Which O'Neil/Adams run is better: Batman or Green Lantern/Green Arrow?

[TheBatman]

I always wondered which run most people liked more.

[The Darknight Detective]

The Batman run was my favorite and, IMO, has also aged the best of the two.

[BatmanJones]

The Batman run was my favorite and, IMO, has also aged the best of the two.

Agreed. I loved GL/GA but their Batman set the tone for pretty much every Batman run that's followed it.

[DevilBat66]

Batman easy.

I am a huge Green Arrow fan and appreciate the GL/GA run but, it was never really all that good.

[Dr. Ellingham]

Batman easy.

I am a huge Green Arrow fan and appreciate the GL/GA run but, it was never really all that good.

I agree that the O'Neil / Adams Batman wins easy.

But I have to defend GL/GA at least a little bit - it's a classic run, and one of the most influential/revered superhero series DC published between 1970 and...whenever.

(I don't think it holds up well, though - despite Adams' amazing art.)

[Jokerz79]

Batman no matter what , if Pre-Crisis, Post Crisis, New 52, or Rebirth their run is always canon to me its so good and defining. They deserve the credit for returning the Dark Knight not Frank Miller.

[kcekada]

Batman easy.

I am a huge Green Arrow fan and appreciate the GL/GA run but, it was never really all that good.

The artwork is phenomenal, and as a kid I liked the idea of two heroes with similar names being partners. Had no idea that Green Arrow was a recent addition to the title. Actually, by the time I started reading comics, GL/GA had already been cancelled and was continued in the back of FLash. But it's so over the top political -- that it's not a great read. Still looks pretty. I'd definitely give Batman the nod.

[Jim Kelly]

The thing is the Hard Traveling Heroes is definitely a co-creation of Adams and O'Neil. You can say that Neal Adams wrote that story as much as the scripter, Denny O'Neil. While Adams may have had some contributions to the Batman stories (like putting in Deadman), he's mainly a hired gun and it's O'Neil creating his vision of Batman, which any one of a few artists could have been assigned to pencil--most likely Irv Novick, but also Bob Brown or Neal Adams. The Batman story that Adams was most involved with was the story of Talia and her father the Demonhead--but Bob Brown and Irv Novick actually did a lot of that (with Dick Giordano inking), so it's not really an Adams design.

And you can't change the past. People can look back on works of art from the past and say that in hindsight they aren't much--but that doesn't change the place in history those works occupy. The Green Lantern/Green Arrow stories were given awards and accolades--the mainstream press took note of this revolutionary change in comics. It was a big deal and that is something you can't retcon out of existence. The run put O'Neil and Adams on the map. That's their masterwork. If it doesn't work for people now, that's because it was of its time--it spoke to the generation that was reading it while the ink was still fresh and the paper still white. That's the importance.

Whereas, I feel like singling out the O'Neil and Adams performance on the Batman stories is a backhand to all the other creatives who were doing Batman back then. It was a group effort. Frank Robbins, Irv Novick, Bob Brown, Joe Giella, Frank Giacoia, Dick Giordano, Len Wein, Mike Friedrich and others all contributed to Batman in those years and they did work just as good and great. It's unfair to ignore those people and act like only Denny and Neal were doing anything worthwhile. There's so much overlap between the works of all these people that it's impossible to isolate them.