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Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale’s Batman Reading Order

Happy Halloween! No team in the Batman mythos is associated with this celebration more than Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale for their The Long Halloween story. Presented as a classic detective story, The Long Halloween is one of the most celebrated and influential Batman tales, featuring Tim Sale’s striking art, a good introduction to the world of Gotham, Batman’s Rogue Gallery, and an origin story for Two-Face.

For Loeb and Sale, it all started with Challengers of the Unknown (1991), their first creative collaboration that would lead to more iconic works. When editor Archie Goodwin asked artist Tim Sale in the early ’90s to work on another Legends of the Dark Knight arc after Blades (with James Robinson), Sale asked if Loeb—who was working in Hollywood at the time—could write it. This resulted in what is now known as The Haunted Knight, a collection of three Halloween-themed stories.

For Loeb, the plan was to stop there—he had another job. However, Archie Goodwin had other ideas. He asked Frank Miller about the gangsters featured in Year One, and Miller said he had no further plans for them, giving Goodwin free rein. As Loeb recalled, “Archie thought we should do something bigger with this group in mind, maybe something longer than the 80 pages of the first Halloween special. Maybe… a year.” (from The Long Halloween Deluxe Edition.)

Loeb began thinking, “Film. Noir. Gangsters. Might be something there… maybe…” That “maybe” gave us The Long Halloween, heavily influenced by his love for The Godfather (both the book and the movie) and Mark Waid’s suggestion to focus on Harvey Dent’s origin.

But The Long Halloween wouldn’t have been as impactful without Tim Sale’s art and those unforgettable covers! It was the first Batman maxi-series, presented in a glossy cover format. The series’ success led to two sequels, Batman: Dark Victory and Catwoman: When in Rome. A third sequel, the 10-issue limited series The Last Halloween, is being released since September 2024!

Both men went on to work separately on other Batman stories—completely unrelated to Halloween! So today, we’re taking a closer look at their contributions to The Dark Knight, exploring how to read them, and highlighting the collections you’ll want to add to your bookshelf!

The Long Halloween Trilogy

“On All Hallows’ Eve, there’s no telling what will haunt the Dark Knight“. While The Long Halloween is often called a trilogy, it actually consists of more than just three stories. As mentioned earlier, Loeb and Sale explored Halloween-themed tales before crafting the main opus and continued to expand on the story with several sequels.

  • Batman: Haunted Knight (1993-1995)
    A Collection of three Halloween-themed stories published in Legends of the Dark Knight. Can be read at any moment.

    • Batman: Choices (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special #1)
    • Batman: Madness (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special #2)
    • Batman: Ghosts (Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special #3)
  • The Long Halloween (1996-1997)
    13-issue limited series set a few months after the events of Year One that explores a complete year in Batman’s career. Ofte
  • Dark Victory (1999-2000)
    a 14-issue limited series serving as a sequel to The Long Halloween and a re-telling of the origins of Robin.
  • Catwoman: When in Rome (2004)
    A Six-issue miniseries taking place during the events of Dark Victory, between Valentine’s Day (when Catwoman leaves Gotham) and Thanksgiving. 
  • Batman: The Long Halloween Special #1 (2021)
    One shot acting as an epilogue to The Long Halloween and setting up the last sequel
  • Batman: The Last Halloween (2024-2025)
    A 10-part mystery serving as the final act to the world of The Long Halloween with a different artist on each issue.

Batman New 52 Reading Order Icon

Batman by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale Omnibus

One book to collect almost all of them! this is the Omnibus dedicated to Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s work on Batman. This edition was released in 2018 and reprints all the material they published to that point.

  • Batman by Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale Omnibus
    Collects Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman: Madness–A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman: Ghosts–A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman: The Long Halloween #1-13, Batman: Dark Victory #0-13, Catwoman: When in Rome #1-6 and a short story from Superman/Batman Secret Files & Origins 2003. 

The Long Halloween World in Deluxe Edition

The Deluxe Edition is an oversized hardcover collection, featuring the same dimensions as the Omnibus line but designed for shorter stories. This collection includes every Halloween-themed story by Loeb and Sale:

The Long Halloween in Absolute Batman Edition

Out-of-print and sold at an expensive price second-hand are the Absolute Editions, larger hardcover books than an Omnibus and generally with a slipcover and supplementary materials.

The Long Halloween in classic trade paperback

  • Batman: Haunted Knight
    Collects Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special, Batman: Madness – A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special and Batman: Ghosts – A Legends of the Dark Knight Halloween Special.
  • Batman: The Long Halloween
    This edition includes original 13-issue series as well as four additional story pages cut from the original series
  • Batman: Dark Victory
    Collects Batman: Dark Victory#0-13 and includes two story pages not in the original series and an introduction by The Dark Knight Rises co-writer David S. Goyer
  • Catwoman: When in Rome
    Collecting the 6-part series Catwoman: When in Rome #1-6

The Long Halloween in the Batman Noir Collection

The same story (in hardcover) with the coloring removed to spotlight the artwork of the artist.

Other Batman Stories by Jeph Loeb

Beyond the world of The Long Halloween, Jeph Loeb collaborated with Jim Lee and Darwyn Cooke to create two other celebrated stories:

Other Tim Sale works on Batman

Look no further than Tales of the Batman: Tim Sale to explore Sale’s work on the Dark Knight. This volume collects the earlier Batman stories he illustrated:

  • Batman: Blades (1992) – Written by James Robinson. Originally published in Batman: Legends of the Dark Knight #32-34.
  • The Misfits (1993) – Written by Alan Grant. Originally published in Batman: Shadow of the Bat #7-9
  • Madmen Across the Water (1994) – Written by Alan Grant. Originally published in Showcase ’94 #3-4
  • Night after Night (2002) – Written by Darwyn Cook. Originally published in Batman Black & White vol. 2
  • Date Knight (2004) – Written by Kelley Puckett. Originally published in Solo #1

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If you want to discover more work from Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale, the duo successfully collaborated on other iconic characters as well, creating Superman for All Seasons and their renowned Marvel ‘Color’ series.”

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