As part of my ongoing exploration of graphic novels, I just finished reading “Batman: The Long Halloween”. I can’t say it was the type of book that I had initially pictured myself reading. Traditional superheroes were, in my mind, characters that fans loved too much to let go of but had long lost their innovation. How many times could you watch Superman defeat Lex Luthor before you moved on to other things?
Despite my preconceptions, I was confronted with Batman graphic novels at every turn in my search for reading material. Books such as “The Dark Knight Returns” and “The Killing Joke” kept popping up in lists of highly recommended titles. A little casual research told me that Frank Miller, who later penned 300 and Sin City, revitalized the campy character in the 80’s with a darker, more gothic interpretation. This spark set off a firestorm of creativity, leading to some of the best graphic novels of the era. I instantly felt a mild discomfort in my paradigms, perhaps due to the shifting.
Ostensibly a murder mystery set in Gotham city, The Long Halloween has Batman trying to stop the “Holiday Killer” over a period of one year. It has a real film noir feel, with mafia boss Carmine “The Roman” Falcone a clear homage to the Godfather. Set during the earlier days of Batman’s crime fighting career, it also deals with how the supervillains and freaks wrested power from the more traditional mobsters in Gotham.
The Long Halloween is a real page turner, with any number of equally valid murder suspects to ponder. Like any good murder mystery, the clues were right in front of you all along in retrospect. What I found especially interesting was how little space was allocated to fight scenes. Unlike the Batman films, which feature the mandatory car chases and long fight scenes against endless minions that we’ve come expect from action movies, most of the novel is devoted to dialogue and character exploration. In that sense, The Long Halloween really does have more in common with its film noir influences than it does with “Batman Begins.”
I’ve added some of the Batman graphic novels to my rapidly growing reading list, and have fully dismissed my view that old superheroes couldn’t learn new tricks.
