What was the worst ever era of Batman comics?

IMO it was at the start of the New 52. The Dark Knight, 'Tec, Catwoman and RHatO were literal trash, Batgirl and Nightwing was 2edgy4me, while Birds of Prey was just bland.
While I have my problems with Snyder, I still enjoyed Court of Owls.
The only genuinely good book was Batman and Robin.

Was the New 52 era of Batman Inc part of the start of New 52 or was that later? Because that was a good book too.

First one wasn't but the two that followed were

IIRC it started like half a year after the New 52 began, that's why I didn't include it
But yeah, that was fun

The 50's and 60's are FAR worse dreck than the New 52.

That takes second place though, which is actually pretty surprising. Batman has been legitimately consistent in good quality all the way from Denny O'Neil in the 70's up to Morrison. Morrison is essentially the finale of Batman anyway.

It honestly feels weird to have the Bat-mythos irreversibly corrupted for the first time in many decades. All of Snyder's new sidekicks are permanent additions to the mythos, and they're all really fucking terrible. Court of Owls is the only halfway decent thing he did for the mythos.

I'm genuinely disappointed that Batman's average quality streak has finally been broken. But thankfully we got Morrison so give us the best Batman endgame possible in the form of Inc.

>Morrison is essentially the finale of Batman anyway.

Go fuck yourself.

Pre-Neal Adams/Dennis O'Neil Batman had some pretty rough times, mostly in the 50s.

>Morrison is essentially the finale of Batman anyway.
If by that you mean he ruined the character for everyone else, and comics until nowadays haven't been able to completely shake off his Batgod and Super-Joker bullshit, then yes.

I think the early 2000's were another low point.

What are the essential O'Neil Batman stories? I'm about to read his Question run, wouldn't mind reading Batman next.

>morrison created batgod and superjoker

nigga are you serious

Yeah but not too bad. There was some good stuff in the post-No Man's Land era, but the events like War Games and shit weren't very good.

The 50's and 60's aren't as overtly campy as people imagine it to be. Yeah there was some kooky alien stuff, but you know what else there was? Batman discovering his parent' murder was a planned hit. It didn't go for camp except for a brief period durring the tV show. Ridiculous elements were just played straight otherwise.

Saga of Ra's Al Ghul

How early are we talking? Because Gotham Central was 02 and that was some good shit.

>nigga are you serious

He didn't create those things, but he did take those trends to their illogical conclusions.

No one said anything about camp. Camp is great. Consistently terrible writing is not. There's a reason Batman was on the verge of cancellation before the TV show revived it.

Fair enough, but the good he did far outweighed the bad imo.

His B&R and Batman Inc. are the conclusion to Batman for me. Snyder is just fanfiction.

>It honestly feels weird to have the Bat-mythos irreversibly corrupted for the first time in many decades.

FUCKING THIS!
you know what really bugged me?
seeing pre-flashpoint Batman and the assorted characters in Convergence.
I thought they were just folded into the N52 continuity, but no, the characters I grew up reading about had to be reduced to props in the shittiest fucking event ever.
goddamn, what a shitfest that was.

Hey I just finished reading OPs image currently collecting all of Morrison Batman run, also just bought Nameless

You are in for a ride, user (if you haven't read it yet)
Wish I could erase my mind and experience it again
It was so fucking fun speculating about whats gonna happen during the whole Morrison era

2nd Morrison run.

>Morrison is essentially the finale of Batman anyway.

I completely agree. I still keep up with Batman and All Star now but really the end of Morrison's run felt like the definitive Batman story for me.

Except he claimed Batman was some sort of Jesus figure and had him kill Darkseid, and he's the one that started the whole "super sanity" bullshit. And, if I don't remember wrong, he was also the one that started the whole "Batman has a way to defeat every other member of the JL" thing.
Batman was still pretty much street level before Morrison, and has never returned to be the same after he left.

>and had him kill Darkseid,
why does everyone keep saying this? Darkseid didn't die in final crisis when batman shot him, he died when Superman used the life equation song on him. Batman's bullet just weakened him
>And, if I don't remember wrong, he was also the one that started the whole "Batman has a way to defeat every other member of the JL" thing.
that was Mark Waid i think

Honestly Snyders Batman run wasn't terrible but retreaded a lot of Morrison stuff and built a shitty new myth is of secret histories with villains being cranked up in the edge factor plus him and tynion god awful eternal series's but for all it faults it did have some good parts like the art being consistently great and the stories were at least like actions movies

>that was Mark Waid i think
Wasn't it Tower of Babel? That was Morrison. Maybe it was set up earlier though.

Tower of Babel is from Waid's run right after Morrison's, ya dingus.

Must've gotten them mixed up because of Howard Porter then.

>hates the silver age because le wacky XD

Why do I have to share a board with faggots like you?

Hey fuck you RHatO was alright

Morrison created Batgod you pleb. As for the joker that user is retarded. Also Batgod is fantastic. But of course most batman haters have no idea what Batgod is

Waid wrote babel, but that is prep time batman, not Batgod, different interpretations. Batgod is Batgod when he defeats the white Martians or turns prometheus into a vegetable

Pretty sure Morrison came back for Tower of Babel and World War IIIA

Snyder's run no question. It not only shit all over the Bat mythos with stupid secret history twist but it also made a bunch of new readers think Batman should be an edgy autistic guy that hates his family.

Snyder was just Morrison's greatest hits

>As for the joker that user is retarded
But it was Morrison who started the whole super-sanity bullshit.

No. Morrison never set up any of his arcs on BATMANS SECRET HISTORY. The only thing that came remotely close was Hurt and that was just a distant relative.

Not that user but Silver Age has downright awful writing that can be funny to read from time to time, but 90% of it was just fucking garbage.
Some of the art was pretty great though.

To put a bit of positivity, what do you think were the *best* bat eras?

1. 2009-2011
>Morrison B&R
>Batman Inc
>Batwoman Elegy
>Dini 'Tec
>Sirens
>Streets of Gotham
>Stephgirl
2.1988-1993
>Killing Joke
>Arkham Asylum
>Grant/Breyfogle
>Knightfall
>Legends of the Dark Knight
>BTAS
>Burton movies
3.2015-2016
>Grayson
>Robin: SOB
>Valentine Catwoman
>Gotham Academy

He cameback, but babel wasn't his, babel is a good idea and a terrible execution because Waid lacked the time to came out with good plans. He wanted to tell the story so much that rushed it.

Are you hurt, Snyderbaby?

Why do people blame the source for others lack of imagination? The fault lies in later writers not being good enough to leave their own mark. Its not like Morrison's run sold that well.

>Waid wrote babel, but that is prep time batman, not Batgod, different interpretations. Batgod is Batgod when he defeats the white Martians or turns prometheus into a vegetable

seriously, user, what are you talking about?
it was specifically mentioned that batman only beat prometheus because he tweaked his helmet while it was in the jla's possession. how is that not preptime?
and the white martian thing has been talked to death: the martians were afraid of the fire, didn't search the batplane, batman realized their secret, and he only took them down because they were arrogant as fuck.
20 years later, I still fail to see how it is batgod.

And? No other writer has done anything with that. Super joker just implies that you are mad that joker is popular and is not just a normal person, the character has always been exceptional, for fucks sake it recovered from being dead and from a lobotomy on its first year as a villian.

We also got Brubaker's Catwoman run and Puckett's Cass. The early 2000s had some good Bat stuff, just not Batman.

Depends. I say the the early 70s were probably the worst. Right up until the O'Neil and Adams era.

It was just in a tailspin of meh then they showed up and the crazy ride began.

I'd rank the early New 52 like third worst period for Batman. Not so much for the character himself, but more to those around him. Yes we got Snyder and Tomasi on two iconic runs of the comic. But we had the awfully forgettable ones of Daniels and Finch.

Dick, Barbara, the Birds, Catwoman, and Tim all got the worse end of the stick when it came to it. Really the only character who was put in a better spot was Jason. Say what you will but Jason became a bigger character in the DCU thanks to RHaTO.

He was just a recurring character in everyone's comics up until that point.

As of now Bruce is in perfect shape while Dick, Jason, Damian, and Kate are the ones who still are consistent

It seems the one character who was really hurt in this era was Barbara, but does anyone even care about her if she utterly fails?

Just replace her with Kate who already has shown to be the superior red-head.

Snyder in no way shape or form is "iconic."

Capullo is iconic. He deserves all the praise for that terribly mediocre run.

Definitely the Morrison-Dini era from about 2007 to the New 52
Id add Red Robin and Black Mirror to your list
I still cant believe that Snyder wrote one of my favorite Batman comics ever on the first try, but hasn't done anything even remotely that good since then.
How the fuck does this happen?

>Depends. I say the the early 70s were probably the worst. Right up until the O'Neil and Adams era.

So like a year?

He can't write Bruce. He should never have been put on Bruce. He didn't want to be put on Bruce. Anything he writes with Bruce that is remotely enjoyable, he writes him like Dick.

Yeah the state of the Batfamily now is leagues better than the start of the New 52, that's for sure. As you said, all the classic characters have essentially come back to at least an acceptable point. Steph, Cass, and Kate could be doing better but at least the first two exist again and Kate's certainly doing better than getting raped by a vampire like she was a couple years ago. Plus the Harper push seems to be more or less over as she gets quietly pushed aside. As long as the Duke push fizzles out the same way, things will be fine.

His Question run is absolutely fantastic, enjoy!

What's hilarious is Duke under King is actually good. He's a protege of Batman that actually listens for once. It's funny that Snyder can't even write his own OC well.

Do you even know what Batgod is? Let me tell you a secret, batgod isn't an insult is an interpretation of the character that Morrison started in the 90's. The ultimate human, the ultimate mortal hero drinking from mythology where a man could beat a God, Batgod doesn't mean OP, or batwank, retarded Casuals that hate batman mix up all that shit, Batgod was born in Morrison JLA. Prep time batman goes as far back as the 50s with the bat belt, Adam West and Frank Miller batman are equally prep time batman, but non are Batgod.

Cass seems to be in the best boat besides Kate. She's got two subplots going on that are better (friendship with based Basil/Ra's has her mom than Stephanie's one which is being a hypocritical bitch.

I still the Court of Owls is really good, even if it's fairly derivative of RIP

Late 80s to early 90s even had Milligan's short run, Ostrander's Gotham Nights and an arc on tec, Sam Hamm's guest arc.

>What's hilarious is Duke under King is actually good.
That's because King turned Duke into black Tim.

I don't get the hate on Batman from Morrison's JLA. It only comes from people who haven't ever touched that book in their life and are just talking shit some panels they saw posted around. Morrison made every Superhero overtly competent, not just Batman.

Did anyone like Jim Starlin Batman?

It still had DCAU tie ins, Gotham Central and City of crime.

I liked The Cult, but that's the only Batman I've read by him.

Starlin can be good, but not consistent. the fir 3/4 of DitF and The Cult are great, but his run has a bunch of mediocrity.

>2.1988-1993
I'd actually might even stretch that one longer and say that up until the end of No Man's Land, with its up and downs, it was the best era for Batman and the whole Bat-family.

>Why do people blame the source for others lack of imagination?
While I do agree that Morrison isn't to blame for Snyder's shit, I don't even like Morrison's run either. I think he's just tone deaf and can only write one type of superheroes, and Batman isn't one of them. I honestly find it hard to understand why anybody considers his version as the ultimate Batman portrayal, when he takes him as far away from what Batman had been for years, and what set him apart of other heroes.

>City of crime.
I don't understand why Sup Forums raves about this so much. I read it and it's pretty good but nothing to write home about.

Eh not really. He's not really doing too much technology related or detective stuff. Under King he is really just an eager protege ready to learn but not one who disobeys. It's kind of refreshing after all the other Robin's being so stubborn to have one that actually listens.

>I'd actually might even stretch that one longer and say that up until the end of No Man's Land, with its up and downs
I was hesitant to just throw in the whole 90s because while TLH and NML are great, there's a big gulf in the middle there with pretty much nothing and also a lot of mediocre Dixon.

I unironically love Ten Nights of the Beast

I'm not mad that Joker is popular, I just don't like that he's just "The Clown Prince of Crime" anymore and he's some sort of super-intellect criminal mastermind spewing a bunch of philosophical/psychoanalitical bullshit to justify his actions.

The hate comes from people that already dislike batman, batman has more acclaimed stories and is more popular than their favorite Cape so if batman isn't as weak and useless as they want it to be they get mad.

>he's some sort of super-intellect criminal mastermind spewing a bunch of philosophical/psychoanalitical bullshit to justify his actions.

you can also blame The Dark Knight movie for that

Yeah, but even considering those slumps, I'd say it's still the best era for Batman.

I've never been a big fan of Morrison's JLA because it just never felt special to me. It has the problem that most team books have in that the focus is spread so thin across the different characters than you never get anyone developed really well.

I don't believe so. This comes from long before The Dark Knight movie. And in that movie, as much as edgelords have come to take him as a hero, he's shown as a hypocrite and doesn't have any "super human" mental abilities or any of the sort.

My point is that the dry spell of the mid 90s makes the NML time period and the late 80s/early 90s two distinct eras.

And when exactly he did that? Please tell me when in Morrison run he did that. After AA the next big things the joker got were Harley, Joker's last laugh, and emperor joker, thats it. Did Snyder had him doing that shit?

Seriously fuck off, you are taking the joker makes more sense bait too seriously.

As I said, he started the whole super-sanity thing and then you have his arc in Morrison's Batman & Robin which is more of that bullshit.

You can't, it hasn't happened in the comics, or the video games, cartoons or even on suicide squad. Outside some Facebook memes I don't get where you guys are getting this shit.

>As I said, he started the whole super-sanity thing
Different user, but I never got the impression that the super-sanity thing was supposed to be the new status quo for Joker. It was a one-time thing that Morrison used as a meta-analysis of the character and his role in the mythos; Snyder was the one who saw the new "scary" Joker and decided that he should always be like that.

>The 50's and 60's are FAR worse dreck than the New 52.
This right here.

Most of Silver Age DC was hot garbage.

And? Please tell me how pretending to be a detective and actually help batman and Robin is some weird philosophical bullshit, or how super sanity is related to that? The whole point to supersanity was to open space for every interpretation of joker to be valid. I don't understand what kind of mental gymnastics you have to do to tie that with TDK

Yes, I know that. Like I said, Snyder's shit writing is only his to blame. All I'm saying is that I never liked Morrison's take on Batman and its mythos, and that he was the starting point of a lot of the bullshit people are doing with Batman now. He's not to blame for other writers taking his stuff, I guess, but the fact that the take on these characters by those other writers suck is because they take it from his stuff, which sucks too.

And just in case it's necessary to make this clear, it's my opinion. I'm not trying to say nobody should like Morrison. I just don't get why so many people hate the current status-quo of Batman and love Morrison's, when they're basically the same.

I like this batman because he didn't have that stupid unbreakable no kill rule.

I liked The Cult and Death in the Family.

I didn't tie it with TDK, I actually said that TDK wasn't a Morrison-like take on the character.

And check this page, it's from Morrison's B&R.

>Hearing KGBeast was going to be in BvS
>Seeing what they actually meant

The whole movie was one massive disappointment, and that one wasn't an exception.

Pretty much every era since O'Neil has had at least some good shit

70s
>O'Neil/Adams
>Englehart
>Frank Robbins

mid-late 80s
>TDKR
>Year One
>TKJ
>Arkham Asylum
>Grant/Breyfogle

early 90s
>Knightfall
>a bunch of LotDK

late 90s/early 2000s
>TLH
>NML
>Cass Batgirl
>Brubaker Catwoman
>Gotham Central

late 2000s
>Morrison Epic
>Black Mirror
>Elegy
>Dini
>the only good Steph

New 52
>Court of Owls
>Grayson
>Tomasi/Gleason Damian
>Valentine Catwoman
>Gotham Academy

If it makes you feel better, Starlin made more money from that appearance than Drax, Gamora, and Thanos combined from the MCU*

*might no longer be the case with GotG2

I feel happy for Starlin, but it doesn't change how disappointed I was with that (and the rest of the film).

>IMO it was at the start of the New 52. The Dark Knight, 'Tec, Catwoman and RHatO were literal trash, Batgirl and Nightwing was 2edgy4me, while Birds of Prey was just bland.
You named two Batman comics.

The 90s were bad.

90s had Grant/Breyfogle, Legends of the Dark Knight, The Long Halloween, Mad Love, etc. They were a great era for Batman.

Not all Silver Age books are created equal. Silver Age SUPERMAN is fun, Silver Age BATMAN was generally pretty dire. There's a reason Julius Schwartz was brought in to save the book in the early 60s.

Lapham is the best crime comic writer maybe ever

That's a joke.

I care about Babs. But the person currently using the Batgirl name is not Babs.

Black Mirror is definitely iconic, and though it imploded, Court of Owls is very effective.

>What was the worst ever era of Batman comics?
The 90s.
Barring that Batman Inc.

No, it isn't. This is specially obvious when you continue to read that arc, and when you know what Morrison thinks of the Joker.

...

>falling for the "the 90s were all Liefeld" meme

>people saying the 90s

Why don't you just admit you don't read comics? Like, you clearly have no shame so why even lie? Literally what the fuck do you have to gain from saying inane shit like this?

There was a period of time when Hush ended, and Brubaker had written his final issue of Detective Comics when it felt like the Batnooks were meandering along, which ultimately led up to the shitty War Games event.

I can't remember being as disappointed with any period of time reading Batman as during that forgettable debacle. I know Judd Winick gets a lit of shit but it wasn't until he got on Batman and Dini got on Detective when the books finally rebounded.