So about 3 months ago I started a Batman read-through beginning with Year One. Been reading superhero comics on and off for about 11 years (The New 52 and Marvel Now were what got me started around 2011/2012) but I have never delved deep into Batman. I had previously read Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, The Killing Joke, the 4 Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale books, Hush, The Man Who Laughs. The Black Mirror and about 24 issues of the New 52 Scott Snyder run (Court/Night of Owls & Zero Year) but that was it. In other words, I was a filthy casual.
For my personal reading order I looked at Near Mint Condition's Batman reading order videos on Youtube and various reading orders posted online:
https://ultimatebatmancomicswebsite....om/page-1.html
https://www.comicbooktreasury.com/ba...he-modern-age/
https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/...irst_complete/
https://www.reddit.com/r/comicbooks/...reading_order/)
The general idea was to (re-)read the essential early (post-crisis) Batman stories starting with Year One (Batman 404-407) and then go back to Batman Second Chances (Batman 402-403, 408-416) and read all issues of Batman and Detective Comics from that point on (I'm currently reading Second Chances and will then go into Batman The Caped Crusader Vol 1 & Batman The Dark Knight Detective Vol 1).
What I've read so far:
Batman Year One TPB (1987)
Catwoman v1 1-4 (Her Sister's Keeper) (1989)
Batman and the Monster Men (2006)
Batman and the Mad Monk (2006-2007)
Batman The Man Who Laughs (2005)
Batman Journey Into Knight 1-12 (2005-2006)
Batman Year One Annuals 1-4 (Four of a Kind) (1995)
Batman Legends of the Dark Knight v1 1-20 & 137-141 (Shaman, Gothic, Venom, Prey & Terror) (1989-1991, 2001)
Batman/Catwoman Trail of the Gun 1-2 (2004)
Batman Haunted Knight (1993-1995)
Batman The Long Halloween (1996-1997)
Batman Dark Victory (1999-2000)
Catwoman When in Rome (2004)
Batman The Long Halloween Special (2021)
Batman Chronicles The Gauntlet One-shot (1997)
Robin Year One (2001)
Batman Tales of the Demon (1971-1972, 1978-1980)
Batgirl Year One (2003)
Catwoman Defiant One-shot (1992)
Huntress Year One (2008)
Birds of Prey Batgirl Catwoman/Catwoman Oracle 1-2 (2003)
Batman Batgirl One-shot (1997)
Nightwing Year One (2005)
Batgirl Girlfrenzy One-shot (1997)
Batgirl Special One-shot (The Last Batgirl Story) (1988)
Batman Son of the Demon (1987)
Batman bride of the Demon (1990)
Batman Birth of the Demon (1993)
Batman The Cult (1988)
Batman The Killing Joke (1988)
Batman Arkham Asylum (1989)
So I figured I'd make a thread to share some of my thoughts as I go and perhaps get some recommendations if I miss anything important.
Two of my favoourite books that I hadn't previously read were Robin Year One & Batgirl Year One (Killer Moth almost lends the comic a Venture Bros type feel). Just great stories (my only criticism would be that Batgirl is a bit heavy on the foreshadowing) with likeable characters and wonderful art. I've seen people argue that it's hard to pull off a young live action Robin who isn't Damian because it makes Batman seem irresponsible and unrelatable (Frank Miller's All-Star Batman & Robin is a good example of that) but Robin Year One would be a great blueprint for a comic-accurate adaptation of the character.
Anyway, I really loved the Robin and Batgirl books and I wish there were more modern retellings set in that era. Especially regarding Batgirl. As you can see I tried to read the modern Batgirl stories that take place before The Killing Joke and there were only a handful of one-shots (and none of them were particularly good imo). It was a bummer to go from Batgirl Year One to the Killing Joke.
Nightwing Year One was okay but a marked step down from the Robin and Batgirl books both in terms of story and art. Batman comes off as a bit of jerk to put it mildly. The story makes the mistakes that Robin Year One managed to avoid which is odd because both books are written by the same writer.
I have to also give a shout-out to Matt Wagner's Monster Men & The Mad Monk stories. Once again, great artwork (Dave Stewart's colors really enhance Wagner's drawings) and it gives off the same sort of vibe as Batman Begins (to this day my favourite Batman movie).
In contrast, Journey Into Knight which I read right after The Mad Monk & The Man Who Laughs was godawful. It was honestly tough to finish. The writer (an editor at DC at the time, I checked) decided to take the Wayne Enterprise corporate story and the love interest from Bruce's childhood story from Batman Begins (both came out in 2005) and stretch it to the limit while throwing in some truly meh original baddies. The Wayne Enterprise execs were also cartoonishly evil. And the artwork is the worst I've come across so far (lifeless backgrounds, hilarious faces).
Another really bad comic was Batman/Catwoman Trail of the Gun by Anne Nocenti (I know she had a Catwoman run during the New 52). It's only worth reading for the hyper-detailed art by Ehtan van Sciver (too bad he's just the worst in real life). This is not so much a story as it is the author ranting about gun violence and lack of gun control laws. Every character that Catwoman or Batman come across immediately launches into a big speech about guns over and over and over again. Maybe this was novel when the book first came out but reading it now it's just all your regular talking points regurgitated by characters on the page. I'm anti-guns (European over here) but I just couldn't take it.
As for the rest, I'm glad I read them but I don't think I would read most of them again. Take the Legends of the Dark Knight and Ra's Al Ghul books, for example. The Ra's stories all felt very outdated (even the ones written in the late 80s and early 90s). Ra's and Talia are mostly ill-defnied as are their schemes. In terms of quality there's not a lot of difference between the Tales of the Demon stories and the Son/Bride of the Demon, which is surprising. I was kind of taken aback by the fact that Ra's is portrayed as more of a bond villain with high tech bases and technology as opposed to a mystical character. Birth of the Demon was the best story and seemed to go more towards a mystical direction though (and the book is worth it for the art alone).
Out of the Legends of the Dark Knight stories my favourite was Shaman, which serves as a pretty neat companion piece to Year One. Gotham feels very lived in and real, there are pages in that book that look fantastic. Venom was the worst one. It was neat to see the origin of the drug Bane will use later on (or so I'm told) but the story itself is lackluster and often unintenioally comical (Batman goes roid crazy).
Something that I also quickly realized during my read-through is that these year one stories really don't work that well together in terms of continuity. The Hugo Strange in Prey & Terror is a completely different character from the one we meet in Monster Men (I guess we have Zero Hour and Infintie Crisis to thank for that) and the two versions really can't co-exist. I also read the 2021 Long Halloween Special by Loeb & Sale and it flies in the face of what happened in Robin & Batgirl Year One. The special was a nice coda to Long Halloween and Dark Victory though.
If someone came asking me for an essential early Batman book list then I think I'd tell them to read
1. Batman Year One
2. Batman The Man Who Laughs (the book has a lot of energy)
3. Batman The Long Halloween (the Loeb & Sale books are all still very good imo and the art keeps getting better with each book)
4. Batman Dark Victory
5. Catwoman When in Rome
6. The Batman Chronicles The Gauntlet
7. Robin Year One
8. Batgirl Year One
I guess you could throw in books like Shaman and Monster Men/The Mad Monk but they're not really essential.
P.S. I forgot Batman The Cult. I don't know if this was the inspiration for Nolan's The Dark Knight Rises but it sure feels like it. I also never knew I wanted to see Batman and Robin assaulting Gotham in a monster truck Batmobile but here it is. Some absolutely stunning pages. Felt like it needed to be longer though, the Frank Miller-style TV broadcasts do a lot of heavy lifting.