Welcome to Loneliness & Cheeseburgers Presents: Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #12 – “Chapter Twelve: Labor Day”! In the previous installment, it’s the Roman’s birthday and his sister gets shot! LOL!

Meanwhile, instead of testifying, Salvatore Maroni throws antacid in Harvey Dent’s eyes. I wasn’t under the impression that antacid worked like acid, quite the opposite in fact, but hey, I don’t write comic books!

What will Holiday kill today?? My boner???

Batman: The Long Halloween, Issue #12 [November, 1997]
Written by: Jeph Loeb
“Chapter Twelve: Labor Day”

It looks like Harvey Dent is going to have two faces now! Is this really his origin story? Getting splashed with medicine? Half his teeth corroded? Really? From medicine that goes in your mouth? What kind of dumbass bullshit is this? Man, am I angry right now! *throws chairs*

At least I think it’s Harvey Dent. He’s all bandaged up and hanging out in the sewer with Solomon Grundy, born on a Monday. Which, as I’ve pointed out before, doesn’t rhyme.

Batman monologues. Harvey Dent has been missing for almost a month now. I’m learning that Maroni replaced the antacid with acid and he splashed Harvey with acid. I guess that would do the trick, huh?

Harvey snapped. He stabbed the surgeon and ran away from the hospital! In that order. Batman can’t even find him, and he can find everybody. He found Elizabeth Smart and Elian Gonzalez and Al Capone’s corpse.

Solomon Grundy (born on a Monday) slams Harvey Dent’s face into a fetid pool of green sewage sludge, “christening” him as a… sewer monster man? I guess? All that sewage is probably very bad for Dent’s open wounds. Also, gross.

Harvey Dent wonders of Solomon Grundy died and came back. “Can a man live two lives?”

We shall see, young Padawan. Elsewhere, Jim Gordon and Batman are on the rooftop talkin’ ‘bout crimes. “The evidence is incredibly damning,” Gordon says, using foul language that I don’t condone. Harvey Dent’s briefcase contains a .22 caliber handgun and Carmine Falcone’s ledger, giving him access to all of Holiday’s victims. “They’ll say he was obsessed with bringing down The Roman. That was his motive.”

Harvey Dent may be a communist, a fascist, a killer, a snake, a toadie, a stooge, a slut, and Holiday, but he is not a plumber.

Batman looks at Gordon grimly, like he’s about to vomit all over his face.

“How — how long have you known?” Gordon asks the Cowled One.

Batman looks at Gordon grimly, like he’s about to poop all over his glasses.

“HOW LONG?!”

Batman starts talking now. Giving it up. He says he doesn’t think Harvey Dent is Holiday. Could’ve said that eight seconds ago, and now we’ve wasted a ton of time!

“What if you’re too close to the situation?” Gordon asks incredulously. Incredulously! “What if your judgment is impaired? What if you’re wrong?” Gordon narrows his eyes.

“What if I’m not?” Batman replies, out-narrowing Gordon’s narrowed eyes with his own narrowing eyes. Gordon tells Batman to go fucking find Dent then and kiss him on the lips if he loves him so much. He’s got a city to police poorly.

Batman interrupts Carmine Falcone’s cozy, robed evening. He stands at the window menacingly, cape billowing lovely in the breeze. “Where is Dent?”

“How the hell should I know?” Carmine responds. “That maniac killed my sister… my nephew… and my son.” Looks like Carmine wins the eye-narrowing contest. “Do you know what my people call this past year? The Long Halloween.”

Now he’s gone and done it, namedropping a comic book limited series. Nerd!

You speak Italian at me one more time and I’ll gnaw that finger right off to the knuckle, bitch.

Carmine points a finger right at Batman’s face, tells him that this could’ve stopped with the killing of Johnny Viti, but he didn’t do a goddamn thing! Batman grabs his finger and strokes it like a schlong, then throws him backwards. He crashes into lamps and shit. Sofia enters the room with a gun, ready to take out any motherfucker who wants to kill another Falcone on her watch!

…but by the time Carmine looks toward the window, Batman disappeared…

“Harvey hated The Roman and what he was doing to Gotham City,” Batman thinks as he finds Catwoman perched atop a building. The perspective is fucked up, she looks like King Kong. She has a headset, listening in on people having sex in the next building over, most likely.

“Why?” Batman asks.

“Don’t you ever say ‘hello’?”

Cute. Batman cuts to the chase. He wants answers, see. Cough it up, sister. “Why is it every time I confront The Roman, you show up? What connection do you two have?”

Catwoman gets coy, as usual. Batman grips her wrists and squeezes abusively. She likes it. “Maybe it’s because The Roman treats the world like a ball of yarn… and you know how much cats like to unravel a ball of yarn. Maybe it’s because whenever he’s around… you’re around. Maybe, it’s none of your damn business.”

Fair enough, I think. Batman doesn’t need to know EVERYTHING, goddamnit.

At the Dent household, Gilda creeps into the basement looking for her long-lost husband. She thinks she hears sounds, but it’s probably just the enormous roach investation plaguing their home!

Ah, but it’s not her dear hubby. It’s fucking Batman lurking in the shadows like he owns the place. “Where is your husband, Mrs. Dent?” he asks, knowing full well that she doesn’t know a thing. He’s just being a lousy domestic terrorist again. “You know why we have to find him, don’t you? We found a gun.”

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who doesn’t bring a gun home from work now and then? Gilda starts crying and begs Batman to bring her husband home.

Batman has what we all want, sailor.

Batman looks disgruntled that he got nothing, NOTHING, from this wretched little woman. His next stop is Arkham Asylum, where he talks to the Calendar Man. “It’s Labor Day,” he says, smirking. “And he still eludes you, doesn’t she?” Coy, coy, coy.

Does he know where Harvard Thistlewick Dent is these days? You know, the guy that put the Calendar Man in the loony bin in the first place? Mr. Calendar coys around some more as a response, which isn’t at all helpful.

In the Gotham City jail, where Maroni is just kinda hanging out for fun, it is explained to be that the courtroom bailiffs shot Maroni three times after he hurled acid in Dent’s face “but he would not die”, as it were. Gordon pops into the cell and tells him that they’re moving him. Calendar Jones thinks that Maroni will be the next Holiday victim for acid reasons. Gordon reminds Batman that he’s heeding the words of a lunatic in the hopes of catching another. Batman probably told him to shut the entire hell up.

“What’s this all about?” Maroni asks as he’s led to the dark and dreary basement corridors of the jail. “I take three slugs in the courtroom and I’m still here, right? You guys could learn a thing or three about killin’ somebody, ya know?”

Gordon tells Maroni that Dent might be after him, and Maroni’s like “that faggy little twig? I’ll come in his butt. Let me at ‘em.”

Then Maroni gets shot in the head.

And then the unnamed guard escort gets shot in the chest.

Gordon scrambles for his flashlight just in time to get a good glimpse of the killer.

And it’s John Lennon!

Doesn’t have a point of view
Knows not where he’s going
Isn’t he a bit like you and me?
Nowhere man please listen
You don’t know what you’re missing
Nowhere Man, the world is at your command?

Final Thoughts

Who’s this creep? Never mind, don’t care, not interested.