Ed Brubaker Batman / Detective Comics / Catwoman

[Spork]

I love Brubaker's creator owned stuff, his Captain America run and The Man Who Laughs but I haven't heard much about his other batman work. I am thinking about getting his runs on Batman, Detective Comics and Catwoman on Comixology and was just wondering what the general opinion on those runs is.

[MajorHoy]

I love Brubaker's creator owned stuff, his Captain America run and The Man Who Laughs but I haven't heard much about his other batman work. I am thinking about getting his runs on Batman, Detective Comics and Catwoman on Comixology and was just wondering what the general opinion on those runs is.

I read the first +/- dozen of his Catwoman run and enjoyed that immensely, but I believe there might have been a bit of . . . controversy . . . later on.

[nepenthes]

Grab just the first couple issues of Catwoman and you'll know very quickly whether it's something you're into. Detective the stand-out arc is Dead Reckoning from 777-782 which you can read about here and here. The Batman run i.e around Murderer/Fugitive and that period, I know has its fans but honestly I find this one of the dullest and most tedious stretches of Batman comics ever. The kind of stories he was doing in Batman ultimately found a better home over in Gotham Central, where he absolutely nailed it.

Might be of interest: Ed Brubaker Looks Back On Batman, Part One

[America / Bucky / Russia]

A lot of his Batman run intersected with huge crossover events with other writers and other titles. I thought The Man Who Laughs was alright, but nothing special. The trade paperback release annoyed me too, pairing off the prestige format story with an unrelated one.

As for his Catwoman run, it's well worth a read. DC recently rereleased the series in 3 500 page graphic novels (releasing the previously unreleased final third of his run in trade paperback). Definitely try the first and second volumes (the art is amazing), and if you like it stick through to the third one which features a different style of art.

[Godlike13]

I thought his Catwoman run was great.

[HellHere]

Only tangentally Batman, but Gotham Central is great.

[JBatmanFan05]

Dead Reckoning deserves a tpb IMHO, whether it merits it or not...it's Ed Brubaker. Haven't read it in about 8 or 9 years, but I enjoyed it as far as I remember. Art was a little disappointing, but not a big deal.

It was a fun reworking of the second Two-Face imposter, Paul Sloane....his story. It was typical Brubaker mining a forgotten continuity point and making a good pulp story out of it.

[K. Jones]

It's hard for me to divorce Brubaker's run from Rucka's because of how complimentary they are. Where Rucka's Detective would be telling stories about Gotham we rarely got insight into Batman's head - we just saw him through Sasha's point of view, or from the increasingly present point of view of Gotham's top cops. Meanwhile in Brubaker's book we see through Bruce's point of view, with a dose of Dick Grayson to help us figure out what Batman's going through lately, and it's not just grim stoicism and mystique - he's actually been having a bit of an identity crisis lately. This was the height of "I think Bruce is the mask ..." (which naturally the whole point of Murderer/Fugitive and Nightwing's heavy involvement is to refute).

I really like the selection of "which" villains Brubaker uses. He focuses a lot on hitmen and the kinds of gangsters who hire them (whereas Rucka works a lot more with the classic rogues stepping up their game) and picks foes and foils that will be reflective of Batman's sort of split identity dilemma, or reflect the fatalism, or whatever else he's going through. Which is why Dead Reckoning is such a good end-capper to the Batman stuff, actually. There's also lots of echoes of Englehart and Alan Grant stuff in Brubaker's selections.

[FanboyStranger]

Catwoman is excellent until Paul Gulacy comes on. Paul's a legend, but his style was very jarring in comparison to the aesthetic that preceded it. Also, the Halle Berry movie came out around that time, and they tried to tie that in somewhat.

Detective is good. Batman is pretty good, but hampered by Scott McDaniel art. Depending on your patience for Scott's work, you may feel differently.

[Billy Batson]

Catwoman is excellent until Paul Gulacy comes on. Paul's a legend, but his style was very jarring in comparison to the aesthetic that preceded it.

I agree. Some of Gulacy's facial expressions were horrible, and while Brubaker tied some of the previous plot points before Gulacy came on board, Brubaker didn't seem to care much anymore. Plus some annoying crossover issues.

[MidTierHero]

Catwoman and Gotham Central were very, very good.

Bruce Wayne: Murderer/Fugitive were terrible.

[Dmreyn]

I read the first 2 Catwoman trades a while ago. I picked up the 3rd volume and it's been sitting around for a while. I decided to start reading it the other day on my vacation and it made me remember how much I loved it - I ate through it in a matter of days. Good stuff. Brubaker's Batman is pretty good too. The only major complaints most people have about his runs tend to be when his work was tied into crossovers - Murderer/Fugitive, War Games, etc. Actually though, looking back the War games issues weren't bad when read with Catwoman's previous issues, since it ties up the Cat/Zeiss rivalry.

[EnterDuration]

I'm another fan of "Dead Reckoning," and I didn't really have a problem with the art (I prefer it tp McDaniel) until I read the Brubaker interview. Now I can't help wondering what could have been. Still, I'm going to start rereading that later.

[batnbreakfast]

Grab just the first couple issues of Catwoman and you'll know very quickly whether it's something you're into. Detective the stand-out arc is Dead Reckoning from 777-782 which you can read about here and here. The Batman run i.e around Murderer/Fugitive and that period, I know has its fans but honestly I find this one of the dullest and most tedious stretches of Batman comics ever. The kind of stories he was doing in Batman ultimately found a better home over in Gotham Central, where he absolutely nailed it.

Might be of interest: Ed Brubaker Looks Back On Batman, Part One

Brubaker (& Rucka, too) is forever cemented in my black little heart. I'm a follower (of both) ever since.

[darkseidpwns]

Enjoyed Dead reckoning.
Enjoyed the use of Deadshot.
but that's really about it, the run was mundane and dull,though I wouldn't mind Philo Zeiss making a comeback.

Catwoman was good albeit controversial to many.