NOTE: if you haven't read The Long Halloween, do not continue reading this post, as it is just one
long spoiler. The Long Halloween is mostly a murder mystery, and what I'm discussing here is its solution. It's also possibly
the best Batman story ever written, and if you haven't read it and
like Batman at all, I heartily enjoin you to go read it now.
One of the best parts of Jeph Loeb's
scenario for The Long Halloween is its open ending, which
leaves it to the reader to weigh the evidence and reach a conclusion.
It leaves you thinking long after the last page about the story's
central event: Harvey Dent's transformation into Two-Face.
Specifically, it asks when Harvey Dent's corruption occurred. Was it
at the moment of his greatest defeat, when a mobster ruined both his
face and his life's work? Or was it earlier, when he began the work
of ridding Gotham City of its gangsters as the serial killer Holiday?
My own belief is that Harvey Dent
didn't become a murderer until he pulled the trigger on Carmine
Falcone. The “two holiday killers” mentioned by Two Face at the
story's end were Alberto Falcone, who publicly confessed to all the
crimes, and Gilda Dent, who confesses to the reader alone that she
committed the first three murders.
But Gilda herself has an alternate
solution. She believes Harvey Dent picked up the killings on New
Years Eve, when she left off.
Evidence
Against Dent Being Holiday
The best evidence against Dent being
Holiday is his own confession at story's end, when he reveals that
there were “two holiday killers.” At that point, the only killer
known to Batman is Alberto Falcone; there doesn't seem to be any
point for Two-Face to make this statement if it isn't true, so I
assume it is, at least from his point of view.
The only killing we witness is that of
Maroni, the final victim, who is gunned down by Alberto Falcone. We
can thus be certain that at some point, Alberto became one of the
holiday killers. We can also be reasonably certain that Gilda
committed the first three murders because she confesses them only
privately, to herself (and us, the readers) – she has no ulterior
motive for lying, and doesn't seem to be irrational or insane. Since
she doesn't confess to any of the later murders, we can also conclude
she did not commit any of them.
Evidence
For Dent Being Holiday
The murders between New Years' Eve and
Labor Day thus have two possible culprits: Falcone, and Dent. Gilda
has two pieces of evidence to support Harvey's involvement: first,
that when he came home on New Year's Day his hair was wet, although
he supposedly came right from his office and was wearing his hat .
Second, on labor day she found a .22 pistol, identical to those used
in the murders right down to its filed-off serial number and taped
handle, in his briefcase.
The first piece of evidence isn't very
weighty; Harvey could have happened to put on his hat sometime after
stepping outside. More importantly, it's not clear that a murder was
even committed on New Years' Eve. The apparent victim of this holiday
was Alberto Falcone himself, who faked his own death to go into
hiding and begin his own killing spree. On the other hand, we are
shown a body which washed up on the shore on January 6th.
The fact that this body is never identified, and we are never told of
anyone missing, leads me to conclude that this is just part of
Alberto's ruse. He has acquired an appropriate body double (probably
with the help of the city coroner), and this is the body which fools
even his own father.
With no murder required on New Year's,
the fact of Harvey's wet hair becomes meaningless. More damning is
the .22 found in his briefcase on Labor Day. He claims, in a brief
and strange exchange with Gilda, that the gun is 'evidence' he's
holding for the trial – clearly, a false explanation. There are two
possible explanations for this. First, it may be that Harvey Dent is
preparing to begin his own holiday killings, using the serial
killer's M. O. to mask his own campaign against the city's mobsters.
I prefer the second explanation, however.
Dent has become aware at this point
that Gilda committed some of the holiday murders; his statement at
story's end that there were “two holiday killers” confirms this.
He puts the .22 in his briefcase because he is prepared to “take
the fall” for Gilda if the murders are connected to the Dent
household.
The
Balance of Evidence
Analysis aside, however, I prefer the
Gilda-Alberto solution to The Long Halloween for emotional, not
logical, reasons. If Harvey Dent was one of the Holiday killers, it
undermines the drama of his transformation into Two-Face. If he was
already killing gangsters at the time, then what's the big deal? The
Long Halloween is about the fall of Harvey Dent, and I refuse to
believe that fall had already happened one-third of the way through
the book.
I admire the Hell out of Jeph Loeb for
crafting such an ambiguous ending, though, and I respect anyone who
reaches different conclusions about it than me. I favor my
interpretation because my favorite part of the story is Dent's
corruption. If your favorite part was how evil intrudes on the
personal lives of good men and women, you might favor the solution
Gilda sets out at the book's end. Or you might have an entirely
different way of putting together the puzzle pieces. What amazes me
so much is that one story can have several different plots, with
different themes and ideas at their core – and that it ends by
letting the reader decide between them.
