The Grace of Gilda, Part 5: Reexamining Gilda Dent in “Batman: The Long Halloween” (Part 1 of 2)

[about_faces]

Note: This is the fifth part of my Gilda Dent retrospective, analyzing the complete history of the oft-overlooked woman who loved and lost Harvey Dent. New installments will be posted weekly! Previous installments can be found at the tag or in the following links: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4.

Special thanks to my Henchgirl, who extensively

Comments

[lego_joker]

"Batman: The Animated Series for grown-ups"

Holy shit, I think you just found the Rosetta's Stone for why people still remember this story so fondly. I usually hear rough equivalents being applied to Hush ("it's a great starter pack for Batman and his villains!"), but TLH has an advantage in the most important area of all: Aesthetic. No need for the story to actually be substantial if all the panels and backgrounds and stuff feel substantial, right?

(In my less charitable moments I'm prone to believing that BTAS itself also survives primarily on style-over-substance, but I'm not in such a moment right now, so let's move on

[about_faces]

The comparison to BTAS is something I've been mulling about for a long time. It may even have been what was going through my thirteen-year-old mind at the time. That show was my main baseline for everything Batman, even though I was reading comics by that point (although not with the kind of access to things I would get even just a few years later, when I started working at a comic shop). By comparison, the Dixon/Moench/Grant era of comics was lacking. TLH felt to me the way I assume "Hush" felt to all those new fans, like an all-star parade of familiar favorites doing their thing. And the fact that it was centered around Harvey (pre-Two-Face and everything!) was icing on the cake