Recommend some story arcs

[Metamorphosis]

There's more average than outstanding in the old LotDk. The best stuff is collected for a reason - Gothic, Prey, Going Sane, Monster, Shaman, Dark Legends (the last two need reprints!)

Early 2000's was a bad time for Batman comics. The big event arcs basically go; Murderer/Fugitive, Hush, War Games, Under the Hood and Face the Face. Hush and Hood are the only ones I'd recommend in good conscience, the rest are the definition of dreary and mundane (Hood will also give you a good idea of what the larger War Games arc was like, without you having to endure the whole thing). Then Rucka and Brubaker took the cop stuff they were developing over in Fugitive to a whole other level in Gotham Central, which turned out a hundred times better then any of the main Batman books of the time.

I've read Gothic and Prey as well.

Thanks for the info re: 2000's Batman. I've already read Hush and Face The Face (they were passable), but have never heard anything good EVER about the War Games era. Guess I'm not missing anything there. I could give Gotham Central a try.

Really, I'd like to read the gaps in the Wagner / Grant / Breyfogle run of Detective Comics that I have (I've read a handful like the Ratcatcher arc, great stuff). The back issues are prohibitively expensive and there's no TPB. Anyone know a reason why DC is holding out on reprinting anything Grant / Breyfogle?

[Batman Begins 2005]

Grant Morrison's Batman run: Batman and Son, The Black Glove, R.I.P., Batman Reborn, Batman vs. Robin, Time and the Batman, Batman Must Die, Batman, Incorpated pre New 52 and the two in that time. Love the run.
The Black Mirror, still by far Scott Snyder's best Batman work.
Gotham Central and Batwoman: Elegy. Both as great as people say.

[Metamorphosis]

Grant Morrison's Batman run: Batman and Son, The Black Glove, R.I.P., Batman Reborn, Batman vs. Robin, Time and the Batman, Batman Must Die, Batman, Incorpated pre New 52 and the two in that time. Love the run.
The Black Mirror, still by far Scott Snyder's best Batman work.
Gotham Central and Batwoman: Elegy. Both as great as people say.

I read the entirety of Morrison's Batman run, from Batman and Son to the end of the Nu52 INC.

I didn't love all of it, but I did like most of it. Especially early on (around the time when the Black Glove issues were coming out), I really couldn't wait month to month to see what was going to happen next.