DC's Batman: The Long Halloween gets a new sequel that doubles as tribute to the late Tim Sale

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Holiday isn’t done with Gotham City just yet. Newly announced at MCM London, Jeph Loeb is returning to Batman to complete the storyline he co-created with the late Tim Sale — and, in the process, joining with some of the finest comic book artists in the industry to craft the ultimate tribute to Sale’s life and career, as well.

Loeb is writing the 10-issue Batman The Long Halloween: The Last Halloween, an all-new miniseries completing a story he and Sale had planned to collaborate on before the latter’s untimely death in 2022; he’ll be joined by an all-star collection of artists on the project, with each contributing one issue of the series before handing over to the next. The first issue will be illustrated by Eduardo Risso, with future artists including Klaus Janson, Mark Chiarello, and others to be named in the months ahead.

The Original Halloween

The original Batman The Long Halloween storyline was a 13-issue miniseries from 1996 by Loeb and Sale, in which the Dark Knight tracked down the identity of a killer known as Holiday, with the path to Holiday’s identity leading him into conflict with a number of his regular rogues gallery, including the Joker, the Riddler, and Poison Ivy. A critical and commercial hit, the series had two direct comic book sequels — Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome — and inspired both Christopher Nolan and Matt Reeves’ takes on their respective live-action Batman movies.

The series was also adapted into a two-part animated movie in 2021, which prompted Loeb and Sale to create Batman: The Long Halloween Special, a one-off release that shed new light on the original story and set up a sequel that the two planned to create.

The Last Halloween

“Tim and I had already decided to tell this last chapter following Batman: The Long Halloween Special, which will serve as the prologue to this 10-part action-packed mystery,” Loeb explained in a statement about the new series, which he described as Sale’s “parting gift to me.” He continued, “Tim’s unfortunate passing put our plans for this series on hold,” Loeb continued. “About a year later, after speaking with [editor] Mark Chiarello and [letterer] Richard Starkings, my partners on the previous Long Halloween titles, we decided the time was right to move this forward as a tribute to Tim, who continues to be with us in spirit.”

The new series will launch September 25, with Loeb promising that the series “concludes the war between the freaks and the crime families forever, as Batman, Robin, and DC’s most infamous Bat-villains face off against Holiday, and secrets dating back to Batman The Long Halloween Special will be revealed.”

Here is the schedule and artists for Batman: The Last Halloween:

• Batman: The Last Halloween #0 drawn by Tim Sale, on sale September 17
• Batman: The Last Halloween #1 drawn by Eduardo Risso, on sale September 24
• Batman: The Last Halloween #2 drawn by Klaus Janson, on sale October 29
• Batman: The Last Halloween #3 drawn by Mark Chiarello, on sale October 29

Take a look at the covers for the first three issues for the series — including a Tim Sale Batman portrait on the cover of #1 — in the gallery below.

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Attribution

He is vengeance, he is the night, he is... one of Popverse's favorite subjects. Learn how to do a Dark Knight movie marathon right with our Batman movie guide, and for the true World's Greatest Detectives out there, dive deep into the heart of Gotham City by getting to know Batman with Popverse.