Warning! Spoilers ahead for Batman: The Long Halloween Special #1
While it's been 25 years since the release of Batman: The Long Halloween, creators Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale have one final twist to reveal with a special sequel issue. In it, Batman and Commissioner Gordon are concerned that the iconic Holiday Killer could strike again while also facing the wrath of Julien Day's Calendar Man. Not only that, but it's revealed that Day knows the secret about Harvey Dent and his wife Gilda, one that Batman comes to learn as well.
In Batman: The Long Halloween Special #1, Batman is on the hunt for an erratic Calendar Man, as Julien Day is terrified he'll be forgotten thanks to the actions of the Holiday Killer. Having grown bitter and jealous that Holiday stole his gimmick by killing exclusively on holidays, Calendar Man decides to kidnap Two-Face's wife, Gilda, holding her hostage until Dent joins his crew. While the Dark Knight agreed to aid Two-Face when he asked him to help save his wife, Batman's smart enough to know that the Calendar Man took Gilda for a bigger reason. Regardless, the Caped Crusader chooses to trust Two-Face, leading to Batman and the former DA joining forces once more.
Furthermore, the issue reveals that Day knows all about Gilda's secret role as one of the Holiday Killers, and he asks her why she had to steal his thing: "The Riddler has his idiotic riddles. Catwoman has her stupid cats. The Joker has his...anyway...The Calendar Man. The Calendar Man. Why did it have to be holidays?" While it seemed as though Day was going to kill Gilda right then and there with a .22 fitted with a makeshift suppressor made from a baby bottle nipple (Holiday's weapon of choice), Batman arrived posing as Two-Face, joining Day on a heist at the Gotham Musem before revealing himself as the Dark Knight to take Day down. Meanwhile, the real Two-Face and Solomon Grundy were able to save Gilda, though the Dents vanished rather than Two-Face turning himself in as agreed. So it seems as though Batman now knows the secret about Gilda Dent and her role in the original Long Halloween.
The Long Halloween serves to be one of the Dark Knight's most dynamic stories, showing Gotham's transition from being a corrupt city run by organized crime to being one full of crazed supervillains, and this new sequel fleshes out its ending rather well. Not only does it confirm Calendar Man's true feelings about the Holiday Killer, but it also shows exactly what Gilda meant at the end of the original story when she said she still believed in Harvey Dent, choosing to be with him despite his instability as Two-Face. Topping things off, Batman now knows Gilda was one of the Holiday Killers.
Batman: The Long Halloween Special #1 is an interesting look back at the iconic Batman story on its 25th anniversary, showing the aftermath in some pretty intriguing ways. By offering one last twist with the Calendar Man's involvement, Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale provide Batman: The Long Halloween with a stronger and more detailed resolution that fans of the original story won't want to miss.