Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #2 – “Chapter Two: Thanksgiving”! In the previous installment, a whole slew of shit happens to set up the story. The fighting crime families, Falcone and Maroni, need to launder their money through the Gotham Bank and the Bank’s newest president, Bruce Wayne, ain’t letting it happen. In fact, Batman and Harvey Dent tracked down the warehouse where Falcone’s dirty money is being stored and they light it on fire! Just sets the whole thing ablaze! Fucking hilarious!

Meanwhile, there’s someone out there killing people. Namely Johnny Viti, the dimwitted Falcone nephew, and his own mother is the prime suspect.

Also, Batman and Catwoman fight and fuck a little bit.

Someone sends Harvey Dent a bomb. It blows up right in his One-Face.

This is gonna be one looooong Halloween, my friends.

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #2 [January, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Two: Thanksgiving”

Thanksgiving turkey with skellingtons! Eek!

Batman is shrouded in darkness. He uses his best Christian Bale-type voice. “HARVEY DENT IS DEAD.”

They got some weasel named Mickey in Jim Gordon’s office. They know he killed the Harvey Dent man, but they’ve got bigger fish to fry, so spill. “We want you to know who hired you to do the job, Mickey,” Jim Gordon says, eyes narrowed. “If you help us – maybe we’ll help you.”

Mickey “The Mink” Sullivan. He runs “The Irish”, a group of ragtag miscreants who like to do Hard Crimes. They’re all holed up in a jail cell right now, jerking each other off.

It’s Thanksgiving, and Gordon whines to Mickey about how he wants to eat turkey instead of talking to his punk-ass. Mickey rats out Carmine Falcone without really ratting him out, you see. Real slick stuff.

Batman throws a nail on the table, one that was used in Mickey’s homemade bomb. Its serial number was traced back to a hardware store two blocks from Mickey’s apartment. And they have the receipt. Mickey looks kind of scared now. “Oh shit” is what he’s thinking. “Someone filled my pants with diarrhea,” he thinks.

Mickey launches into a monologue about Harvey Dent having had it coming. If it wasn’t Mickey, it was going to be someone else anyway. We see a montage of Batman bursting into Mickey’s place and Mickey running away through the sewers. Dumb stuff, since sewers are Batman’s playground. He loves to roll around in the shit, as they say.

But in the sewer is another assailant who keeps talking about “Solomon Grundy born on a Monday”. He punches the kid’s lights out before Batman shows up. “I have no quarrel with you,” he rasps. “I only came for the man who disturbed your privacy.” He looks at the lump on the ground. “That man.”

They fight. This raving dude keeps rhyming about Grundy and Monday. I’m guessing he is Solomon Grundy. I’m guessing he was born on a Monday.

Keep on rhymin’, Queen. YAAAS.

“Mickey talks about how Grundy would have hurt me… if… if I wasn’t forced to hurt him first…”

It looks like Batman breaks his nose, which sends Grundy into a downward sprial of sad rhyming. Batman leaves through a sewer grate and watches Grundy slink back into the darkness.

Back to Mickey’s confession, he still insists that Dent ain’t no saint. I mean, let’s face it. Who killed Johnny Viti, huh? Sounds like a Dent job to me, fam.

Batman just stares within a shadow kinda like in a “good point” kinda way.

“We’re done with you, Mickey. Get out of here.” Jim Gordon thinks about all that turkey he’ll never get to eat. Mickey leaves, and Gordon asks Batman if he thinks there was any weight to what he was saying about Dent. Batman tells him that it sounds like an impossible notion and fuck you for entertaining it, Jim Gordon! I will slap my dick across your face, sir! “We’ve only begun to learn the truth,” Batman adds.

Jonathan Taylor Thomas?

“Why would Mickey confess and not implicate the Roman?” Gordon asks. Because he’s a ‘fraidy cat, that’s why, Mr. Mustache.

Speaking of Carmine Falcone, he’s in his penthouse makin’ a’spaghetti! He tells his smartypants son Alberto that they have a lot to be thankful for, but Carla disagrees! Her son is dead, idiot!

Don’t worry yourself, little lady. Harvey Dent has been murdered and justice has been served on a platter with pasta and a’meatballs! So let’s sit down to a nice Thanksgiving dinner and stuff a cork in it!

“This wasn’t business, Carmine,” Carla continues forcefully. “Johnny was my only son. My baby.” Hey Carla, let’s stop living in the past! You’re being such a Karen about it. WHY DON’T YOU ASK TO SEE CARMINE’S MANAGER? That’ll show him.

In the holding cell, Mickey meets up with his fellow Irish. He asks his team if they know what to do next. They know what to do next. Stickin’ together is what pals do while committing crimes! Everyone has a good laugh. Especially me! HA HA HA HA HA!!

One by one, the men of the Irish get interrogated. Jimmy Slick drove the getaway car. Dapper Kevin delivered the package to Dent’s wife. Willie Two Times followed Dent home. Donny Boy detonated the bomb with a switch. They all swear that’s what really happened! They swears it on they mudder’s graves!

Harvey Dent has more than one face?! You don’t say!

Batman knows that Carmine is paying these guys a pretty mean sum to keep their lies straight and clean and orderly. It’s really fucking shit up for him, honestly. It might take another 10 issues to sort this mess out! Batman has no choice but to bring Mickey “The Mouse” Sullivan back up for more questioning. And boy howdy, this will be a doozy!

They bring fake Mickey back up to wonder if the rest of the Irish suspected anything. And the answer is “absolutely not”. Dent is a master of disguise! Good job, men. That’s another notch for your collective belts.

So, as you can see, the next order of business is projecting that the police cut a deal with the Irish and see how Carmine reacts to that bit of news.

“We can still charge them,” Gordon says. “They confessed to attempted murder. They blew up your house… put Gilda in the hospital for God’s sake.”

“They’ll make bail in an hour,” Dent points out. “Bribe the judge. And we’ll still have nothing.”

“Charge them, Harvey.” Gordon puts on his meanest scowl. “Or I’ll find someone else in the D.A.’s office who will.”

FINE, SIR. ON THE DOUBLE, BOSS. Batman leaves and mentions later that the Irish made bail in less than an hour. “The Dents spent Thanksgiving together and Gotham City Memorial. Gordon went home late.”

Yum, yum. Rat turd turkey.

“As I finished my patrol past the Astoria Towers Hotel, I couldn’t help but wonder with The Roman’s grip getting tighter on the city… will there be anything to be thankful for in the coming year?”

In the hotel, big-eared Real Mickey raises a Thanksgiving toast to The Roman! Here, here! Let’s dig in to some delicious corned beef, cabbage, potatoes, and stew with vinegar and, like, a cake shaped into a shamrock.

A man with a silenced pistol enters the hotel room…

Everyone is shocked… SHOCKED… to see who it is…

PING PANG BOOM BANG POW WOW HONK HONK. Everyone goes down.

No more Irish.

Final Thoughts

Bam. Short, sweet, and to the point! It’s a good thing I wasn’t heavily invested in Mickey “The Rock” Sullivan as a character, tragically gunned down too soon by Harvey Dent… uh, I mean… Wednesday Addams. Yeah.