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1[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/batman_long_halloween_cover.jpg]]
2 [[caption-width-right:350:"I believe in Jim Gordon. I believe in Harvey Dent. [[Film/TheGodfather I believe in Gotham City]]."]]
3
4->''Who is Holiday?'''
5-->-- '''The Joker'''
6
7''The Long Halloween'' is a ComicBook/{{Batman}} mini-series that ran from 1996 to 1997, produced by the creative team of Creator/JephLoeb and Tim Sale. The mini-series came out of the duo's semi-regular yearly Batman Halloween Specials that they did for Creator/DCComics.
8
9The series, which is a sequel to ''ComicBook/BatmanYearOne'', involves a number of intertwining plotlines. To begin with, a serial killer is targeting members of Gotham's crime families. Due to the killer striking once a month, each time on some holiday, and leaving a holiday-related trinket as a CallingCard, the press quickly dubs them "Holiday" (the title refers to the first murder, which was on Halloween).
10
11For Carmine "The Roman" Falcone, the head of Gotham's largest remaining crime family, Holiday is just the latest in a long series of problems. The Batman has been a thorn in his side and ComicBook/{{Catwoman}} has been robbing him (prompting Falcone to put a bounty on both their heads), District Attorney Harvey Dent is crusading to shut him down, and he's facing competition both from other mobsters and from a new breed of criminals--the costumed supervillains.
12
13Batman, Captain Jim 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.
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15Eventually, the Mob resorts to trying to catch Holiday by hiring supervillains. And HilarityEnsues.
16
17Everything leads up to two events: First, the acid being tossed onto Harvey Dent's pretty little face, leading to his transformation into the villainous [[Characters/BatmanTwoFace Two-Face]]. Second, the downfall of Falcone's criminal empire.
18
19Spawned two sequels: ''ComicBook/BatmanDarkVictory'' and ''ComicBook/CatwomanWhenInRome''.
20
21A [[MovieMultiPack two-part]] AnimatedAdaptation of the story was released in 2021, entitled ''WesternAnimation/BatmanTheLongHalloween''. The same year, DC [[https://ew.com/books/batman-the-long-halloween-new-comic/ also announced]] a follow-up special by Loeb and Sale.
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23The comic would greatly inspire other Batman media going forward, most notably ''Film/TheDarkKnightTrilogy'' and ''Film/TheBatman2022'', both of which loosely adapt some of its plot beats.[[note]]In fact, the director of ''The Batman'' — Creator/MattReeves — studied screenwriting under Jeph Loeb[[/note]]
24
25----
26
27!!This limited series contains examples of:
28
29[[foldercontrol]]
30
31[[folder:A - H]]
32* AbsurdlySpaciousSewer: [[Characters/GreenLantern1941 Solomon Grundy]]'s "hideout".
33* AccentUponTheWrongSyllable: The way the Mad Hatter's [[PaintingTheMedium speech bubbles are written]] suggests this.
34-->'''Mad Hatter:''' woUld yOu likE Some moRe teA?
35* AdaptationExpansion: Many aspects of Harvey Dent's character arc, including an early alliance with Batman and his ParentalAbuse, right down to the disguise Batman wears in the fateful courtroom where he got scarred, were taken from ''Batman Annual 14'' about five or six years earlier.
36** This occurs InUniverse with the nursery rhyme "Solomon Grundy." The original poem simply lists the days of the week ("Christened on Tuesday, married on Wednesday," etc.), but when Dent recites it in the sewers, he adds descriptors ("Christened on a stark and stormy Tuesday, married on a gray and grisly Wednesday," and so on).
37* AdaptationalRelationshipChange: In this story, Barbara "Babs" Gordon is Jim's niece, not his daughter.
38* AlcoholHic: The Riddler is pretty drunk when Batman tracks him down and interrogates him in a bar.
39* AmazonianBeauty: Catwoman is drawn as much more muscular than usual, with her abs visible through her catsuit.
40* AmbiguousEnding: [[spoiler:Alberto is identified as Holiday and is arrested and convicted for his crimes, but the last few pages seem to imply that Gilda and/or Harvey could've been Holiday 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 Gilda's sudden vanishment into the ether, and dialogue from Calendar Man interrupted by Two-Face implies that the actual culprit wasn't Alberto. It's pretty certain that Alberto was Maroni's killer, at least]].
41** [[spoiler:''The Long Halloween Special'' dispels at least some of the ambiguity when Calendar Man kidnaps Gilda Dent and visibly starts to lose his cool, ranting about how she "stole" from him and asking why she had to use holidays. It doesn't help that the beginning of the issue shows Gilda escaping from a mental hospital before she returned to Gotham City. This at least seems to confirm she was indeed Holiday, or at least the original Holiday.]]
42* AmbiguouslyHuman: Poison Ivy, unlike the rest of Gotham's costumed villains, has [[GreenThumb actual superpowers]] and looks almost like an evil fairy rather than a human being, given her green lips, completely white skin, and twelve feet of "hair" made of plants.
43* AndIMustScream: A downplayed version appears in "St. Patrick's Day." While Bruce is under Poison Ivy's mind control, he describes himself as a kind of prisoner in his own body: he can see everything he's doing and knows it's wrong, but is powerless to stop himself. It helps that Ivy's spell makes him [[GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul so blissed out]] that he loses the ability to be concerned about everything--including his not being concerned.
44* AprilFoolsPlot: The seventh chapter, in which Holiday commits a fake-out non-killing against The Riddler.
45* ArcWords:
46** "I believe in [Gotham City/Harvey Dent/Batman]."
47** "Do what needs to be done."
48* AssholeVictim: Most of Holiday's victims are mobsters. The only exceptions are a gun store owner Holiday had been buying from, and the coroner [[spoiler:who had pronounced Alberto Falcone dead when he was actually alive, and might have been corrupt]]. Lampshaded by Dent after Johnny Viti is murdered. "[[DoubleTap Two shots to the head]]. If you ask me, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy".
49* BackForTheDead: [[DownplayedTrope Downplayed.]] Most of the mobsters from Year One return with the ultimate purpose of being killed, although it's not a straight example due to them being alive for most of the story.
50* BaldOfEvil: As part of his [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] makeover, the Calendar Man is shown with a completely bald head--well, ''almost'' completely bald. He's tattooed the traditional three-letter abbreviations for the months of the year (Jan, Feb, Mar, etc.) in a circular pattern as a reflection of his date obsession.
51* BedsheetLadder: Well, straw rope ladder if you want to get technical.
52* BerserkButton: Batman largely remains stoic throughout the story, but it's clear that Mother's Day is an incredibly difficult time for him. As such, Jonathan Crane escaping on that day drives him to an UnstoppableRage, which is only compounded when he inhales Crane's fear gas and begins hallucinating his mother's presence. The chapter ends with Bruce Wayne collapsed on top of Martha's grave, sobbing in panic and grief.
53* BewareTheNiceOnes: [[spoiler: The ending implies Gilda Dent was in fact the original Holiday Killer, having started on Halloween in an effort to get rid of Gotham's criminals so Harvey would come home more often and they could have time to start a family. After she spent the entire series wanting nothing more than to have a happy life with her husband. This depends on whether or not Gilda really is responsible or her monologue is her succumbing to grief and lying to herself about ''Harvey'' being the first Holiday.]]
54* BigAnimeEyes: Tim Sale draws Gilda Dent with big, cherubic eyes, to make her look almost saintly compared to everyone else [[spoiler:so her reveal as a possible Holiday killer is even more shocking.]]
55* BigBeautifulWoman: Sofia spends most of the series wearing an overcoat, but in a later issue she visits Sal Maroni in jail and dolls herself up for the occasion in an outfit that shows off her ample bust.
56* TheBigGirl: A villainous example, Sofia Falcone Gigante, the Roman's daughter.
57* BigBadEnsemble: Carmine Falcone is the chief of organized crime in Gotham, and Holiday is murdering key members of his outfit, so Batman, Gordon, and Dent are trying to put a stop to both of their activities.
58* 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. Worse still, this is essentially the beginning of the rise of Batman's more colorful Rogue's Gallery to plague Gotham.
59* BlueAndOrangeMorality: The Joker, as usual, operates in this sphere. He doesn't care about the mob war or the corruption in Gotham--his only concern is that Holiday is getting more attention than him, and he refuses to allow it. As such, he plans to kill thousands of people celebrating New Year's Eve in Gotham Square on the ''offchance'' that Holiday is somewhere in the crowd. Earlier, in the Christmas chapter, he has a gun to the head of both Sal Maroni and Carmine Falcone, but doesn't bother killing them. He only tells them that if they don't find Holiday fast, he'll wipe out the whole city to do it himself--never mind that killing either of the two men would put an end to Holiday's reign.
60* BoringButPractical: Poison Ivy has the ability to completely control anyone with her hypnotic plants, so the Roman hires her to...force Bruce Wayne to allow Falcone Imports to do business with--or, more accurately, launder its money in--the Gotham City Bank. It's not the most creative use of her powers, but it solves a major problem for him and has lasting effects on both Wayne and Gotham in general.
61* BottomlessMagazines: Did you know that, when one is firing a .22 in such a way as to leave a bullet outline around the Riddler, you can fire about fifty or sixty bullets without giving the Riddler a chance to run away?
62* BrawnHilda: Sofia Falcone is a very large and a very strong woman, capable of squeezing the Riddler's head hard enough to make him start bleeding.
63* BulletProofVest: Batman employs one at one point, though not as part of his standard attire.
64* ButtMonkey: The Riddler, which carries over to ''Dark Victory'' and ''Catwoman in Rome'' as well.
65* ByTheBookCop: Gordon will tolerate Bats and Harvey bending the laws, but not breaking them.
66* CallingCard: Holiday leaves one at the site of each of the killings. A jack-o-lantern for Halloween, a cornucopia for Thanksgiving, etc.
67* CallForward: The story drops a few hints towards Harvey Dent's eventual transformation into Two-Face, particularly having the half of his face that gets disfigured being hidden in shadow in several panels.
68* CluelessMystery: One of the criticisms levelled against the story is that it seems like a FairPlayMystery at first, but isn't.
69* CompositeCharacter: Alberto Falcone, in keeping with the ''The Godfather'' theme, is a mix of Michael (the studious son of TheDon who is expected to do great things outside of crime) and Fredo (the somewhat effeminate son who is being kept away from the gang’s day-to-day management and sees it as a sign of disrespect.)
70* TheConsigliere: Milos Grappa, Falcone's bodyguard, apparently doubles as his consigliere and advisor.
71* ConsultingAConvictedKiller: Batman repeatedly consults with Julian Gregory Day, aka Calendar Man, for insight as to who Holiday might be, considering that they're both date-obsessed serial murderers. For most of the story, Calendar Man implies that he knows Holiday's identity, but deliberately doesn't share the information, instead taunting Batman with cryptic clues and offering to share it if the Dark Knight will get him released. Calendar Man finally becomes more helpful in the book's penultimate chapter, "Labor Day," when he points out that since it's a federal holiday, there's bound to be a murder.
72* ContrivedCoincidence: The story's issues take place on major holidays in every month of the year, but August doesn't have a major holiday...so what are the odds that the Roman's birthday just so happens to be in August?
73* DatingCatwoman: Bruce Wayne and Selina Kyle have a romantic relationship, but at this point in Batman's career, neither know about the other's secret identity; their Batman and Catwoman personas have a bit of BelligerentSexualTension.
74* DeliberatelyMonochrome: Whenever Holiday is on the prowl.
75* 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 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]]. [[spoiler:Subverted in ''Dark Victory'' when she turns up still alive but paraplegic.]]
76* EndOfAnAge: In many ways, the story chronicles the transformation of Gotham City from a town controlled by traditional criminals like the Mafia into a city overrun by the "freaks" that make up Batman's rogue's galley. The weakening of the Falcone empire due to Holiday allows characters like Two-Face, the Joker, Scarecrow and others to fill the power vacuum.
77* EurekaMoment: When the newly-birthed Two-Face realizes that his wife Gilda [[spoiler: is the Holiday Killer, or at least ''one'' of them]].
78* EvenBadMenLoveTheirMamas:
79** Johnny Viti and his mother, Carla.
80** A gender-reversed version is also present in Sofia and her father Carmine Falcone.
81** Inverted with Carmine and Alberto. Carmine is a very, very bad man, who dearly loves his innocent son Alberto. [[spoiler: Then averted when it turns out Alberto might be far worse a monster than his father, who he's not very fond of.]]
82** Horrifically [[SubvertedTrope subverted]] with Jonathan Crane, aka the Scarecrow, who killed his own mother on Mother's Day itself. For what it's worth, she was [[AbusiveParents abusive]] toward him.
83* EvenEvilHasLovedOnes:
84** Carla Viti truly loved her son Johnny, and his death further strains the already fragile relationship between her and Carmine.
85** Sal Maroni is on good terms with his father, who becomes a victim.
86* EvenEvilHasStandards: Carmine Falcone is a ruthless criminal happy to kill law enforcement and innocents. He's also a deeply principled man who has a love for his family and a good sense of pragmatism. When confronted with the future of Gotham's criminals, the costumed rogues gallery, he admits that he'd rather see Gotham burn down before letting them rule.
87* EvilMatriarch: Carla Viti, Falcone's sister and Mob Boss.
88* EvilPowerVacuum: The comic heavily implies that Batman's deconstruction and elimination of "normal" organized crime like mob-bosses and the rise of the insane, colorful, and unpredictable super-villains isn't a coincidence. As Falcone's control over the city weakens, freaks like Scarecrow and Joker become more and more common.
89* {{Expy}}:
90** Carmine Falcone owes a lot to [[Film/TheGodfather Vito Corleone]] and his family: Alberto is based on Fredo with shades of Michael and Sofia is a [[GenderFlip Gender Flipped]] Sonny.
91** Loeb's portrayal and use of Calendar Man is [[Film/TheSilenceOfTheLambs Hannibal Lecter]] without the [[ImAHumanitarian cannibalism]].
92* FaceHeelTurn: One of the main subplots is Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face.
93* FadeAroundTheEyes: Features a sequence like this when crime boss Carmine Falcone sends his goons out after Batman and Catwoman. In one panel, the room is lit up. In the next, Falcone's face is half-shadowed. In the last, everything is black except for one of his eyes, and his scars.
94* FallenHero: DA Harvey Dent becomes the villainous Two-Face.
95* FalseConfession: The Sullivan Gang admit to blowing up Dent's house. They'll even put it in writing for ya'. Subverted in the fact that they really did blow up his house but they're clearly covering for their employer, the Roman.
96* FakingTheDead: [[spoiler: Alberto, supposedly killed right before midnight on New Year's Eve, actually staged his own death, then took up the mantle of the Holiday Killer for at least one other murder.]]
97* FemmeFatale: Catwoman, naturally.
98* FilmNoir: Dark art and tone, presence of the Mafia, and a murder mystery plot give the book this feel.
99* {{Flanderization}}: The Riddler, as usual for a Jeph Loeb book. Yes, riddles are his thing, but he doesn't speak entirely in them, he can actually hold a normal conversation. And while he's hardly liable to get in a fight, he's not usually portrayed as quite so feeble as when Loeb writes him. Likewise, Mad Hatter usually can say things other than lines from ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.''
100* {{Foreshadowing}}:
101** The first thing we see Dent do is talk to himself in the third person, foreshadowing his split personality when he becomes Two-Face.
102** [[spoiler:When Calendar Man is first consulted about Holiday he speaks about of them as a "she" before alternating between gender pronouns. Holiday turns out to not only be multiple people, but the first of them was a woman.]]
103* FourEyesZeroSoul: [[spoiler: Alberto is the Holiday Killer and he wears glasses. They are used to highlight his cold and sinister nature, especially after the reveal.]]
104** There's also [[spoiler: Vernon, Harvey's personal assistant, who proves to be TheMole for the Maroni family. He's consistently drawn with glasses so thick that his eyes can't be seen.]]
105* {{Gayngster}}: Possibly Alberto. Falcone is always advising his effete son to go "chase girls", but Alberto is markedly disinterested in anything but business. It's played as Alberto wanting to be taken seriously by his father but fans (and the creators of ''WebVideo/TheJokerBlogs'') have had their own theories.
106* GettingSmiliesPaintedOnYourSoul: Poison Ivy's mind control, as demonstrated on Bruce Wayne, makes her victims so blissfully content and peaceful that they agree with everything she says.
107* TheGhost: A chart of the organized crime families reveal that Johnny's sister Lucia and Sofia Falcone have two sons each (one of Sofia's is in jail) but none of them ever appear in person in this arc or any other. Several other characters on this chart -Lucia herself, Falcone lieutenant "Killer" Mirti, Sal Maroni's sons Pino and Umberto, and Eddie Skeevers- don't appear in "The Long Halloween" but [[EarlyBirdCameo do show up in]] "Dark Victory".
108* GoneHorriblyRight: [[spoiler: Gilda became Holiday and started killing mafiosos in a desperate effort to end the Mob's rule over Gotham and thus allow Harvey the freedom to start a family with her. The Holiday murders do take down the Falcone and Maroni families...but they also lead to the rise of Gotham's supervillain era and corrupt Harvey Dent into Two-Face, destroying the Dent marriage forever.]]
109* GoodCopBadCop: Gordon and Batman take on the respective roles when interrogating Mickey Sullivan.
110* HandCannon:
111** The Joker threatens Maroni with one in the Christmas chapter.
112** Mad Hatter is also seen one with in the climax.
113** [[SubvertedTrope Subverted]] by Holiday's .22. The .22 is the peashooter of rounds, but in very capable hands it brought a city to its knees. To quote Clapton, "It's in the way you use it".
114* HeroOfAnotherStory: Catwoman's entire motive is not revealed and is not resolved until ''ComicBook/DarkVictory''.
115* HitThemInThePocketbook: In the first chapter, Catwoman learns that Carmine Falcone has been forced to literally stockpile millions of dollars in cash in a warehouse on Gotham's docks because of Bruce Wayne preventing Gotham City Bank from laundering it. She tells Batman about the stash, and he and Harvey Dent team up to burn the entire fortune to the ground, which genuinely enrages Falcone and leads to his vendetta against Dent (including blowing up his home, putting Gilda in the hospital).
116* HolidayMotif: Batman tries to discover the culprit behind a series of murders of Gotham mafia bosses that just happen to die on national holidays (e.g., Christmas, New Year, Labor Day, Father's Day, Valentines Day). The true villain depends on the media.
117* HollywoodSilencer: A baby's bottle nipple serves as a one-shot silencer for a .22 pistol.
118* HorrorDoesntSettleForSimpleTuesday: Holiday strikes on Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year's Eve, Valentine's Day, St. Patrick's Day, Mother's Day, Father's Day, Independence Day, a birthday, Labor Day, then Halloween again, notably ''not'' killing the Riddler (deliberately) on April Fool's Day.
119* HowTheCharacterStoleChristmas: The Joker pulls this act and even quotes from ''Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas'' as he steals a tree and presents from a family, and again later when he shows up in Harvey's home to threaten him.
120[[/folder]]
121
122[[folder:I - N]]
123* IdiosyncraticEpisodeNaming: Each issue corresponds with a month, and is named for a holiday that falls in that month. The only exceptions are the first and last (each correspond with October, with the Holiday killings each falling on Halloween) which are named "Crime" and "Punishment".
124** August is also a slight aversion: the "holiday" is the Roman's birthday, and the chapter is appropriately titled "Roman Holiday".
125* TheIrishMob: There's a small-time operation known as "The Irish", led by Mickey "The Mink" Sullivan.
126* IronicEcho:
127** "I believe in Harvey Dent".
128** "Two shots to the head. If you ask me, it couldn't have happened to a nicer guy."
129** "[[IDidWhatIHadToDo I did what needed to be done]]."
130** "Working late again, [[EtTuBrute Vernon]]?"
131* IronicNurseryTune:
132** Practically all of Scarecrow's lines are nursery rhymes.
133** Also "Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday."
134** The Mad Hatter also only talks in lines from ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland''.
135** And, of course, Joker quotes ''How the Grinch Stole Christmas'' as he invades Harvey Dent's new house.
136* {{Irony}}: Near the end of the story, [[spoiler:Alberto]] tells Carmine (and the audience) that the mob, and gangsters in general, aren't going to play much of a role in Gotham City anymore. He implies that it's time for the aslyum patients to take over and that the city is done with Carmine. [[spoiler:Unfortunately for Alberto, while he is clearly unhinged, he isn't insane enough to be sent to Arkham. Instead, after confessing to all of the crimes, he is sentenced to death. It seems the city was also done with Alberto as well, not that he cared.]] He refuses Carmine's offer to get him out of jail.
137* ItsAllAboutMe: The Joker doesn't care who Holiday is or anything about the Falcone-Maroni war--he's just angry that someone else is getting all of the public's attention. As such, the Clown Prince of Crime decides to use deadly gas on as many people as possible on New Year's Eve on the offchance that Holiday is in the crowd.
138* ItsAllMyFault: "Mother's Day' reveals that Bruce blames himself for his parents' death. Specifically, he was the one who asked Martha Wayne to wear her pearl necklace to the movies, even though she said the jewels were just for special occasions ("Couldn't we make it special, Mother?"). The fatal mugging began ([[DeathByOriginStory as always]]) with Joe Chill demanding the pearls.
139* KarmaHoudini: [[spoiler:Gilda]], if one believes [[spoiler:her MotiveRant at the end of the story that she committed the Holiday killings initially and covered it up after Alberto continued the murders and took credit for the previous killings]].
140* KnifeOutline: The Riddler gets surrounded by a bullet outline on April Fool's.
141* LoveMakesYouEvil: [[spoiler:Gilda Dent, if her internal monologue is to be believed]].
142* MadnessMantra: Solomon Grundy repeatedly says both his own name and "Born on a Monday".
143** In "Mother's Day," a fear toxin-afflicted Bruce Wayne repeatedly says "He wanted the pearls. He wanted the pearls..." as he hallucinates Joe Chill killing his parents again.
144* TheMafia: Falcone's outfit is a part of it.
145* MakeAnExampleOfThem: Batman theorizes that this is why Holiday let Edward Nygma, the Riddler, live on April Fool's Day. Falcone hired Nygma to determine Holiday's true identity, showing that he was genuinely worried about the serial killer and at a loss as to who it might be. Riddler's surviving allowed him to share that information with others, which made it clear to everyone that Falcone's grip on the city was slipping.
146* MobWar: Holiday's killings place the Falcone and Maroni crime families at each other's throats. In Harvey's words: "They all want to do our job for us".
147* MoneyToBurn: Batman and Harvey Dent decide to attack Carmine Falcone's operations by burning an enormous stockpile of his money.
148* MonsterClown: Joker, as always, is a psychotic killer who looks like a clown.
149* MoreTeethThanTheOsmondFamily: Joker when drawn by Tim Sale looks like his jaw is bigger than the rest of his head.
150* MythologyGag: Dent's dialogue is littered with references to the number two.
151* NoHoldsBarredBeatdown: Batman goes [[IncrediblyLamePun batshit]] when he finally gets his hands on Holiday, breaking both of the killer's arms.
152* NoLongerWithUs: No, the AlmostDeadGuy meant Dent escaped the operating chamber, not that he died.
153* NoodleIncident: The last time anyone sees Poison Ivy at the end of the St. Patrick's Day chapter she's receiving payment from Falcone and is never seen again until the final one, where she's being broken out of Arkham. Presumably Batman caught her and sent her there sometime in between, though how he did so is left to any reader's guess.
154* NotSoHarmless: [[spoiler:Regardless of your thoughts on who Holiday really was, effeminate weakling Alberto manages to sneak into Gotham County Jail and murder Sal Maroni in cold blood. He would have got Gordon too if not for a disguised Batman.]]
155[[/folder]]
156
157[[folder:O - Z]]
158* AnOfferYouCantRefuse:
159** Maroni offers to testify against Falcone, an offer that Harvey, being District Attorney and all, jumps at.
160** Falcone uses strongarm tactics to get the bank's board members on his side. His bodyguard Milos even offers to "convince" Bruce Wayne, but Falcone employs a much more subtle tactic against Gotham's favorite son.
161* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Holiday's pistols come from a weapon maker in Gotham's Chinatown district who goes by the moniker "The Gunsmith"; no one knows his real name, and he's killed on Mother's Day before Sofia Falcone can get him to talk.
162* OrgyOfEvidence: The Holiday serial killer leaves behind a holiday-themed item at each killing, making it look like there's a pattern. [[spoiler:It turns out that Gilda, the original Holiday, knew to plant such evidence to trick the police.]]
163* PetTheDog: Batman giving Solomon Grundy (this is BEFORE Grundy became a super-villain again) a Thanksgiving dinner.
164* PlantPerson: Poison Ivy, who up until this point in the comics was usually depicted as a human being with a plant motif, receives a redesign that pushes her into this territory. Her skin is chalk-white, her lips and eyes are green, and--most tellingly of all--her "hair" is now a gigantic, moving set of vines, leaves, and flowers. It's wider and bigger than her ''entire body'' (one panel shows that a single vine is able to reach across an entire ten-foot dinner table), and she even seems to control it independently.
165* PlotArmor: Though Holiday shows up on April Fool's Day to attack Riddler, they leave him alive as a twisted "prank." Unlike all the other victims, Riddler is a major member of Batman's RoguesGallery--there was no way he was going to die.
166* PragmaticVillainy: [[ZigzaggedTrope Zigzagged]] with Carmine Falcone. He has nothing but contempt and distrust for the "freaks" like Poison Ivy, Scarecrow, and Joker that are becoming more prevalent in Gotham. However, he also sees that they can do things that his organization can't, and so hires them to help him further his own agenda. It's particularly apparent with Ivy: Carmine pays her to use her mind control power on Bruce Wayne to get him to allow Gotham City Bank to do business with (read: launder money from) Falcone Imports.
167* PrehensileHair: As noted above, Poison Ivy seems to be able to control the vines and plants growing out of her head like a separate limb. Several panels depict the vines reaching out toward other people.
168* ProperlyParanoid: [[spoiler: Carla Viti died in August when she broke into the coroner's office to look at the files on the Holiday killings, with the obvious implication she suspected something was wrong about Alberto's supposed death. She was right and got killed for it.]]
169* PsychoForHire: As Holiday's activities wear down Falcone's organization, he's driven to working with Poison Ivy, Riddler, Scarecrow and Mad Hatter, against his better judgment. [[spoiler:He really should have listened to that better judgment; in the last issue Two-Face leads them all in a raid on Falcon's penthouse that ends with the gangster's death]].
170* PyrrhicVictory: Organized crime has been almost completely neutralized, only to be replaced by the arguably worse supervillain element--and Gotham's DA now among the supervillains.
171* RatsInABox: The interrogation of the Irish Gang.
172* RememberTheNewGuy: When the supervillains of the story gather in Falcone's office in the final chapter, the Penguin--who hasn't appeared in the plot at all--is part of the group, although he doesn't get any lines. Penguin would get more attention in ''Dark Victory'', so presumably this was an EarlyBirdCameo ([[IncrediblyLamePun tee hee]]).
173* TheResenter: Harvey is shown through the story to resent Bruce's lot in life, thinking Bruce doesn't care about other people and unaware that he's Batman.
174* TheReveal: [[spoiler:A couple different ones that make for an AmbiguousEnding. Initially it's revealed that Alberto Falcone, previously believed to be another victim of Holiday, is actually Holiday himself, and he claims responsibility for all of the murders. However, when Dent is arrested he says that there were two Holidays, and while Batman assumes this refers to Dent killing Falcone on Halloween, Dent's wife Gilda claims in the final pages that ''she'' started the Holiday killings, but that she suspects Dent might have been responsible for some of them, particularly the "killing" of Alberto. Ultimately, which killings were done by which individuals is [[TheUnreveal completely up in the air.]] The only exception is the final "official" Holiday killing of Maroni, which was without a doubt committed by Alberto.]]
175* RewardedAsATraitorDeserves: Two-Face brutally kills Vernon, who was planted in his office by the Maroni family, for betraying his trust.
176* ARiddleWrappedInAMysteryInsideAnEnigma: When Falcone brings in the Riddler in the hopes his perspective can shed some light on the mystery:
177-->'''The Riddler:''' It's a mystery. Broken into a jigsaw puzzle. Wrapped in a conundrum. Hidden in a Chinese box. ''A riddle''.
178* RoguesGalleryShowcase: Many of Batman's famous villains manage to work their way into the plot in some form or another. Specifically: The Joker, Catwoman, Calendar Man, the Riddler, Solomon Grundy, Poison Ivy, the Mad Hatter, the Scarecrow, the Penguin and, of course, Two-Face.
179* RoomFullOfCrazy: Calendar Man's cell is covered with calendar pages and news clippings of Holiday's crimes.
180* RunTheGauntlet: Much like Jeph Loeb's other Bat-books, this one practically parades all of Batman's major rogues. [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools God bless him for it.]]
181%%* ScaryShinyGlasses: Alberto.
182* ScrewTheRulesIHaveMoney: Harvey Dent rants that this is why no one can touch Falcone: he's successfully bought off police officers, judges, and politicians, so he never faces consequences for his actions. We see this in action in the Thanksgiving chapter: the Irish Gang openly confesses to attempted murder by trying to blow up the Dent home, but they make bail in less than an hour.
183* SelfMadeOrphan: Jonathan Crane (the future Scarecrow) killed his mom. [[{{Irony}} On Mother's Day.]]
184* SerialKiller: Holiday, who kills on a holiday every month, leaving behind their gun and a small symbol of the holiday in question.
185* ShoutOut:
186** Many, especially to ''Film/TheGodfather'' - most notably, the first words in both are "I believe in..."
187** The Joker breaks into a family's house on Christmas and steals their presents, while quoting lines from ''Literature/HowTheGrinchStoleChristmas''.
188** 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}}.''
189** The title, and part of the plot, are a reference to ''Film/TheLongGoodFriday'', which also centres around traditional criminals (TheMafia here, a LondonGangster in the film) being pushed out by a new breed of criminal (super villains here, [[spoiler:[[WesternTerrorists the IRA]] in the film]]).
190** Calendar Man's depiction is basically one long nod to Franchise/HannibalLecter, especially as played by Anthony Hopkins.
191* SmugSnake: Calendar Man. He ''really'' has fun jerking Batman around.
192* {{Spinoff}}: As noted in the introduction, ''The Long Halloween'' came about in part due to Loeb and Sale's work on the Batman Halloween Specials from 1993-1995.
193* SpoilerCover: Downplayed. Two-Face is featured on the cover of the book, although Harvey Dent becoming Two-Face is a twist that doesn't happen until late in the story. However, people who are familiar with the Batman franchise should already know it's coming, considering that the character had been around for over 50 years at the comic's release.
194* StartOfDarkness: Story serves as one for Harvey Dent, whose devotion to take down The Roman slowly transforms him into Two-Face.
195* TheSmurfettePrinciple: [[spoiler: Carla Viti]] is the only deliberately-killed female victim of Holiday's murder spree (some of the patrons of the bombed restaurant on Valentine's Day were women, but they weren't Holiday's intended targets).
196* SuperheroParadox: {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d. Gordon points out that the number of inmates at Arkham Asylum has doubled since Batman started operating, and wonders if there's a connection.
197* TalkingTheMonsterToDeath: Dent calms down Solomon Grundy from a murderous rage by continuing the nursery rhyme the brute is named after and that he constantly repeats.
198* TheseGlovesAreMadeForKillin: This trope occurs whenever the Holiday Killer strikes as they murder their victims while wearing gloves of the dark leather variety with MenacingHandShot in DeliberatelyMonochrome colors.
199* TitleDrop: Falcone angrily tells Batman that the mob have been calling the Holiday incident the "Long Halloween"--a night of macabre horror that started last Halloween, with no end in sight.
200* TookALevelInBadass: The Calendar Man. This is ''the'' story that gave this guy ''any'' credibility towards his status as a villain. Unfortunately, this was rarely followed up on again until ''VideoGame/BatmanArkhamCity''.
201* TwoGirlsToATeam: Both groups of villains--the Mob and the "costume freaks"--have two prominent female characters each. For the Mob, it's Carla Viti (Johnny Viti's mother and a mob boss in her own right) and Sofia Falcone Gigante (the Roman's daughter and favorite child who loves him unconditionally); for the supervillains, it's Catwoman (who, while not entirely evil, is still a thief) and Poison Ivy (who's hired by the Roman to hypnotize Bruce Wayne).
202* TheUnreveal:
203** Batman tries to figure out why Catwoman keeps showing up whenever he goes after Falcone, but it's never explained [[spoiler: until ''ComicBook/DarkVictory'']].
204** [[spoiler:Just ''who'' the Holiday Killer really was. Alberto takes credit and he without a doubt committed the last killing (Maroni), but the ending suggests it was ''Gilda'', Harvey's sweet, gentle wife who was Holiday, or at least the original one. And even then, she speculates that her husband committed some of the murders.]]
205* TheVamp: Poison Ivy uses her plants to seduce Bruce Wayne and [[spoiler:gets him to get Gotham City Bank to do dealings with Falcone's business on the latter's behalf]].
206* VerbalTic: Many of the villains do this as if they can ''only'' speak in line with their personal gimmick. Riddler speaks entirely in riddles (which gets downplayed in the sequel), Mad Hatter only speaks in lines from ''Alice's Adventures in Wonderland'', Scarecrow speaks only in nursery rhymes (for... some reason) and Solomon Grundy can only say "Solomon Grundy born on a Monday." Two-Face completing the rest of the poem seems to win Grundy to his cause.
207* WackyWaysideTribe: The Joker's attempt to spread his poison into Gotham Square on New Year's Eve is only tangentially related to the overall plot -- Joker figures Holiday is "probably" in the crowd and is going to kill him for stealing away Joker's spot as most infamous supervillain in Gotham.
208* WasItReallyWorthIt: At the end of the story, in light of of Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face and his subsequent killing of Carmine Falcone, Batman and Jim Gordon have this moment.
209-->'''Batman:''' The promise that we made to bring down the Roman. [[PyrrhicVictory What it cost us.]] [[FaceHeelTurn Harvey...]]\
210'''Gordon:''' If you're asking me "Did the good guys win?" Yes, the good guys won, Batman. But, I won't know if it was worth it for a very long time...
211* WellDoneSonGuy: Alberto just wants to impress his father, but Falcone wants to keep Alberto out of the family business. Sofia too, as seen in "Father's Day".
212* WellIntentionedExtremist: [[spoiler: Gilda began the Holiday killings with the best of intentions--she wanted to start a family with Harvey, but he was too obsessed with his work against the Mob to focus on their marriage. She figured that if the mobsters were dead, Harvey could finally relax, and so took up the guise of Holiday to speed the process along.]]
213* WhatHappenedToTheMouse: Meta example. According to Loeb, this is actually how Editor Archie Goodwin roped him and Tim Sale into what would become ''The Long Halloween''. During breakfast at the San Diego Comic-Con in the mid-1990's, he wondered aloud whatever happened to Carmine Falcone and the other mobsters from ''Year One''. Once they'd confirmed Frank Miller wasn't going to use them again, the rest is history.
214* WhatYouAreInTheDark: Lampshaded by Harvey when he says that it would be very easy to get away with stealing from Carmine Falcone's mountains of untraceable cash he stores in a warehouse, meaning if it were "two other guys" rather than him and Batman...
215* WhenYouComingHomeDad: [[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. Batman’s opinion, for what it’s worth, is that their final argument is being staged for his and the police’s benefit, because Carmine clearly visits Alberto’s grave on his birthday - Valentine’s Day.]]
216* YouAreTooLate: Sofia Gigante Falcone tortures a {{Mook}} on Mother's Day for whatever information he has on Holiday. He eventually blabs that the serial killer's .22 caliber pistols come from a weapon maker in Chinatown known only as "The Gunsmith." She heads there to continue her investigation, only to find that Holiday beat her to the punch and chose the Gunsmith for their Mother's Day murder, leaving behind the CallingCard of a basket of flowers.
217** Holiday pulls a similar trick on St. Patrick's Day. Sofia plans to lead a hit on one of Maroni's safehouses under the assumption that he's the killer, but the real Holiday shows up in the early hours of the morning, when it's ''technically'' St. Patrick's Day, to wipe out every mobster in the building (although Maroni himself survives).
218[[/folder]]
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