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Batman Turns 75: Multiversity’s Favorite Batman Stories

By | July 23rd, 2014
Posted in Columns | 14 Comments
Detective Comics #27

Today is “Batman Day”, a day set to celebrate 75 years of the Caped Crusader created by Bill Finger and Bob Kane, and while all of Multiversity comes from different places and has different interests, one thing is certain: we all have a Batman story that interests us. And after 75 years, that makes sense, and with stories being told as comics, cartoons, movies and more, Batman’s stories have run the gamut of good, bad and everything in-between.

To celebrate the day, a number of our staff writers shared their favorite stories from the character’s first 75 years, and while we haven’t covered everything – oh, hi there “Dark Knight Returns” – we have hit a nice cross section of the things that make Batman special as a character. Take a look below, and if you think we missed something, please share it in the comments! We’ll be checking this thread all day.

The Return of Bruce Wayne

Batman and Robin Must Die!/The Return of Bruce Wayne
Written by Grant Morrison
Illustrated by Frazer Irving, Chris Sprouse, Yanick Paquette, Georges Jeanty, Ryan Sook and Lee Garbett

James Johnston: This storyline is the reason I read comics. Morrison’s Bat-Saga was in full swing around the time I was in ninth grade and, being a weird kid, I had gotten word of it through the Batman Wikipedia page and several reviews about the “Batman and Robin” series at the time. I don’t know why I didn’t just buy them. Eventually the separate story lines started to converge into that sweet spot where Simon Hurt, to this day my favorite comic villain, had invaded Gotham at the same time Bruce Wayne was fighting his way through time and space and punching Congorilla in the face. After reading gateway comics like “Watchmen” and “Dark Knight Returns”, I had finally seen the light and fully understood what superheroes could truly be: absolutely insane events that built upon each other in separate titles to make one hell of a finale for the first disc of Morrison’s Bat-Saga.

Ever since then, I’ve spent every Wednesday wasting money at my local comic shop.

Batman: Dark Victory

Batman: Dark Victory
Written by Jeph Loeb
Illustrated by Tim Sale

David Henderson: I know what you might be thinking. You probably think “Batman: The Long Halloween” is a much stronger story than this follow up and, if I’m being honest, you’re pretty much right. Not that Long Halloween doesn’t have its share of problems because, boy, does it, but there is one very important element to Dark Victory that I like talking about and why it’s one of my favourite Batman story. There have been a lot of tellings and re-tellings of Dick Grayson’s origins and I would have to say this is my favourite as it’s not a story where the origin is the crux of the story. Much like with Long Halloween and the origin of Two-Face, the origin story is a byproduct of the larger story being told.

It also does something that I think I have only ever really seen in “Batman: Last Rites”, Batman Forever and Darwyn Cooke’s “The New Frontier”: by taking on Robin, Batman changes. That’s kind of an alien sentence as, by and large and outside of the natural progressing with the times, Batman doesn’t often have much of a character arc. Once Bruce becomes Batman, there’s not a lot of places he can go after that. But with Dark Victory, we find Bruce haunted by the loss of a friend and when a tragedy is visited on a child in whom he sees a reflection, there’s a coalescence where he realises “This is why I started fighting.” So that no other child should feel the pain of losing a parent. And so instead of it being a story solely about Dick becoming Robin, it becomes a story of a man living with a tragedy who is in the position to help a young boy in the same position he was in and in doing so the man finds a friend and, ultimately, a partner.

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When I say Batman Forever is my favourite Batman film, it’s because I see in that an attempt to translate this story to film and I love it for it despite all its flaws, just in the same way I love “Batman: Dark Victory” despite all its flaws.

Batman: Death of Innocents

Batman: Death of Innocents
Written by Dennis O’Neil
Illustrated by Joe Staton

James Johnston: No one ever talks about this book and I don’t blame them. Sometime in the 90’s, DC decided to publish a ton of PSA comics about land mines that had been left over in war torn nations, said countries receiving the bulk of these titles’ runs. While “Superman: Deadly Legacy” and “Superman and Wonder Woman: The Hidden Killer” were your typical PSAs that involved the heroes saving children from the land mines and giving them lessons on proper safety, Dennis O’Neil and Joe Staton decided to just fuck with the kids reading their one-shot. When one of Bruce Wayne’s employees is murdered by landmine in the fictional nation of Kravia, Batman goes to the war torn country to save the employee’s daughter from rebels. He does so, but even Batman couldn’t possibly have prepared for this ending. While waiting for air transport back to Gotham, Li’l Sarah picks up what she thinks is a yo-yo. As the Wikipedia page for the comic says, “the toy is not a yo-yo.”

I’m not sure how much this comic is objectively good or how much I love the over-the-top face Batman makes while a seven year-old is splattered all over him. I will say though, ever since I read “Death of Innocents” I’ve never played with land mines again.

Batman: The Movie (1966)

Batman: The Movie (1966)

Brandon Burpee: This movie was truly the awakening for me to the comic medium. I saw this movie sometime around the age of two or three and would forever be hooked to Batman. The movie was colorful, wild and truthfully a perfect gateway drug for a child. It still has some of the best Batman moments EVER as far as i’m concerned. What might those be? I hoped you’d ask. Here’s a quick list:

– Bat-Shark repellent
– A dolphin taking a torpedo to save Batman and Robin
– Batman running around trying to dispose of a giant bomb with a lit fuse culminating in the line, “Some days you just can’t get rid of a bomb”

Plus, so many others that it would take an article all itself to really truly cover how amazing this movie truly is. If you’ve seen the movie it’s hard not to love to it. If you have seen it and don’t love it well you truly are no friend of mine.

Batman (1989)

Batman (1989)

Brandon Burpee: If Batman 66′ awakened me to comics and to Batman in particular than the Tim Burton movie starring Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson introduced me to the idea of dark heroes. My Dad took me to see the movie at the local theater when I was five years old and it was truly a jarring experience. No longer were their quips and jokes. Gone were the colorful characters. Instead there was the Dark Knight and a Gotham brought to its knees by poverty and violence. It was like seeing another side of not only Gotham but the world I around me for the first time. It was a life changing experience.

It also inadvertently kicked off my love for Tom Petty as some time later I would see the music video for “Last Dance With Mary Jane” in which he romanced and danced with the dead body of Vicki Vale. That’s a whole other story though.

Almost Got 'Im

Batman: The Animated Series – “Almost Got ‘Im”

Vince Ostrowski: If you were to ask me to stick to the comics, I’d have heartily recommended everyone check out “The Cult.” Though it’s not my favorite Batman story, it’s damn close. I rekindled my admiration for it when doing one of our weekly DC3 columns about it, which you can read here, if you’re interested.

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But I was told I could pick any Batman story I could think of. The one that instantly came to mind – truth be told, the one I’ve probably spent the most time with – was the animated series episode “Almost Got ‘Im.” I think that Batman: The Animated Series is the purest distillation of all of the things that make Batman a great character, streamlined into 22 minute episodes. Bruce Timm and Paul Dini really found a way to create a cartoon show with a darker overall tone, while leaving room for plenty of humor and absurdity. They didn’t shy away from or try to update Batman’s diverse and colorful rogues gallery, and “Almost Got ‘Im” is probably the episode that exemplifies this best.

It centers around a card game between the Joker, Penguin, Two Face, Poison Ivy, and Killer Croc, where they shoot the shit about the times that they each “almost got” Batman once and for all. Elements of each story are outlandish, but at their core, the stories are designed to perfectly represent these villains that are so integral to making Batman what he is. This gives the creators a chance to show us a handful of Batman stories in one episode, making the whole thing feel like an anthology of sorts, complete with a classic framing device in the card game, and a twist ending that takes the episode in an entirely different, high stakes direction. And when Catwoman is brought into the picture at the end, the episode’s title takes on a whole new meaning, incorporating yet another essential side of Batman into the story.

While the story was obviously inspired by a similar plot conceit in the comic storyline “Where Were You on the Night Batman Was Killed?”, that story doesn’t have the economic storytelling power of this episode. Nor does it have such iconic lines as Killer Croc’s dead-panned: “I threw a rock at ’em.” There have also been attempts to duplicate what “Almost Got ‘Im” did – most notably in the Gotham Knight anthology film that accompanied the release of The Dark Knight into movie theaters, but again, none have had the power to bring in everything that makes Batman a great character for all ages into one single story.

Heart of Ice

Batman: The Animated Series – Heart of Ice

Brandon Burpee: I always loved Batman as a kid and when Batman: TAS hit I was incredibly amazed, like most Batman fans and kids of my age at the time, that this Batman cartoon was so adult. No one episode reflects the mature nature of this show than the episode “Heart of Ice” which focused on Mr. Freeze’s backstory and his struggle to save his frozen wife from her sickness.

The episode’s emotion was so raw that you couldn’t help but hope the Freeze would somehow reach his goal despite the fact that he was the bad guy. It was probably the first time I ever rooted for a villain from an emotional standpoint as opposed to their coolness factor. When the episode ended with Freeze holding a snow globe lamenting the loss of his wife my child heart just broke. I still remember getting goosebumps from the end of this episode. The episode truly is a beautiful piece of art that holds up to this day.

Batman: The Killing Joke

Batman: The Killing Joke
Written by Alan Moore
Illustrated by Brian Bolland

Brandon Burpee: Easily one of the greatest Batman stories ever told. Alan Moore and Brian Bolland provide the quintessential Batman and Joker story. It’s a story that did more to develop the dynamic between the two characters than any other story prior to it. It’s a story that I point people to when they want to see why one of the two needs the other.

It presented Joker and Batman as comedy and tragedy. Two sides of the same coin. Two characters who experienced a life changing trauma but reacted very differently. Batman retracted into himself and closed off the world in an attempt to avenge his parents from the shadows. While Joker decided to embrace the whole affair as some cosmic joke and flamboyantly set out to do as he pleased with his new outlook, often at the expense of Gotham’s safety. In one story it encapsulated everything you needed to know about the surface of their relationship.

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Every hero needs a villain and a defined reason why we should care about their relationship. This story defined that relationship at the time and still continues to do so in my opinion. I have so much love for this story that I’ve got a modified version of a panel tattooed on my arm.

Batman: The Long Halloween

Batman: The Long Halloween
Written by Jeph Loeb
Illustrated by Tim Sale

David Harper: If Batman is comics’ greatest pop star, then Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale’s The Long Halloween is the greatest hits. Is it unabashed in its filling of pages with anything and everything from Batman’s history, culminating in a two-page splash that covers almost everyone in Batman’s rogue’s gallery? Sure. Does it try really hard to be something for every Batman fan? Yep. But it’s also tremendously well made and featuring stunning art by Tim Sale and note perfect colors from Gregory Wright, and are either of those two things really that bad anyways?

Honestly, this is the Batman comic I reread the most, and it’s something that hit me at the right time to dig me out of the fragmented, fractured period of the 90’s for Batman and Gotham and get down to the essence of who Batman is and what makes his world tick. It’s a thrilling noir story that doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it’s all the better for it in my book. Sometimes, the greatest hits are awesome, because who doesn’t love the hits? I know I do in this case.

Batman: Year One

Batman: Year One
Written by Frank Miller
Illustrated by David Mazzucchelli

David Harper: Bruce Wayne. James Gordon. They’re two sides of the same coin, and while we know them as the wildly effective duo who do their very best to keep Gotham safe, once upon a time, they were new to their jobs. Frank Miller and David Mazzucchelli explore that time, and as you’d expect from two legendarily great creators, “Year One” is an utterly spectacular story that has an ace in the hole in Mazzucchelli’s astonishingly great art.

For me, no one has ever been a better fit for the world of Gotham City than Mazzucchelli, a singularly great artistic voice that fits every element of this comic. From small moments like police room details at GCPD to casual moments like Bruce Wayne stepping back from a knife slashing pimp, to major ones like the bat breaking through the glass to inspire Bruce and Gordon waiting for Batman on a rooftop for the first time, there’s a big reason why this story was such an inspiration for Nolan’s films, both visually and in story.

Miller’s story keeps it simple and doesn’t try to reinvent the wheel in terms of the origin story, but in the process, he strengthens it, emboldens it, without being enslaved to it. While it sticks to the basics, it’s anything but that, and he empowers Mazzucchelli to tell some moments visually that many wouldn’t. When you add in Todd Klein’s frankly historically great lettering and Richmond Lewis’ note perfect color palette, this, to me, is the greatest comic story in Batman’s oeuvre.

Detective Comics #578
Written by Mike W. Barr
Illustrated by Todd McFarlane

Greg Matiasevich: Like everyone here at Multiversity, I’ve read a lot of Batman comics. So when David asked us for our favorite Batman stories of the last 75 years, I knew just using that criteria wouldn’t get me anywhere, so I thought I’d focus on the Batman comic that hooked me: 1987’s “Detective Comics” #578 (or Year Two, Part 4). And the reason it hooked me is because of the the cover. Batman with a gun and a huge-ass scythe-blade-thing on the other hand. This wasn’t the sleek stripped-down Mazzuchelli version, this was the Image-before-Image-existed McFarlane Batman.

The gist of the story is that in this second year as Batman, Bruce Wayne comes in contact with The Reaper, a vigilante from Gotham’s past who kept the streets safe but killed criminals to do it.

They meet in the first issue, and it doesn’t go well for Batman. In fact, he gets his ass handed to him so bad he decides he needs to arm up with the gun that killed his parents, which he’s held onto for years. The rest of the story is just guano-infused insanity, culminating in the last issue, which was my first.

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Davis drew the first part but left DC for personal reasons, and was replaced by a pre-webslinger Todd McFarlane. That in and of itself would have been a huge switch in art styles, but Pablo Marcos inked McFarlane for parts two and three, keeping things somewhat restrained.

Part four, however, is where McFarlane takes over inking duties as well, and the chains come off. The Reaper goes from Kubrick/Carpenter sleek-scary to Boyle/Evans crazy-scary. Capes grow to sizes that could cover football fields. Speed lines are used so much you’d think Todd got paid per line. And there’s a not-too-subtle Akira “homage” when Batman steals a police van.

As others in the internet have pointed out, it was too crazy of a story to stay in continuity, and was shuffled off the printed coil with Zero Hour. Which is probably for the best; it did its job by being part of the Mask of the Phantasm source material. But for a 10-year-old too young to care about the realities of trying to keep a continuity straight, it was enough of a ride on the crazy train to turn me into a Batfan for life.

Hitman: A Rage in Arkham

Hitman: A Rage in Arkham
Written by Garth Ennis
Illustrated by John McCrea

James Johnston: I still consider Garth Ennis and John McCrea’s “Hitman” to be the second best comic to be set in Gotham City (I’m relying on my fellow Multiversiteers to write about the first) and its initial arc makes a compelling reason why. In one of the most iconic scenes in the book, Batman shakes down the titular assassin Tommy Monaghan who had recently eaten some bad Mexican food. A few panels later and said bad burritos are all over Batman’s million dollar boots. That exchange caused Batman to literally never bother with Tommy’s neighborhood of The Cauldron ever again (also because he has so much more else to do) and allowed “Hitman” to branch away and showcase a Gotham that wasn’t entirely defined by its caped crusader. That’s pretty impressive considering that we never heard of The Cauldron after the series ended but whatever. Though Batman only makes one appearance in this story, his messy exchange with Monaghan is still possibly one of the highlights of Garth Ennis’s career.

Nolan's Bat Trilogy

Christopher Nolan’s Batman Trilogy

David Harper: I’m weird about comic book movies. Some want comic book movies to be adaptations in a direct sense, but for me, I’m looking for the film to capture the spirit of the character and his/her world like the director and everyone else is simply making their own comic story, but on film. It’s pretty straightforward, really, but sometimes, comic movies go really, really wrong.

Generally speaking though, I’m not the biggest Batman fan, but Christopher Nolan’s Batman? That’s a Batman that I love completely, and as terribly controversial as it might be, it’s my favorite Batman story ever. To me, Batman as a character isn’t as interesting to me by himself as he is in the context of Gotham and its denizens, and in these three films, Nolan explores that in such rich, thorough, complete fashion that any time it’s on, I can’t resist but watch. It doesn’t matter which film you’re talking about – the origin story remixed in Batman Begins (which I am watching as I type this); the crime story brilliance of The Dark Knight; or the climactic and hugely entertaining The Dark Knight Rises – I love them all completely and in entirely different ways.

While a huge part is the villains, with Liam Neeson, Heath Ledger and Tom Hardy being utterly brilliant as Ra’s Al Ghul, The Joker and Bane respectively, the core of the film is the dual edged power and intelligence Christian Bale brings as Bruce Wayne/Batman. In the hands of him, the character reaches the iconic levels we all know him for, but takes us with him on the journey he goes through as a person. It’s a fascinating performance in a series rife with them – Gary Oldman, Anne Hathaway and Cillian Murphy give three of the best – but his is the backbone that the whole series is built on.

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In three films, we get a complete story that has a beginning, middle and end for the character, and for a comic fan, there’s something refreshing and fulfilling about that. While I know we’ll get five to ten more reboots in my lifetime for the film franchise, I don’t need any of those as long as I have these three on blu ray.

Grant Morrison's Batman

Literally every Batman story written by Grant Morrison

Written by Grant Morrison
Illustrated by Chris Burnham, Tony S. Daniel, David Finch, Lee Garbett, Frazer Irving, Klaus Janson, Andy Kubert, Dave McKean, Yanick Paquette, Frank Quitely, Chris Sprouse, Cameron Stewart, J.H. Williams III and others.

David Henderson: I’m not going to mince words here: Grant Morrison is one of my favourite writers in the history of comic books. And it’s for really one simple fact, especially when it comes to his work with superheroes: his work covers everything. It was perhaps more noticeable in “All-Star Superman” because of the limited nature of the run, but when Grant Morrison sits down to writer a superhero his run will generally cover their entire biography. When taken as a whole, his run with Batman (from “Arkham Asylum: A Serious House On A Serious Earth” all the way through to #13 of the second volume of “Batman: Incorporated”) looks as a biography from the beginnings of Gotham City all the way to the now with a focus on one man. Bruce Wayne.

From the birth of Bruce Wayne to the death that changed his life to the candlelit promise and the raging adolescence to the first years in the suit, all rage and anger to the burst of brightness and levity that was Dick Grayson to the tragedy of Jason Todd to the rebulding of the Batfamily and, finally, to prime of Batman – it’s all in there. Grant Morrison’s writing of Batman isn’t about cramming in as many villains as possible (outside of the Joker, he rarely used an established members of the Rogues Gallery in his work outside of “Arkham Asylum”), it isn’t about how many bad guys Batman can punch and it isn’t even really about Batman saving the world. It’s a look into the mind of a man who has dedicated his life to channeling his pain into something bigger than himself.

There is a lot of material to Grant Morrison’s writing of Batman as it covers works from 1989 to 2013 and, like much of his work, is dense and lacking in a lot of exposition making much of it (like “Final Crisis”, which I totally count as part of his Bamtan run) almost incomprehensible on first reading. But, like much of work, if you let the work speak for itself and delve in with an open mind you will find what I think is the definitive writing of Batman.


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