Where does the doug moench/kelley jones run of batman (515-552) stand in the pantheon of batman runs...

where does the doug moench/kelley jones run of batman (515-552) stand in the pantheon of batman runs? I'm liking the short nature of the stories so far, and the artwork is fantastic.

Come on OP, you know better than that. No one here reads comics.

What is this grimdark and edgy thrash? Thank God Johns saved us from the terrible 90s.

>I'm liking the short nature of the stories so far
Ah those were the days.

>That scene with the ping-pong ball

The whole story was just all sorts of awesome to be frank.

all of milligan's batman stories are bizarre as fuck

Not as bizarre as Ostrander's though

>Kelley Jones
>fantastic art
Nigga please. Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's good. Read "Gotham after Midnight", it's the funniest shit I've ever seen put on paper.

haven't read ostrander's but milligan came up with a murderous librarian who organized his victims by the dewey decimal system and stitched them into leather jackets with the system numbers on them

>implying Red Rain isn't one of the best looking Batman books ever
I'd hate to be as much of a pleb as you

its fantastic for batman, especially this particular era coming off of the tim burton movies and evoking that same sensibility with a horror movie/occult vibe to it. I wouldn't want kelley jones on say, superman but in this instance its great

Jesus christ Sup Forums has terrible taste.

>Just because it's different, doesn't mean it's good

Much like your taste

He ranks pretty high, below Alan Grant in my opinion. This era certainly trumps over anything released after 2011.

Moench is a pretty good Batman writer. But I actually feel like his return to the book in the 90's was one of the weakest eras of Batman.

Granted it's not really his fault, because that era of Batman was a mess overall. You had Moench on Batman, Dixon on Detective, and Alan Grant on Shadow of the Bat, all great writers on their own, but they were CONSTANTLY being forced into these big crossovers. All of them were only able to tell their own stories except in the tiny spaces between the crossovers.

The most common complaint we get here about Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightsend and Prodigal is that like 90% of it is just meandering fluff.

And then you had Tim Drake getting shoved into everything despite being a lame character and Dick being made into budget Daredevil. Now, I LOVE both the Robin book and Dixon's Nightwing, but man are the ideas behind them uncreative. Characters introduced in the late 90's were much better.

I can't imagine the Knightfall covers drawn by anyone other than him.

is brubaker/rucka late 90s? Because I really loved their stuff

Yup. Of course, there were big shitty crossovers then, too, but usually it was like No Man's Land where it was just a big setting change and each writer was allowed to tell stories within this setting, while the main thread of the NML story was just in Batman.

I...I want to know more

It's fucking weird. There's a serial killer on the loose basing all of his murders on a Batman comic book, but is he copying the comic book or the comic book is copying him? The art's all kinds of bizarre too.

Crossovers back then also didn't involve every fucking DC comic book out there. You didn't see the Green Lantern Corps special No Man's Land issue or whatnot.

they literally did though, every single year

bloodlines, invasion and a shitload others

I know I'm in the minority here but I can't stand Kelley Jones's art on Batman.

It's an acquired taste. I didn't like it much back in the day either.

It's more so than just his characters that brings me to it. I appreciate the way he approaches composition and page layout. Artists who use white space in between panels and varied panel size to help tell the story.

Much like Tim Sale's work on Challengers. When the explosion happens and the panels all shatter across the pages.

I feel like we see some of it now but since digital art has largely left the standard panel sheet behind it doesn't stick out as much when a page is breaking that format.

Yeah Grant on Detective, Batman, and Shadow of the Bat is my favorite Batman writer. Especially everything with Norm Breyfogle on art

Sadly DC only put out one collection for both Moench/Jones and Grant/Breyfogle, half of both of their runs are uncollected, but at least Shadow of the Bat is getting trades.

>Especially everything with Norm Breyfogle on art
MY NIGGA

Both of you are mah niggas now

It's okay, has great weirdness to it thanks to Kelley's art. But Dixon was way more interesting and consistent during this period, especially over at Robin.

I still read the Grant/Breyfogle run every now and then.

This was my favorite story arc.

Robin had way more going for it than anything Nightwing ever managed to come up with. Nightwing is literally wasted potential: the book under Dixon, where as Tim had a lot of intrigue shit going on, be it with his girlfriend (great way to once again make your protagonist look gay, Chuck) and his room mate, or his relationship with Spoiler (along with her pregnancy).

And you know, I find it kinda amazing how good most of those tie-ins to events were. Final Night and Underworld Unleashed ones being my personal favorites.

Rucka was definitely late 90's because he joined during No Man's Land. But Brubaker didn't start writing mainstream superheroes, much less Batman, till post-NML, which was in 2000.

Bloodlines and Eclipso: The Darkness Within and Armageddon 2001 were linewide crossovers but restricted to the Annuals.

Dixon's Robin book was pretty great with him and Shiva taking on the Snake King. Even before that, with Tim helping Batman defeat the Scarecrow and Anarky, those were pretty good times as well.

I picked up the back issues of the Spirit of the Beast arc. I would break the no kill rule for more batman like that.