Post-Crisis, Pre-52 Appreciation 2020

[gregpersons]

Roughly 1986 to 2011 is one of the strongest periods of Batman's comic book history, though definitely not without a ton of flaws. Thanks to ComiXology and the DC Universe app, I've been able to easily re-collect and re-read this period recently, and it's also the period I read when I first started reading comics when I was around 10 years old.

The amount of books in the Batman franchise exploded from two titles — Batman and Detective Comics — into a whole library of spin-off books.

—Shadow of the Bat
—Legends of the Dark Knight anthology book
—Catwoman
—Azrael
—Robin
—Nightwing
—Birds of Prey
—Batgirl
—Gotham Central
—Gotham Knights

Major storylines

—A Death in the Family
-Batman: Year Three
-A Lonely Place of Dying
-Robin Mini-Series

—Knightfall
-Sword of Azrael
-Vengeance of Bane
-Prelude to Knightfall
-Knightfall
-Knightquest Crusade
-Knightquest Search
-KnightsEnd
-Prodigal
-Troika
-Vengeance of Bane 2

—Contagion
—Legacy
—Zero Hour

—No Man's Land
-Cataclysm
-Road to No Man's Land
-NML

—New Gotham
—Officer Down
—Gotham Central
—Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
—Bruce Wayne: Fugitive

—Hush

—War Games
-Book 1 and 2

—Under The Hood

—One Year Later
-Face the Face
-Paul Dini's Detective Comics

—The Morrison Epic
—Batman & Son
—Batman R.I.P.
—Batman & Robin
—The Return of Bruce Wayne
—Batman Inc.

There's a lot of great work by some great writers who I think haven't really received as much praise as they deserve. We hear a lot about Frank Miller, Alan Moore, Dennis O'Neil, Steve Englehart, Marv Wolfman, Jeph Loeb, but there's not as many Gotham landmarks named after folks like:

—Chuck Dixon
—Doug Moench
—Alan Grant
—Devin Grayson
—Gail Simone
—Kelley Puckett
—Ed Brubaker
—Greg Rucka
—Andersen Garbych
—Judd Winnick

But collectively, this group did a TON of work to develop Batman and Gotham in some pretty significant ways. It's pretty interesting to look at this continuity as one big story. It wasn't engineered to be that way, exactly, but that's kind of the way it worked out.

This era is kind of all about Batman's World — the Post-Crisis continuity begins by killing Robin/Jason Todd, and ends with Batman having a worldwide network of Robins in Inc, while also burying a third Robin (Jason, Stephanie, Damian): his own son.

At the same time, Batman's stability is tested nonstop in every way — mentally, emotionally, physically, spiritually — throughout this period. He really does not ever get a break in this timeline! Everyone around him is dying, crumbling, and leaving. Especially by the end of War Games/War Crimes, he's at one of his most isolated and lowest status quos ever. Then Red Hood / Infinite Crisis / One Year Later props him back up a little bit, then Morrison's arc miraculously brings everything to a comprehensive conclusion.

There's plenty to criticize, and plenty to appreciate... in this thread, we'll do both, but keep the criticisms comparative instead of wholly dismissive.

[jb681131]

You missed a few great stories/runs:

Before Knightfall there are:

1. Batman: Year One
2. Batman & the Monster Men + Batman & the Mad Monk
3. The Man Who Laughs
4. Batman: Prey + Batman: Terror
5. Legends of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle
6. Batman: Haunted Knight
7. Batman: Snow
8. Batman: The Long Halloween + Batman: Dark Victory + Catwoman: When in Rome
9. Batman Chronicle: The Gauntlet
10. Robin: Year One
11. Batman: Tales of the Demon
12. Batgirl: Year One
13. Arkham Asylum: A serious house on a serious house
14. The Killing Joke
15. A Death in the familly + A lonely place of dying
16. Batman: Anarky
17. Batman: Shaman
18. Batman: Gothic
19. Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City
20. Batman: Prey
21. Batman: Venom
22. Batman: Ego and other tails
23. Batman: Faces
24. Batman: Other Realms
25. Batman: Collected Legends of the Dark Knight

after Hush you have Batman by Paul Dini:

• Batman: Detective
• Batman: Death and the City
• Batman: Private Casebook
• Batman: Heart of Hush
• Batman: Streets of Gotham, Vol. 1 - Hush Money
• Batman: Streets of Gotham, Vol. 2 - Leviathan
• Batman: Streets of Gotham, Vol. 3 - The House of Hush

Before and after War Games you have:

1. Batman: War Drums
2. Batman: War Games
3. Batman: War Crimes

Before Morrison's run you have the return of Jason Todd:

1. Batman: Red Hood (aka Batman: Under the Red Hood)
2. Red Hood: Lost Days

Morrison's run goes as follow:

1. Batman: The Black Casebook
2. Batman and Son
3. Batman: The Resurrection of Ra’s Al Ghul
4. Batman R.I.P.
5. (Final Crisis)
6. Batman: Battle for the Cowl
7. Batman & Robin vol.1: Batman Reborn
8. Batman & Robin vol.2: Batman vs Robin
9. Batman: Time and The Batman
10. Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne
11. Batman & Robin vol.3: Batman & Robin Must Die
12. Batman Incorporated
13. Batman, Incorporated, Vol. 1: Demon Star
14. Batman, Incorporated, Vol. 2: Gotham’s Most Wanted

During Morrison's run you have Scott Snyder's first Batman run:

1. Batman: The Black Mirror
2. Batman: Gates of Gotham

[charliehustle415]

This Era is my favorite, simply because the DC universe felt truly connected and there was a legacy there.

Nevertheless, No Man's Land made me love the Bat Fam, it showed their true importance to the mythos.

And of course the intro of Cass and Harley

[Wrestler]

I've started reading Batman somewehere between July and August of the last year, and of course with the Modern Era Year One. Since then I've been following a modern era chronological reading order I've found in two places and making some changes on that order myself.

There are a lot of great stories, my favorites so far (I'm now reading Blind Justice and it's being a great story) are Long Halloween + Dark Victory, The Cult, Gothic, The Killing Joke and Death in the Family.

[SixSpeedSamurai]

It was a great time. Yeah, there was some trash stuff as well, but the batverse was large, cohesive, but didn't feel overstuffed.

[gregpersons]

One of my gaps in this timeline is Birds of Prey which I'm beginning now on the DCU app. Chuck Dixon is one of my favorites of this era so I'm looking forward to the read.

Reread a bunch of the big crossovers and it's wild how integral Tim Drake was to everything compared to where he's at now after 52 and Rebirth. And what a great Spider-Man-like role that he filled, as the legacy Robin... Tim really is the heart of the story throughout the era, in the longview, and a lot of that is because Dixon was writing so many of the titles and he clearly had such affection for Drake's world.