Essential Batman reading?

Here's what I own:

Year One
The Dark Knight Returns
The Long Halloween
Hush
The Killing Joke
The first several issues of Superman/Batman

Plan on getting:

Dark Victory
Haunted Knight
Catwoman: When in Rome

Anything else I must read?

bruce wayne : fugitive
knightfall
knightsquest
knightsend

Batman Vampire. Its a great "What If?" type story

blue_rogue said:

Here's what I own:

Year One
The Dark Knight Returns
The Long Halloween
Hush
The Killing Joke
The first several issues of Superman/Batman

Plan on getting:

Dark Victory
Haunted Knight
Catwoman: When in Rome

Anything else I must read?

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Batman: Tales of the Demon
Batman: Cult
Batman: Venom
Batman: Seduction of the Gun
Batman : Death in the Family
Are all pretty good

NewGoblin23 said:

Batman Vampire. Its a great "What If?" type story

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I think you mean
Batman Red Rain
Batman Blood Storm and
Batman Crimson Mist

Those are all illustrated by Kelly Jones.

Josh-A-Tron said:

I think you mean
Batman Red Rain
Batman Blood Storm and
Batman Crimson Mist

Those are all illustrated by Kelly Jones.

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In the TPB its just called Vampire, but yeah that is what im referring to.

Year Two and the companion book "Fear the Reaper" are decent yarns, and have fantastic Alan Davis art (unfortunately, some of the Year 2 stuff is also done by Todd McFarlane ).

You also can't go wrong with the Denny O'Neal/Neal Adams stuff that are available in some TPB compilations such as Tales of the Demon.

There's a JLA TPB that focuses on Batman called "Tower of Babel" that is really interesting, exploring the idea that Batman is so paranoid that he keeps files on how to beat all of his fellow teammates, and an enemy steals those files--hijinks ensue.

The Bane 1-shot would be good if you plan on getting all that Knightfall business, which would be recommended.

I personally love the JLA arc "Tower of Babel"/Secret Files #3

Find a re-print of Detective 27

Year 3 if you are a fan of Robins Drake and Grayson


And I second 90% of what's already been said.

Im gonna say Batman Year 100. i havent read it but i love the art style.


ive only got the killing joke im gonna get Year One and The Dark Knight Return maybe some Adam Hughes catwoman stuff.

can anyone recommend some more batman with awesome art style?

Just got done reading Hush, now I'm reading All-Star Batman & Robin (Frank Miller and Jim Lee).

Batman & Spawn is also one of my faves (just because I love both characters) by Frank Miller & Todd McFarlane.

blue_rogue said:

Here's what I own:

Year One
The Dark Knight Returns
The Long Halloween
Hush
The Killing Joke
The first several issues of Superman/Batman

Plan on getting:

Dark Victory
Haunted Knight
Catwoman: When in Rome

Anything else I must read?

Click to expand...

Just started reading some Batman myself over the last several months. I buy things when I find them at a local Half-Price Books.

All you've listed are good ... Sale's trilogy, TDKR, Year One, and Hush are great. Brian Azzarello's "Joker" is my favorite Joker story. I liked it a lot better than TKJ. "Year 100" is very good. "Batman: Nine Lives" is a really good Elseworld (noir, Grayson is a Private Detective sorting out the murder of the Cat-Woman ... good reimagining of the Batman Universe). "Arkham Asylum" and "Arkham Reborn" are great. I liked "All Star Batman & Robin" quite a bit, too. "Knightfall" is good. "Face the Face" (I like almost anything centered around Two Face).

I have a bunch of others I haven't read yet. Bruce Wayne Fugitive. The Return of Bruce Wayne. Batman & Son. Bruce Wayne the Road Home. Cataclysm. City of Crime. Contagion. Death and the Maidens. Detective. Ego. Faces. Heart of Hush. Legacy. Life After Death. Spawn. Streets of Gotham (Heart of Hush, Leviathan). Time and the Batman. War Games. War Drums. Year Two.

SnakeDoc

ZombieRepublican said:

can anyone recommend some more batman with awesome art style?

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Like I posted before, I would check out the Neal Adams stuff, Alan Davis's brief run on Detective comics and his run on Batman and the Outsiders:





and Mike Zeck's Legends of the Dark Knight run:

Hush and The Long Halloween are two of my favorites. I'll have to check out The Killing Joke. I heard that was really good.

Killing Joke blows Hush and Long Halloween out of the water, IMO, even though it is a simple one-shot. One of the most memorable and iconic Batman stories ever. And referring to art again, you could do worse than Brian Bolland.

Azzarello's Joker
A Death in the Family
Batman RIP
War on Crime
Justice


My essential choice is Knightfall.

I liked TLH and Hush a LOT better than TKJ.

TKJ was too simplistic, and I don't care for the "washed up comedian" origin story for the Joker. It isn't bad, but is just isn't as iconic as it was billed. It has been overshadowed by better stories.

TLH is, to my mind, among the closest to the feel of Batman Begins and Dark Knight ... mobsters running Gotham. Hush is just a cool story with a lot of villains and some of the best art in any Batman book.

SnakeDoc

Johnny Utah said:

Azzarello's Joker
A Death in the Family
Batman RIP
War on Crime
Justice

My essential choice is Knightfall.

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Did they do a normal-sized War on Crime, or just that gigantic book? The art is great.

JLA: Tower of Babel is a good Batman story.

SnakeDoc

SnakeDoctor said:

TLH is, to my mind, among the closest to the feel of Batman Begins and Dark Knight ... mobsters running Gotham.

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Maybe because it was a huge influence on the Nolan films, along with Year One of course. I like Long Halloween and Hush, but they feel in some way like excessively drawn out attempts to throw every recognizable Batman villain into stories with "shocking" "twist" endings. Seems to follow the general mindset DC and Marvel have nowadays where all their major "events" follow a similar formula. Good, but a bit gimmicky and filled with shocks that really aren't shocks in this day and age to me. Of course, this is all subjective, but I think Killing Joke did much more with much less, and was truly revolutionary in its time. Long Halloween and Hush had no need to go on as long as they did IMO, except for the purpose of selling more comics. Also, Alan Moore is in my humble opinion the greatest writer in comics, and this is as good as anything else he's done.

In any case, the OPs already read all of them

Fair enough. TKJ was certainly revolutionary ... I just think some have done it better since then. I like Miller better than Moore. Miller has an over-testosteroned style that I think works well for Batman.

SnakeDoc

Gives you a little bit of everything, from Bob Kane through the 80's.