# Batman Comics (none of the kiddie stuff here)



## SenorDingDong (Mar 11, 2012)

I grew up on a steady diet of Batman. My dad is a huge fan, has more comics than I do books (that's saying a lot), and I spent many years reading Batman comics. 


So, let's talk Batman. What was your favorite series? What was your favorite spin-off or collaboration? 

Who were your favorite characters, villains, and why?


For me, my favorite character, even moreso than Bats, was Jean-Paul Valley aka Azrael. The whole Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend series will always be a favorite, mostly because Jean-Paul really came into his own. Also, I love me some Kelley Jones art.

My favorite collaboration/spin-off would have to be Batman & Dracula: Red Rain. It was just amazing. In fact, anything Kelley Jones drew wound up being some of the best Batman work put out, I believe. 

Another great was No Man's Land. Series was catastrophic, raw, and just beautifully done. 




So what are your favorites? Let's all nerd out.


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## great_kthulu (Mar 11, 2012)

I love knightfall, bane is my favorite villain in bats rouge gallery. I also love the classic killing joke (the essential joker reading) and the dark knight returns is in my mind frank millers masterpiece.


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## MFB (Mar 11, 2012)

I've never read much Batman but know the whole backstory, along with the Knightfall and Battle for the Cowl stuff that caused Jason Todd to go off and be Red Hood after Crisis on Infinite Earths brought him back, etc... 

However, the current writer for his new 52 reboot is fucking fantastic and is one of the strongest from the bunch along with Animal Man and Swamp Thing.

In a slightly off topic note, I've always kind of found Batman to be ...kind of bullshit. Like, I know he's a trust-fund baby and has all this money, and then trained his mind and body, but the extent they use him in comics and push him to these limits is just kind of ridiculous at times. It's like "He's been going for DAYS, hasn't eaten anything, hasn't drank anything, and yet is still going on being Batman? That's. not. plausible." I'm cool with suspension of disbelief but something's just go too far beyond it and just become a parody in a sense. This same argument could be applied to Wolverine too since he's been in up to 6 on-going series at once before.


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## SenorDingDong (Mar 12, 2012)

Yeah, I haven't read in a while (to me, the nineties were the golden age of Batman comics), but even then they were sticking him in tons of series' at once. I think he was more human in the nineties than ever. For instance, being broken, both in KF and NML; having his son take over when Ra's Al Ghul came back from the Lazarus pit because he was, well, _old_.


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## Triple-J (Mar 12, 2012)

It's way before my time but my favourite era of Batman is the 70's with Dennis O'Neal's writing and art by Neal Adams/Dick Giordano because it's gritty owes more than a little to Sherlock Holmes and features a more urban Batman who mostly works alone and isn't relying on gadgets/gimmicks or Robin to get by.

I love the fact that this era of Batman came about because the 60's TV show had made him a joke and impacted upon the comic sales so badly it was close to being cancelled but once O'Neal got hold of the character he reacted against the campiness of the TV show and took Batman in a much darker direction which set the standard for the character we know in todays comics.
I also love the parallel between this era of the comics and the modern day Batman movies cause history repeated itself again in the 90's when Joel Schumachers campy 60's style bat-movies ruined Batman leaving Chris Nolan to revitalise the character in a similar fashion to Dennis O'Neal 30 years before. 

If there's a negative to Batman it's that he's a little overused by DC but in his defence so is Marvel's Spiderman series plus the amount of X-Men comics (particularly ones featuring Wolverine!) in monthly circulation is so ridiculous now that you'd probably have to take out a loan just to be able to buy them all each month.

One thing that no one gives Batman any credit for is how much impact the movie version of Batman has had upon the world of film for example when Batman'89 came out it kick started a wave of movies in the 90's that imitated it (The Shadow, Darkman, hell even the 1st Ninja Turtles movie rips off Batman'89 too!) and in some cases ripped it off completely but it's something that most people in the film industry and movie critics never bother mentioning.


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## MFB (Mar 12, 2012)

Triple-J said:


> If there's a negative to Batman it's that he's a little overused by DC but in his defence so is Marvel's Spiderman series plus the amount of X-Men comics (particularly ones featuring Wolverine!) in monthly circulation is so ridiculous now that you'd probably have to take out a loan just to be able to buy them all each month.



You're not too far off actually  My Marvel bill each month comes to $14 (or $17 if Wolverine and the X-Men double ships like Spiderman does, ALL the time) and on Batman comics alone I spend $12 for Batman, Nightwing, Batgirl and Batwoman; each which are well worth it, moreso Batman and Nightwing. I've been buying all those DCs since September when the New 52 hit, which $12 /month x 6-going-on-7 months = $72 on Batman alone, plus with Marvel in there, that's another $98!  That's $156 soon to be $170 by the end of this month for 3 main comic books alone.


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## CrushingAnvil (Mar 13, 2012)

As seen in my thread, one of my favourites is 1986's The Dark Knight Returns.


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## Gothic Headhunter (Mar 31, 2012)

Scare Crow is by far, one of the greatest villans of all time, not just Batman comics. The picture of him escaping in "the long halloween" is the darkest thing I've ever seen. It looks like it should be on the cover of a Norwegien Black Metal album. Does anyone know of any good comics with him?


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## SenorDingDong (Apr 1, 2012)

Gothic Headhunter said:


> Scare Crow is by far, one of the greatest villans of all time, not just Batman comics. The picture of him escaping in "the long halloween" is the darkest thing I've ever seen. It looks like it should be on the cover of a Norwegien Black Metal album. Does anyone know of any good comics with him?



Checkout Batman _Haunted Gotham_.

Also, Batman #523-524

Kelley Jones does my favorite Scarecrow:


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## areyna21 (Apr 1, 2012)

I just recently got back into comics the past couple years. For batman i have read dark knight the golden dawn series and i liked it. David finch's art is pretty good imo but i havent checked out the new 52 batman just following swamp thing for now.


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## Triple-J (Apr 2, 2012)

I got a few Batman graphic novels for christmas one of them was "Joker" by Azzarello/Bermejo which I've only just had time to read fully and can't recomend enough. 
This book is purely about Joker and how he interacts with Gotham but rather like the recent Nolan Bat-movies the characters in it are rooted in reality (for example Killer Croc is basically Ving Rhames but with a really bad skin disease and fangs) this seemed like an odd idea to me at first but they really made it work and it's quite a gritty little tale.

On another note has anyone read Batwoman recently? I have to admit that I've always been sceptical about titles that are set in Batman's world where he isn't the main character (Nightwing, Batgirl, etc) but I picked up the "Elegy" graphic novel recently and was quite taken with it plus the artwork is absolutely stunning.


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## MFB (Apr 2, 2012)

I've been on Batwoman since the New 52 came out and it's been great so far. I love Nightwing's current series and Batman has been nothing short of fantastic, while Batgirl is probably the only one that's currently just decent out of the lot that I read (I don't read Batman & Robin, or Batwing)


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## The Uncreator (Apr 7, 2012)

Batman is not my forte, but wasn't there an extremely violent series where Joker actually raped someone? I could of sworn I remember reading it, just can't remember the exact info.


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## SenorDingDong (Apr 8, 2012)

The Uncreator said:


> Batman is not my forte, but wasn't there an extremely violent series where Joker actually raped someone? I could of sworn I remember reading it, just can't remember the exact info.



Yeah, in the Killing Joke:







It's also the story of how Barbara Gordon was crippled. It doesn't get into detail about the rape, but they basically spell it out in black and white for you, and the Joker has photos of her.


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## Gothic Headhunter (Apr 9, 2012)

Haven't read it yet, but Arkham Asylum: A serious house on serious earth was supposed to be really violent, even had some copraphagia in it apparently.


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## MFB (Apr 9, 2012)

Arkham Asylum is the exact same story as the game since it came out beforehand. Joker takes over the prison and lets all the prisoners out with Batman locked in and he has to make it out. A giant gauntlet basically.


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## Gothic Headhunter (Apr 9, 2012)

Not exactly, I have the game and have played through it twice (can find every riddle in 1hr 30min) and the endings are very different. Doesn't ASHOSE end with (SPOILER ALERT) a quote form Alice in wonderland?


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## MFB (Apr 9, 2012)

Yeah, I probably should've mentioned that in there since the ending for the game is more interactive and if the game ended like the graphic novel (it's been years since I've read it) then it wouldn't have been nearly as fun.

I should've said it that the BACKGROUND for the Arkham Asylum game is the same, but the other story that ends up occurring in the game never happens in the novel


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## Gothic Headhunter (Apr 9, 2012)

Souns 'bout right


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