What Batman comics are between The Long Halloween and Dark Victory?

Question

Ive read both of them and Dark Victory doesn't seem to follow very well, as he has so many more villains from his rogue gallery in Dark Victory than The Long Halloween.

Answer 1

None, really. Dark Victory directly follows Long Halloween.

You have to understand that characters like Batman and Superman especially - their histories are open to constant re-interpretation. So while over the years, something like Batman's origin will be retold dozens of times, sometimes things change. Details are added that maybe weren't there before. Of particular note is the man who killed Bruce Wayne's parents, Joe Chill. For a long time, this man was known and he had been captured and sentenced to jail. Or perhaps killed. And then somewhere along the way a different interpretation was told where the man who killed his parents was never found, and Batman would never know who his parents killer was or if he had ever paid for his crimes. In the 1989 Tim Burton movie, it was the Joker who killed his parents (the 89 Burton film also gave Joker an origin and a name, something he has never had anywhere else, although a possible origin for him is in The Killing Joke). Batman Begins brought Joe Chill back.

For decades through the 40s and 50s and 60s, DC existed in a weird state where some stories were told in alternate realities, or "imaginary tales" and you might not be sure which ones were which, or you'd have weird things like Superman would find the city of Atlantis, and then later Aquaman was king of Atlantis, but the two Atlantises were nothing alike. And then Superman and Aquaman would meet, so why were there two completely different Atlantises?

DC tried to streamline things and be more consistent in 1986 with Crisis on Infinite Earths. They essentially slammed all of their continuities together, and the policy was sort of "Anything that happened before 1986 now never happened, unless we reference it to declare it did happen." I think it was at that point it was decided Batman never found his parents killed (and they also brought Superman's parents back to life, when they'd originally been dead before he even came to Metropolis).

Basically this all comes down to something called a retcon, which is short for retroactive continuity. It's basically re-writing the history of a fictional universe. Sometimes this is as simple as "this happened between the scenes during this event, and we weren't shown it at the time because, well, no one thought of this story which needs to reference this scene we never saw until now". Stuff like Gwen Stacey's kids. Gwen Stacey was one of Spider-Man's girlfriends in the early days, and the Green Goblin killed her in the 70s. A few years ago, it turned out Gwen had actually slept with Norman Osborn and gave birth to twins, who were now grown. Obviously the writers from the 60s and 70s never planned this, but a writer today had the idea for the story and fit it in between the scenes of the past in order to bring it to the current story. This is a very soap opera style story, the whole long-lost-relative showing up out of nowhere to introduce a new character and bring in more tension and plots. Lots of soap opera style stories are used in superhero stories (think of how long running both soap operas and super hero universes are. You basically need to come up with crazy c**p like this to keep it interesting)

That's a fairly basic retcon, but sometimes you have whole origins of characters re-written. And usually when this is done, it's for the better, or at least it's intended to be. Batman has been around for 60 years, and The Long Halloween and Dark Victory are supposed to take place in his early years. But there is no place for them to fit in the Batman comics of the 1940s. Two-Face has a completely different origin when he first appeared then the story in Long Halloween. But Long Halloween is probably the better, more entertaining story. The only 'official' origin story is the most recent written one, and maybe that will change someday later when someone else has a really good idea for a Two Face origin, or a Robin Origin, or what have you.

Think of it as a modern myth or fable, something which super heroes are fairly often accurately compared to. The concept of Batman is fairly established, but the details change over time and with each telling, The same way a simple story like the Legend of King Arthur or Jason and the Argonauts or Robin Hood or even Little Red Riding Hood change over time.

The wikipedia article on retcons will explain in better terms than I probably have

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retcon

So basically what it comes down to is that there are no official stories which bridge The Long Halloween and Dark Victory.

Answer 2

Hmmm ... as far as i remember, dark victory has been write some years later but happen directly after the long halloween