in most of the DC franchise. There is more to him that meets the eye. He has major potential.

i’m just glad that Calendar Man is here.

4:05 Trait-Emphasis, Caricatures 5:04 Villains 8:40 The Fall of Harvey Dent 11:30 The Mysterious Holiday Killer, Alberto Moroni

Y'know this shit good when it heavily inspired the Dark Knight

Heh, I remember trying to convince one of my old English professors at Swansea University to read this story way back when; he was teaching us a course on Crime Fiction - and doing a brilliant job of it as I recall - and I thought that Long Hallowe'en matched up with a lot of the themes of American Crime Fiction in particular that he was discussing...sadly, he could never get past the art, which is a shame, because Tim Sale is still one of my favourites, yes? Anyway, brilliant video all round...and your voice cast in particular did an amazing job to boot, yes?

As a huge film noir fan, I caught 2 references: Gilda and The Big Heat

The Gilda reveal is just her delusion. It's impossible for Gilda to have committed any of the three murders she claimed to have. It's to show how thoroughly broken everything good in Gotham has been.

I love how Richard Moll's take on Two Face from BTAS set the standard for pretty much every animated/voiced portrayal since.

Long Halloween is one of the pinnacle storytelling of the Batman mythos

Special thanks to my guests for taking part in this Halloween voiceover party! Please check out their awesome channels. La'Ron Readus as Batman - ru-vid.com Owen Farrington as J.R.R. Tolkien - ru-vid.com/show-UCt5vXzi4-_puVb6H6AL4Fyw Griffin Schiller as Jeph Loeb - ru-vid.com/show-UCAlhR6RxXQux2LWok1cIL6w Nick Kazden as The Riddler - ru-vid.com/show-UCrIiCib2JW805v9W7k79TXg Josh from Panels to Pixels as The Joker - ru-vid.com/show-UCFZHvUVELqH56dJiMLhD9qg Diego Rivera as Two-Face - ru-vid.com/show-UCVjySc4VhVoHK5RDSzbAxug Scott Niswander as Calendar Man - ru-vid.com/show-UCURz5rKDgt7YibUSageNhEw Captain Midnight as Alberto Falcone - ru-vid.com/show-UCROQqK3_z79JuTetNP3pIXQ Mikayla J. Laird as Gilda Dent - ru-vid.com/show-UCOaRubZEnETg85GTrkjl84Q

As a kid watching the words halloween and batman in the same comic was all I needed to buyed and readed.

“Look at the bats, I freakin love Halloween” -little girl from Vine #RIPVine

Batman vs the Mafia is a match made in Heaven. The best movie genre has notoriously been gangster/crime/noir and matching that with a superhero is awesome. Wish DC would pay more attention to villains like Carmine Falcone, Salvatore Maroni, Black Mask (Roman Sionis, and Penguin (Oswald Cobblepot). Crime bosses and old school gangsters

Best reading order for beginning of career Batman and Gotham's transformation: -Year One -And the Monster Men (optional) -The Mad Monk (optional) -The Man Who Laughs -Dead to Rights -The Long Halloween

A relevant quote from Dame Agatha Christie: "One gets the terrible impression that war solves nothing, that to win a war is every bit as disastrous as to lose one." Oh and please, please, PLEASE do a followup to this with Dark Victory, a direct sequel to this that gets no love.

RIP Tim Sale. A legend who left his mark in comics. 🦇🏆

My favorite Batman Story, from my favorite RU-vidr...

I love this comic, I love this video, and I love everyone involved in it. Thank you for having me, Matt!

On top of the reasons you gave as to why the Gilda twist doesn’t work, it’s a huge stretch, of not impossibility, to accept that she committed the killings on Thanksgiving when she was hospitalized and heavily monitored, as well as leaving her husband to follow the Joker to the Falcone Towers. It just doesn’t work, and Occam’s Razor dictates that Alberto was the sole killer (well, Dent killing Falcone on the second Halloween) and that Gilda has simply gone mad along with her husband and was simply burning evidence he stole from work.

You know, the Long Defeat kinda describes the state of superhero franchises in general: The heroes can never be "finished", there will always be more villains to fight and usually it's the same villains over and over.

If ever there was a Batman story that deserved the HBO 'R' rated adult epic style series... It's The Long Halloween. .... And it would be awesome. One of THE best Batman stories ever put to paper and here Matt gives an excellent breakdown in which any Batfan or Normie can appreciate the scope and depth of this classic story.

Glad you finally covered this! And I like the new closing tune, it's like you're starting a new chapter!

It wasn't a defeat... It was a victory... A DARK VICTORY (Sorry that was awful)

This videos are great. Every time I watch one, I immediately want to read (or re read) the comic. Love your work, man

Best channel on RU-vid. Another epic dissection on a great piece of art

You have no idea how long I wanted you to cover this... Just brilliant. Well done exploration Matt.

The name The long Halloween I thought was a reference to how Gotham looks and feels like it is always in a long Halloween

I love this miniseries as much as any other Batman fan, but its fandom really likes to act like this was the first time a classic Noir detective story with various gangster movie inspirations was being used in a Batman comic. Before The Long Halloween, we had an entire ongoing series in Legends of the Dark Knight, where almost every story was in the style of The Long Halloween, or even more darker and more grounded. Still a great story that inspired a great Batman movie and will likely inspire another great Batman movie.

As deep and interesting a take on this as any out there. Thanks so much for breaking down what you got from this classic master piece of what can be possible with a interesting take, a amazing artist and love for the genre.

This was amazing. Thank you Matt for setting the mood for Halloween 2019 by revisiting this seminal DC graphic novel and its context within the Batman mythos. Happy early Halloween as well.

What a great video, I loved all the RU-vid cameos

I really like your connection of the long defeat to The Long Halloween; it’s a great contextualization that adds to my reading experience. Thanks!

There are very few Batman stories like this. Such a great read.

An awesome video as per usual Matt 😁 like always I continue to both thoroughly & tremendously enjoy the way in which you go through and give a structured & well-balanced analysis of the writing & artists style of storytelling, the characters involved and their respective arcs, underlying morals, symbolism and themes. All of this while taking on the role of an absolutely stupendous narrator.

My first ever comic. Blew my mind. I think I read and reread it over the entire weekend I got it. Tim Sale’s art just fucked me up. It was so confident and stylized. Nothing what I’d seen as the “standard comic house style”. I love this book.

A perfect video synopsis of my favorite comic of all time. Great video.

Thanks for all the hard work making these videos.

You know it's when you watch videos like this when you gain an even deeper appreciation for Nolan's trilogy when you really see just how well he interweaved so many classic stories into just three films

Thank you for talking about one of my all time favorite comics, you are my favorite channel that talks about comics. Great video as always.

Love this comic already and this is one of my favorite video essay breakdowns of comics! You really elevated the book even more in my eyes and was able to articulate the meaning behind the story.

A really great video on my favourite Batman graphic novel! Fantastic work Matt@

No multiple variant covers to pump up sales, just good story telling. I miss those days.

Am I insane for never reading comic books but really liking analysis videos on them?

I've waited for this video for soooo long, Matt. This is one of my most favorite stories in all of literature, flaws and all. I'm super stoked that Matt Reeves is gonna be taking elements of this story to adapt to his film(s?). The wound is still raw from Batfleck leaving the project but I have faith in Reeves and Pattinson. Hopefully you covering this story means we will eventually get a Dark Victory follow up?

Matt, I swear, everything, JUST EVERYTHING in your analysis is a dream come true. I preached about The Long Halloween to many friends about almost evey single one of your points in this video: from the stylistic art highlighting the character traits (such as Batman's cape acting out as if its alive, Mad Hatter's clothes looking giant on him etc), the triple Holiday plot twist and the core of the arc: Gotham's turning point from a mob corrupt city to a mad house. I couldn't find no content producer to make such quality content about these topics until you did right now. Finally a Long Halloween video worth the novel's quality!

This was so well put together 👏👏👏

hey man, i just wanted to say you’ve quickly become my favourite video essayist on youtube since finding this video a couple days ago then going through so many of your videos

Good observation of the color pallets and the caricature-like villain designs. Also, I love the voice acting everyone did here.

It's been a few years since I read this. You made me want to pull it off my shelf and read it again. Thanks.

imagine being a vigilante who took down big gangsters just to create psychopaths and sociopathic some powered villains :)))

You should do Batman: Ego by Darwyn Cooke!

One of the first batman stories I've read. Not entirely sure it holds up under scrutiny but a classic none the less. Excellent video as always, Matt!

Such an awesome video. The Long Halloween -minus the epilogue, perhaps- is a true masterpiece.

Ah yes, one of my favorite comics, analyzed by Matt Draper. This is gonna be a good one.

I just finished The Long Halloween yesterday! What a weird coincidence, and keep up the good work!

I love that you not only talk about the story itself but also it's importance to comics as a whole I mean this has to be top 3 greatest and most influential batman stories ever told

Great video!!! Ready to see the animated adaptation!!! Thanx!!!

Hell yeah! This video blew Up for some reason! You deserve it bro hopefully this will get you some more shine!!

Ah yes, this story is absolutely incredible...and yet, the one thing I remember the most about it is HOW ABSOLUTELY HUGE CATWOMAN IS! Holy shit, Selina Kyle was hitting the gym like an animal back in those days, huh? I have a figure of the long Halloween Catwoman, who has by now tragically lost an arm.

Good stuff as always!

Whether it be Long Halloween, Dark Victory, Superman For All Seasons or the Marvel color series, Loeb and Sale’s stories are among my favorites in comics. Great video.

This was such a fun read. The over exaggerated art style and designs are great. I love it when Gotham is very stylized much like The Dark Knight Returns. Although Year One is a masterpiece in my eyes Long Halloween is an intriguing mystery that will age beautifully. Phenomenal video. I'll be sure to check out more.

Great comic and great video, as always :)

This and your BOTW video contain my two favorite concluding paragraphs of any of your videos

Terrific analysis, another great video Matt!

holy shit the intro was so tense it gave me Goose bumps damn it Matt take it easy. anyway time to read the long Halloween again I guess. great video man

This book sparked my lifelong interest in comics and graphic novels when I was 12. Still my favorite Batman story of all time.

So many comic RU-vidrs whose voices I didn't recognize at all

Wow. This is an impressive video, both in its analysis and its presentation. Terrific job!

Fantastic video!

Great video! I love this story and you did a fantastic job with it.

I have to admire the fact that you were able to make MODERN Frank Miller's Batman feel so poetic. If that doesn't make you worthy of a million subs, I don't know what does.

Hello Matt Draper. Your analysis of these great comics helps me appreciate them in ways I hadn’t original thought of. It would bring me so much joy if you covered Invincible

THANK YOU! THIS IS MY FAVORITE BATMAN STORY!

Thx again, Matt!

The Long Halloween is the best Batman storyline. The Long Halloween needs to be turned into a movie.

This is one of my favorite comics and one of my favorite your analysis’s. The reveal of three Holiday’s I think works so well because of its ambiguity. It reminds me of the noir “The Big Sleep,” in it a chauffeur is murdered and no one-author included-bothered to figure out who did it. It’s one of the things that just happens. The reveal at the end here, however, can almost be summarized as “Forget it, It’s Gotham.” It doesn’t matter if the audience finds out, because it’s implied that Calendar Man knew the details the entire time.

Batman has probably the best collection of storylines in all of comics

Also, I really hope you don't mind, but I had a few humble suggestions for future videos below if that's OK: a) Discussions of some classic Pre-Crisis Batman yarns, especially those such as the late Len Wein's 'The Untold Legend of the Batman', Alan Brennert's 'The Autobiography of Bruce Wayne' and 'To Kill a Legend', and especially Steve Englehart and Marshall Rogers' definitive 'Strange Apparitions' run, none of which often seem to get the wider public attention that their sheer quality deserves, yes? b) Exploring how comics have dealt with the legacy of the Wild West over the years, with Marvel's sadly under-rated masterpiece 'Blaze of Glory' by John Ostrander and Leonardo Manco being a good place to start in my view, as it's quite simply one the best Westerns that I know of in any medium, yes? c) A comparison between Dan Slott and Mike Allred's Silver Surfer run and JMS' 'Silver Surfer: Requiem', and how both series deal with issues of love and loss through the beautifully tragic yet also uplifting prism of this lonely cosmic wanderer (also, speaking of lonely cosmic wanderers, would you be interested in doing a Doctor Who-related video at some point, please...?) d) Examining how seminal British comic 'Charley's War' by Pat Mills and Joe Colquhon dealt with the historical horrors of World War One and created an anti-war masterpiece in the process, yes? e) Evaluating the seismic impact of Grant Morrison and Howard Porter's re-vitalisation of the Justice League in the late '90s, with particular focus on how their first 'New World Order' storyline in issues 1-4 of JLA examined the possibilities - and limits - of heroism to reshape the world, yes? f) Kurt Busiek and George Perez's seminal JLA/Avengers series would be a great place to start in discussing both Marvel/DC and other comic-book crossovers in general to boot...oh, and finally, I know that you've mentioned an interest in possibly doing some Transformers-related stuff at some point, but is there any chance that you could cover everyone's favourite Freelance Peace-Keeping Agent, aka Death's Head, at some point in particular; perhaps as an example of a character whose own publishing history embodies our love of said crossovers, seeing as how it combines the worlds of Transformers, Doctor Who and the Marvel Universe (almost) smoothly together, yes? Best wishes, hope this helps, and sorry for taking up so much of your precious time, yes? (PS: For those who don't know the character of Death's Head, checking out scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/8455973.html and/or scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/8455755.html will give you at least some idea of why he is so beloved by myself and many other British comics fans of a certain age, yes...?).

Ahhhh, it's been so long. How refreshing

You just made me love this book and Gotham City and Batman more thank you