History ComicBook / TheLongHalloween

* WhenAreYouComingHomeDad: [[spoiler: Carmine might say he loves his son more than anything in the world, but Alberto reveals this is a more accurate portrayal of their relationship. Carmine is overjoyed to see his son is alive again.... but when Alberto asks, he can't even recall his birthday.]]

** One of the minor hit-men working for Carmine has a VerbalTic of saying everything twice, with the nickname "Two Times." A gangster with the same tic and nickname shows up in ''Film/Goodfellas.''

* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas: Johnny Vitti and his mother, Carla. A gender-reversed version is also present in Sofia and Carmine Falcone.

* {{Flanderization}}: The Riddler, somewhat. Yes, riddles are his thing, but he doesn't speak entirely in them. He can actually hold a normal conversation.

* {{Gayngster}}: Possibly Alberto. Falcone is always advising his effete son to go "chase girls", but Alberto is markedly disinterested in anything but business.

* IronicNurseryTune: Practically all of Scarecrow's lines are nursery rhymes. Also "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday." The Mad Hatter also only talks in lines from ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.''

** Carmine Falcone owes a lot to [[Film/TheGodfather Vito Corleone]] and his family: Alberto is based on Fredo and Sofia is a [[GenderFlip Gender Flipped]] Sonny.

Batman, Commissioner Gordon and Harvey Dent meet on Halloween to discuss an alliance to bring down Falcone. They promise to "bend the law but not break it", but as the stakes grow higher, they begin to distrust each other. Batman suspects that Harvey Dent is Holiday, and Dent becomes convinced that Bruce Wayne is secretly allied with the Falcone family. It doesn't help Bruce's case that Falcone is pressuring Wayne Industries into joining his money-laundering scheme.

The mini-series was extremely popular, in large part because it came out at the time that DC was overtly whoring out the main Batman books with crossover after crossover, meaning that fans were happy to have a compelling and well-written Batman book to read that didn't require them to buy four books and spin-off books to understand. It had a great deal of impact on later Batman books, most notably its exploration of the idea of the crime-fighting alliance between Harvey Dent[[note]]whose pre-Two-Face self had not received much focus prior to this series[[/note]], Batman, and Commissioner Gordon, as well as the subtext of the conflict between traditional organized crime and the up-and-coming supervillains. This was also a major influence on Nolan's ''Batman'' films: ''Film/TheDarkKnight'' copies the alliance between Batman, Gordon, and Dent straight from here, and homages this series in a number of other scenes--even the slogan "I believe in Harvey Dent" came from here.

** ''WebVideo/TheJokerBlogs'' version of Alberto [[spoiler: is this]].

* BittersweetEnding: Organized crime in Gotham is in ruins, but through little effectual effort on the part of the heroes. In the process, Dent's life and reputation were completely destroyed.

* ShrugOfGod: Fans are divided on whether to take the twist ending in the final pages literally, or just write it off as the rantings of a delusional person. Jeph Loeb has refused to say which interpretation is correct, claiming the answer "is in the text".

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Sofia, the moment she sees Harvey Dent, now Two-Face, just having killed Carmine Falcone, goes [[BerserkButton berserk]] and wants to kill him, but Catwoman tries to stop her. During their struggle, Sofia falls slips and falls down from the skyscraper to her death. Catwoman [[TakeMyHand even tried to save her]]. We don't see Sofia's corpse after that, but the result was quite obvious]].

* DisneyVillainDeath: [[spoiler:Sofia, the moment she sees Harvey Dent, now Two-Face, just having killed Carmine Falcone, goes [[BerserkButton berserk]] and wants to kill him, but Catwoman tries to stop her. During their struggle, Sofia falls slips and falls down from the skyscraper to her death. Catwoman [[TakeMyHand even tried to save her. We don't see Sofia's corpse after that, but the result was quite obvious]].

* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: When Batman goes[[IncrediblyLamePun batshit]] when he finally gets his hands on Holiday, breaking both of the killer's arms.

** ''TheJokerBlogs'' version of Alberto [[spoiler: is this]].

* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:Alberto is identified as Holiday and is arrested and convicted for his crimes, but the last few pages seem to imply that Glinda or Harvey could've been the killer all along.]] ''ComicBook/DarkVictory'' does little to dispel the ambiguity--most characters, given what they witness in the story, believe the first option is true, [[spoiler:but several characters wonder about Glinda's sudden vanishment into the ether, and dialogue from Calendar Man interrupted by Two-Face implies that the actual culprit wasn't Alberto]].

* ShoutOut: Many, especially to ''Film/TheGodfather''.

Spawned two sequels, the less critically acclaimed (but still considered excellent) ''DarkVictory,'' and was concluded in ''ComicBook/CatwomanWhenInRome''.

* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:Alberto is identified as Holiday and is arrested and convicted for his crimes, but the last few pages seem to imply that Glinda or Harvey could've been the killer all along.]] ''DarkVictory'' does little to dispel the ambiguity--most characters, given what they witness in the story, believe the first option is true, [[spoiler:but several characters wonder about Glinda's sudden vanishment into the ether, and dialogue from Calendar Man interrupted by Two-Face implies that the actual culprit wasn't Alberto]].

* HeroOfAnotherStory: Catwoman's entire motive is not revealed and is not resolved until DarkVictory.

''The Long Halloween'' is a Franchise/{{Batman}} mini-series that ran from 1996 to 1997, produced by the creative team of JephLoeb and Tim Sale. The mini-series came out of the duo's semi-regular yearly Batman Halloween Specials that they did for DC Comics.