The Grace of Gilda, Part 5, cont’d: “Batman: The Long Halloween” (Part 2 of 2)
Read Part 1 here! For all previous installments of the complete Gilda retrospective, check out the tag!
For Gilda Dent, New Year’s Eve was the turning point. And for a brief time, things seem to be improving in her marriage to Harvey.
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It went, theoretically, thusly. Harvey was, in fact, planning the Holiday murders all along - or, if not actually the entire series of them, at least a few. He wanted to bump off a few mobsters and clean up the town. But Gilda got there first. She found the gun in his workshop, figured out his basic plan (how, exactly, I don't know), and was like 'I am not going to let my husband risk his career over something like this, but hey, less gangsters = less stress for him/us; not a bad idea', and went out and bumped off bathtub boy.
Perhaps she was going to continue being Holiday - perhaps that was the plan - but that got somewhat disrupted by their house and her getting blown the heck up. She's bedridden/tied to a wheelchair at that point, which aces her out. At this point, I'm ( ... )
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How does it not fit what we're told? I mean, is it ever actually confirmed one way or another that Gilda bumped off the first three? Does she say she did? I was under the impression that she just talked about how it was her idea, and that was more or less it.
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Well, it’s "confirmed" insofar as Gilda says she committed those murders, and she’s given the last word. In the furnace scene, she outright said she killed Johnny Viti, then slipped out of the hospital on Thanksgiving while Harvey slept, and then did the same on Christmas. We don’t actually get a flashback that shows her killing them, which might have helped some of my logistical issues, but she said she did. Given that it’s her confession in the final pages, we’re to accept that as the truth, and have to deal with it either way ( ... )
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It's fascinating to take a look at how the depictions of a character can change throughout the years, especially the lesser known ones. Writers are given more leeway. I mean, people know Batman and how he's supposed to act. (Even so, he's been subject to many changes throughout the years). But who would get upset over the characterisation of Gilda Dent?
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Holy heck, sorry to be a year-and-change late to this! I hadn't noticed this comment at the time, and only saw it when I logged back in to respond to someone else! A very belated and long-overdue thanks for reading and commenting!
But I must say, clearly *I* am the one weirdo loser who gets upset over the characterization of Gilda! But then, I've read and cared about these more obscure stories than the vast majority of comic fans, and I dearly wish more people could read and appreciate her roles in the Finger trilogy, Wolfman's two-parter, and the Secret Origins Special story, as well as the Gilda-types in TAS and especially the comic strips. As such, I appreciate you reading this history of mine, and again, sorry to took me so long to get back to you!
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I haven't logged into LJ in YEARS but this series of posts drew me in enough to risk it. I greatly enjoyed this deep dive on Gilda Dent.
I'm assuming you've abandoned this project but if not, I'd be very interested to read the rest of your thoughts on the character. I had been hoping to see Gilda in Gotham Knights (not the video game but the tv show on the CW, which I'm enjoying quite a lot) ... but unless they've blended her with another minor villainess, it's seeming unlikely.
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Thank you so much for reading it, and having enough interest to actually log back into the old site!
I haven't so much abandoned this project as much as gotten discouraged for a couple reasons. The first is that the next post would have to address her absence over the next decade, even while she gets referred to by name on several occasions, before building up to her return in the awful Tony Daniel run right before the New 52. And after that, we have several stories I am honestly not looking forward to covering, like the Long Halloween animated movie, which itself was something of a bullet-to-the-kneecap for my motivation to continue these. That, and the general lack of interest (which is mitigated by comments like yours, which I deeply appreciate!).
And yeah, I'm four episodes behind on GK but I have been very curious to know if Duela's mom is gonna turn out to be Gilda, which... well, as I'll have to get into, there's been this odd tendency since Daniel to cast Gilda as insane and residing in mental institutions. It's a whole ( ... )
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