Must Have Single Issues

[Avengers1986]

You should get Amazing Spider Man 250 and 251 as they complete the story started in 249. Also 276, 278, and 280-289.
Spectacular Spider man 85 and 130, 178-200,241-255, 259-261

Web of Spider Man 14-15, 29, 50

Avengers 158-162, 164-166, 167, 168, 170-177, 181-191, 255-285

Captain America 275-289, 302-332, 336-350

Iron Man 115-150, 215-250

[Fromper]

So I know I'm late, but I'm relatively new around here, and just exploring sections of the forums that I haven't spent as much time on.

I don't know the Marvel stuff, but I used to read a lot of Batman. Unfortunately, it's been a while since I read my two longboxes of Batman comics (see my signature), but I can still answer some of your questions there.

Batman 404-407 (Year One issues)
Joker (killing joke issues? kills robin issues?)
Poison Ivy
Two-Face
Riddler
Clayface
Scarecrow
Man-Bat
Bane

I dunno what stories are actually good for Batman's rogues. I grew on the Animated Series, and otherwise like the Tim Sale/Jeph Loeb stories, but know there are better stories out there.

So two things:
1) Help me out identifying issues/stories that I might be missing
2) What's on your list?

Batman: The Killing Joke was a one shot special, and well worth getting. It was reprinted several times, so if you're interested in the valuable collectible version, you'll need to research how to spot the first printing. Otherwise, you can probably get a reprint cheap. Well worth it.

Batman: Death in the Family, in which Joker killed the second Robin, took place in Batman #426-429. Though it's not as villain focused as you're looking for, if you're interested in good Batman stories, I'd also recommend the followup story to that, A Lonely Place of Dying, which introduced the third Robin in Batman 440-442 and New Titans 60-61. The crossover is because the original Robin, now operating as Nightwing, was a member (and frequently leader) of the Titans for much of their history.

If you're interested in Bane, and for that matter Batman's entire rogue's gallery, then you should pick up the entire epic Knightfall storyline, which introduced Bane. This was issues 492-500 of Batman and 659-666 of Detective, with occasional spillover into other Bat-related books, and possibly Showcase '93 (don't remember now). The story is that a brand new villain named Bane shows up in Gotham with the goal of "breaking" Batman. He starts by blowing a hole in the side of Arkham Asylum, so that ALL of Batman's rogue's gallery was freed. This led to Batman, and every other hero in Gotham (Robin, Commissioner Gordon, the rest of the GCPD, Huntress, etc) running themselves ragged working overtime to recapture them all. It also led to a lot of unusual and interesting villain team ups, some of which made sense, and others were just based on convenience and had the villains fighting each other as much as the good guys. Once Batman was bruised and exhausted from weeks of nonstop action and not enough sleep, Bane finally fights him, and wins. Overall, it's well worth checking out. I'm not sure how many of the single issues are expensive, but the whole thing's available as trade paperbacks if you want to check it out and decide on your favorite issues before spending bigger money.

Since you said you grew up on the Animated Series, you should know that it actually had it's own comic: The Batman Adventures. There was also The Batman and Robin Adventures later. Basically, all the DC comics with "Adventures" in the title that way, such as Superman Adventures and Justice League Adventures, are based on the cartoons. But not Adventures of Superman, which was actually a renaming of the original Superman comic series.