The Definitive Bat Reading List

I put together a list as best I could, but would like input. What are some titles I should add? What should I trim?

The Early Years

>Batman: Year One
>Batman & The Monster Men
>Batman & The Mad Monk
>Batman: The Man Who Laughs
>Batman: Prey
>Batman: Gothic
>Batman: Night Cries
>Batman: The Long Halloween
>Batman: Dark Victory
>Robin/Batgirl: Year One

Bronze Age

>Detective Comics #439: "Night of the Stalker"
>Detective Comics #457: "There is no Hope in Crime Alley"
>Batman #251 "Joker's 5-Way Revenge"
>Batman: Strange Apparitions
>Batman: Tales of The Demon

A Changing Bat-Family

>Nightwing: Year One
>Batman: The Cult
>Batman: The Killing Joke
>Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
>A Death in the Family
>A Lonely Place of Dying
>Batman: Dark Knight, Dark City
>Robin: A Hero Reborn

The Event Era

>Batman: Knightfall Vol 1, 3
>Batman: Cataclysm, Road to No Man's Land, No Man's Land Vol 1-4 (New Edition)

Gotham Rebuilt

>Batman/Huntress: A Cry For Blood
>Birds of Prey #8 "On Wings"
>Batgirl: Vol 1, #1-25
>Batman: Blink
>Catwoman: Selina's Big Score
>Catwoman Vol 3: #1-24
>Catwoman Vol 3: #32 "Only Takes a Night"
>Arkham Asylum: Living Hell
>Batman: Ego
>Gotham Central #1-40
>Batman: Under the Hood
>Batman: Detective
>Batman: Heart of Hush

Morrison Era

>Batman and Son
>Batman: The Black Glove
>Batman R.I.P.
>Batman: Time and the Batman
>Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
>Batman and Robin Vol 1: #1-16
>Streets of Gotham: Hush Money
>Batman: The Black Mirror
>Batwoman: Elegy
>Gotham City Sirens #1-11
>Batgirl Vol 3: #1-24
>Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne
>Batman Incorporated #1-8, Leviathan Strikes

New 52

>Batman: Court of Owls
>Batman and Robin: Born to Kill
>Batman Incorporated #0-13
>Batman & Robin Vol 2: #18 "Requiem"
>Grayson #1-20
>Batman And Robin: The Hunt For Robin, Robin Rises
>Gotham Academy #1-12
>Catwoman Vol 4: #35-#46

Elseworlds/Non-Canon

>The Dark Knight Returns
>Batman: Year 100
>Batman: Lil' Gotham Vol 1

Your whole list looks like a waste of time, to be honest. Here's the only Batcomic you'll ever need.

>including bat family shit

Robin was a mistake

>that Bronze Age section

Fuck off forever pleb

>no Infantino
>minimal O'Neil
>minimal Adams
>minimal Aparo
>minimal Legends of the Dark Knight
>no Colan
>no Haney Brave and the Bold
>no Breyfogle
>no Archie Goodwin

>NO BILL FUCKING FINGER WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU FUCK OFF

>t. nostalgiafag

I bet you'd rather it just be 50℅ bronze and silver age shit. Sorry to tell you most of that doesn't hold up

To include long runs of Batgirl and Catwoman but only a few O'Neil/Adams stories is a joke.

You really should leave Sup Forums forever

>No Year Two

Pleb taste.

Year two is mediocre at best and you know it

>Bronze Age

Batman #218 "The Silent Night of the Batman"

>Elseworlds/Non-Canon

Superman & Batman - World's Funnest

Silver Age Batman was GARBAGE.

The only silver age on that list is some Haney BATB and that's one of the GOAT

Add a Silver Age section with Batman #108 "The Career of Batman Jones". ONLY Silver Age Batman story anyone needs to read.

The original Batman Black & White should be on there.

Add Jeff Loeb's run on Superman/Batman.

It's fun to read from a "man comics were wired" perspective, but aside from that they're pretty bad.

>>Batman: Knightfall Vol 1, 3

This was shit.

Maybe consider ditching all of "The Event Era".

Add ALL of The Batman Adventures v1 including the Annuals, the Holiday Special, and Mad Love.

If you want you can throw on Batman & Robin Adventures v1, but that's optional.

Consider adding all the Loeb/Sale Halloween Special one-shots.

>A Lonely Place of Dying
>Robin: A Hero Reborn
Why the heck these two are considered as definitive Batman stories?

Winnick's and Starlin's shit was much much worse than Snyder's decent stories like zero year. How do they even get a pass? Under the hood and Death in the family were offensively mediocre.

>Under the hood and Death in the family
Whether you like it or not these stories are classic and extremely popular.

>Bronze Age

Add The Laughing Fish and maybe the whole Englehart run.

Not OP but they were influential stories that greatly changed the world of Batman. Plus, there are no other Jason Todd stories worth reading.

this

Wew lad, DITF was the story that changed Batman forever and UtRH (along with, DKR, Hush and COO) is one of the biggest Batman stories.

>no other Jason Todd stories worth reading
.....sure what ever you say.

And btw, Lonely place of dying and Robin: Reborn aren't Jason's stories.

I'd add Robinson and Wagner's stories when they took over the Bat book during 52. Brubaker's Two face story was good, even if the rest of his run was mediocre. City of Crime was great as well. Needs more of LotDK.

Why only Vol 1 of Lil Gotham?

>No other Jason stories worth reading

>Dark Knight: The last crusade
>Barr's run
Speaking of which, Barr's and Davis' short six issue run was great and highly underrated, with a more upbeat dynamic. Contains my favourite Joker story too. Moore's Mortal Clay gets surprisingly overlooked a lot as well, since it was Moore writing a batman story.

>Hating on NML

Batman: Venom?

>no other Jason Todd stories worth reading
LMAO he's the only Robin who his stories are worth the read because they aren't about how great and better than Batman he is.

>there are no other Jason Todd stories worth reading.

I would really love to know how many you've read

>they aren't about how great and better than Batman he is.

what is Red Hood and the Outlaws

I would ask you to give me examples of this, but I know you wouldn't be able to give me even one example. So, I'm not going to even bother.

The entire comic is about Jason trying to prove he doesn't need or want Batman.

"I can do what Batman can never do!"

Him not needing Batman or want him means that he is better than him?

And you do know Jason is adult and have been independent his whole life, right?

and his entire existence revolves around "why won't batman approve of me" or "why won't bruce let me kill people"

better get the goalposts moving, user

...

.......are you for real? How does this prove that he's better than Batman?

Seriously, just stop embarrassing yourself and I will pretend that you didn't say anything.

Christ this was dumb

That's Tynion for you.

So what happened in rebirth that made his quality shoot up so much?

Nothing because his writing as mediocre as ever.

Even if you don't like Tec right now, you can't possibly claim it's as bad as RHatO and teen titans were

shouldn't you be working on your next copypasta review, Tzitzimine

it's decent, not as terrible as Sup Forums insists it is, nor is it mindblowingly amazing like the Reddit circlejerk says.

It's a Rebirth book through and through, decent writing, and worth reading if you're a fan of the characters

I have decided to read RHATO and it wasn't bad. Tynion's arc in it was the worst part of it. And I have never cared about the Teen titans.

And this guy said it best

>Tzitzimine
Oh look, this meme is back.

Also, It's not good to talk badly about your fellow members, CBR dude.

I thought the quality dropped after they ditched the holiday theme

Huh, I forgot that some of it wasn't holiday-themed. Didn't it end with Christmas?

Volume 1 did

There was a new 52 run afterwards

I never got the hype around this. It's a neat premise, but the execution is kind of hamfisted.

Under the Elseworlds section, add in Gotham by Gaslight, The Doom That Came to Gotham, and Red Rain.

Add the Man-Bat saga from Robbins' run to the Bronze Age