I have never really read comics but I would like to get into it. Namely Batman comics...

I have never really read comics but I would like to get into it. Namely Batman comics. I have seen all of the Batman movies many times, but I have never really read any comics.
Can you recommend me some good Batman comic series for adults?
By adults, I mean the kind of comic where they can show blood and killing, because the comics aren't targeted at young children.
Thank you kind anons.

Read Batman Earth-One.

Batman: Broken City
Batman: Detective No. 27
Batman: Child of Dreams
Batman: Odyssey
Batman: The Black Glove
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
Nightwing Must Die!
Robin: Son of Batman
Batman: The Black Mirror
Batman: Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader
Batman: The Return of Bruce Wayne

Wait. Do you want gritty Batman or anything goes because he's a psychotic adventurer Batman? And Batman comics as a whole aren't really meant for kids anymore. Though they'd very much like kids to buy them.

My absolute favorite are plot lines which involve time traveling, multiple dimensions, or alternate timelines where good guys are evil and stuff like that.
I remember reading a comic series about evil superman which blew me away, i fucking loved it, it was called something like hyporion

>the kind of comic where they can show blood and killing

You'd be better off picking a different character. They don't really do that shit in superhero comics and ESPECIALLY NOT in Batman.

>some good Batman comic series for adults

No such thing.

Batman Year One
The Long Halloween
Dark Victory
The Killing Joke
The Dark Knight Returns

These are some that are both pretty solid introductions to the character, and also shit that I think you'll probably like.

All Star Batman and Robin

You're welcome

THIS IS A TROLL POST, OP

Evil Superman:

The Mighty
Squadron Supreme (Original)
The Boys
Supergod
Irredeemable
Injustice 1 & 2
Invincible
Kingdom Come
JLA: Earth-2
Forever Evil
The Sentry/Sentry Reborn/Age of the Sentry

Please stop.

Batman is pretty much the worst thing in comics. Try... Anything else. Anything at all.

...

we don't want any new comic fans, just let cape comics die in peace

>Batman is pretty much the worst thing in comics
Care to back up this accusation?

It depends on what you are interested and what could you tolerate, for example maybe you feel stories including Superman and Justice League are pretty stupid.

However since you liked the films Long Halloween, The man who laughs, Gotham Central, Dark Victory.

Modern comics...Batman vol1 by Scott Snyder, Death of the family by Snyder and I liked The dark prince charming last month, the art is cool and was similar to the games.

Best starting points for newbies are often said to be:

Batman Year One (Batman Begins)
Batman the Man who Falls (Batman Begins)
Batman the Man who Laughs (Batman 89)
Batman the Long Halloween (The Dark Knight)
Arkham Asylum: a Serious House on Serious Earth
The Killing Joke (Batman 89)
Son of the Demon (Batman Begins)
Knightfall (Dark Knight Rises)
Mad Love (Suicide Squad/its a little cartoony but fuck you, its good)
The Dark Knight Returns (Dark Knight Rises/BVS)

Batman Year One
The Long Halloween & Dark Victory (two books)
...basically this , though personally I find the Killing Joke is overrated.

This too. I personally have a soft spot for this Batman.

I'll throw in Azarello's 'Joker' for a bloody and grim story following a henchman.

So's the OP, what do you care?

>From 'Joker'.

>The Killing Joke is overrated
>Recommends Long Halloween and that fucking Azzarello abomination

Quit your bitchin, all three are good

More important than seeing the movies, OP, which of the Batman cartoons have you seen? I know you grew up with at least one, and they usually hew closer to the comic books ("blood and killing" aside), so if you can remember your favorite episodes or villains from that, it would really help make recommendations.

>Sup Forums tourists
>Old enough to have grown up with Batman cartoons

Dude, BTAS first ran from 1992 to 1999, and then was reran for ANOTHER decade between various cable channels, and that's not even mentioning Batman Beyond, Justice League or the DTV movies that still came out in the 2000s.

The Batman ran from 2004 to 2008, BaTB ran from 2008 to 2011, Beware the Batman ran for all of five minutes in 2013... unless you're five fuckin' years old, you had at LEAST one Batman cartoon growing up.

Azarello's Joker was a bad story, a couple of good "scenes" but that was, good art I think

>too young to know what is a good cartoon.

Seriously just because comics aren't so popular as the cartoons it doesn't mean they were bad in fact my recommendation for somebody don't know the characters enough is to watch BTAS, a fast brief of the characters with some really good stories.

The only battoon that aired in my country was pic related

as for my favorite plots it's this So things where for example batman goes to another dimension where like nazis taken over or some shit and meets the desperate superheroes there or other corss over things (but only if they are well done)

>Killing Joke is overrated
Killing Joke is objectively THE best Joker story and if you think otherwise you're retarded.

After reding the killing joke i was like
>that was it? .. really?
what a piece of overhyped shit
that story is so fucking mediocre, but it is great fir weeding out brainlets who just parrot opinions of other people and because they heard that killing joke is good, they think it is and brainlessly repeat it
i feel pity for such people
i feel pity for you.

I dunno how to tell you this, but policing the multiverse isn't really Batman's wheelhouse.

There's an event that's going on right now, METAL, about evil alternate versions of Batman forming an Anti-Justice League, but I'll be real, I haven't followed that since it's largely a ploy to get Batman readers to buy non-Batman books, and if I'M confused by which tie-ins to read in which order, you definitely will be.

For real though, what kind of stories do you actually enjoy? Not "I like stories in this setting or with this trope", but what are they actually ABOUT? Usually alternate dimensions and shit are just vehicles for characters to learn something about themselves, like "there but for the grace of God go I"

basically situation where the batman is put into some really desperate situations where he basically stands alone against the entire world
one comic series i did read which had batman was the gods and monsters and i really like that one

Legends of the Dark Knight is essentially Batman by Vertigo

>he doesn't get the subtext
>he didnt read pre kj joker
>he doesn't know what a fucking game changer that book was
> he doesn't reread every year or so and find new nuances in the art you missed out on before

Look up the Joker from the Adam West show. Before the Killing Joke, that was an accurate adaptation of the character. The killing joke invented the Joker as you know it and every version of the character besides brave and the bold is based on that book. It didnt seem impressive to you because ever Joker story since then has been trying to capture or surpass that book, so now it seems quaint to casuals.

I had a similar reaction when I first read TKJ years ago. It isn't the deepest story ever, Alan Moore is the first to admit this, but it does grow on you.

Disregard Jokerfags who suck his traumatized pasty white cock.

Disregard Babsfags who still won't let it go.

Disregard the fact that hacks tried to canonize the comedian backstory by retconning it into the pages of Gotham Knight (and also missing the point completely by having Jack's wife's death not be a freak accident)

Disregard the "ZOMG Batman totally killed the Joker" fantheory, YES I know Morrison mentioned it, but the actual artist who worked on it said "Naw."

Disregard the animated adaptation that completely misunderstands everything.

And ESPECIALLY disregard the shitty digital recoloring that DC has pushed everywhere at the expense of the original.

The Killing Joke holds up fine on its own merits, it's just so overhyped its become a magnet for much bullshit.

>>Batman is pretty much the worst thing in comics

Fuck you. Just because you don't like Batman doesn't mean you get to compare it to dregs like Bomb Queen or Marville.

not really, the story wasn't special at all, the ending was great and the idea wasn't so bad but the execution even made me laugh, do you remember how his wife died? It was kind of funny instead of dramatic or common.

The killing Joke was the first comic I read years ago though I read many mangas and novels before and I was disappointed. They even put 80's foolish stuff, kind of sado stuff as a terror element or something like that. Good beginning and ending but a very bad story

You're half-right, in that The Killing Joke did become SUPER-influential, but you're disregarding all the other influential Joker stories that came out after the Adam West show but before TKJ.

It's just a pet peeve of mine when people act as though there was an unbroken era of goofy campiness until the late 80s suddenly got gritty and grimdark, when really it was just building on the Batman of the 70s. Denny O'Neil made The Joker kill again, and talk about how he sees his and Batman's relationship as a big game. Yes, Joker got even grittier after TKJ, but it was a gradual change, just like Batman gradually got more and more swole and more and more serious through the Bronze Age, it wasn't just a sudden sea change from square, straight-man Adam West-ian Batman to post-Crisis, Miller-infused Batman. There was a solid TWENTY YEARS between WestBats and MillerBats.

Yeah I always forget about the bronze age.

overall it wasn't so a good story, it's just that TKJ was the first story dealing with Joker's origin so it got famous though it wasn't a masterwork but the writing was dull

>do you remember how his wife died? It was kind of funny instead of dramatic or common.
That's the joke.

That's.
Literally.
The.
Joke.

It's a hilariously, ironically cruel act of happenstance. It's supposed to be funny. It's the fucking linchpin of the whole story, that insanity is a "safety net" you can fall into when life falls apart, that to the Joker, cutting off all emotions except a dark sense of humor is the only way to cope with a world that's random and chaotic, and Gordon and Batman trying to prove that their way is better. I mean, Gordon being ridden naked by a midget with a riding crop is "kind of funny instead of dramatic or common" too. That's the point. Traumatic, horrible shit can be funny, and the story is trying to make you CONSIDER the Joker's POV, if not side with it. That's why they expect you to feel sympathy for him in the end, even after all the horrible things he did - he's fundamentally broken, and if his wife's death were any less outrageous, it wouldn't have worked. He only became the Joker because he took the job, and he only took the job to feed his wife and kid, and his wife died testing a bottle-warmer TO feed said kid literally hours before the job. It's all about how the Joker's mind perceives tragedy as comedy, because that's how he coped with his nervous breakdown. The chemicals and shit is all secondary to that.

I always interpreted it as the gansters killed her to insure he didnt back out of the job and just told the joker that, ultimately saying that the jokers worldview is flawed from the start and hes just blaming everyone else for his own mistakes.

How, may I ask? It's only the single mot influential era, to everything from BTAS, Batman '89, Batman Begins (O'Neil INVENTED 'Bruce training in Tibet' flashbacks), the VAST majority of Batman comic writers since then and even the video games all pay homage to that era.

You think Catwoman was ever really morally ambiguous before O'Neil? No, she was only redeemed because having a sexy lady thief was too racy for the CCA era, the "thief with a heart of gold' is all O'Neil.

Even the 90s, the OTHER fan-favorite period, was effectively just a continuation/evolution of the Bronze Age for Batman, because Denny O'Neil was the group editor for that family and made sure everything stayed consistent within his idea of what Batman is and how he works. And that's why, if you're born after 1980, and you think bout what's the "true" Batman? You're prrrrobably thinking about Denny O'Neil's version of Batman, whether you know it or not.

That's the retarded retcon that hack writers tried to force in, and I hate it because why would they think killing her would make him LESS likely to back out? He told them the WHOLE REASON he was doing the job was for her, if they were just going to pressure him into the job by threatening to kill HIM (which they do), it doesn't make sense to remove his one motivation to actually go through with it.

It's worse than Marville or Bomb Queen or even fucking America.

It's a cancer that has mostly consumed DC and just leads to fucking stacks of nearly identical books with bullshit Batgod nonsense.
You don't see it because you like it, but it's so fucking bad for comics, just like the X-Plosion was.

Provably because in my 2 shelves worth collection of bat comics, the only bronze age I have is son of the demon.

>it's just that TKJ was the first story dealing with Joker's origin
...I really don't know why I talk to you people.

Ya'll at least used to read Wikipedia articles to pretend like you knew shit, but I guess those are all TL,DR to this generation.

Maybe they thought that he would back out because it was dangerous and didnt want to leave his wife a widow and orphan his kid when they were already struggling with money.

Again, even if you haven't read Bronze Age Batman comics, you should at least be familiar with them by reputation.

The ONLY people I can forgive for thinking "WHOAH Batman suddenly got hardcore in 1986!" are normies who saw the '60s show and then caught a glimpse of Year One at the newstand. If you're a self-described fan, you should be ashamed for not studying the character's history more. Or at least lurk more before you say shit.

I don't care. I still spelled out all the reasons why Joker's wife dying to a freak accident so bizarre it's actually kinda funny is the fucking CRUX OF HIS ENTIRE CHARACTER ARC in TKJ, if you don't get then I pity you.

Dont have to get hostile. I know what the bronze age is. I just haven't read most of it. I know it's the era of slightly darker stuff like jokers 5 way revenge and hard traveling heroes. Its the period where the comic code was made obsolete. Its where Ras and Manbat come from. I meant that i tend to forget about that era simply because i haven't read much from it. Im not saying it not important.

>basically situation where the batman is put into some really desperate situations where he basically stands alone against the entire world
Read The Dark Knight Returns, it's the ur-example of that kinda story.

>Read The Dark Knight Returns
I already saw it as an animated movie and absolutely loved it, but since i know that story well it wouldn't be that interesting to read it again in writting

Fair enough. Sorry for taking it so personal, it's just the one topic that really pushes my "GET OFF MY LAWN" button.

>I pity you
Stop saying that, its cringy.

All that still works because the joker believes that it's true. To him, it validates that the world is random and cruel.
Saying that the mobsters lied about the accident would add another layer of irony. The joke is on him, the world isn't so random after all. He made a bad desicion and he got punished for it. Its a way for the story to say, the joker is in the wrong here. He went supervillian for no reason, isnt it funny? What a joke.

Also, why the fuck would the mobster come by his apartment to find the bodies? They were just in the neighborhood? Seems (shell)fishy to me.

You font have to but thanks for apologizing. You dont get that often on this site. Its all good.

*dont

Fucking phoneposting sucks

>since i know that story well it wouldn't be that interesting to read it again in writting
...except that the animated adaptation leaves out, like, 80% of what's on the page because it made the bone-headed decision to remove Bruce's film-noir style inner monologue.

There are also lots of little changes, from removing Batman's last words to Harvey Dent, to leaving out pages like this, which while they don't move the "plot" ahead, that's not what the book's about. It's about atmosphere, emotion, the city, its people, and how Batman's influence affects them.

I could talk for ages about TDKR, hell even after reading it a dozen times I can go back and find something new to appreciate, so you really owe it to yourself to try it out. Hell, I GUARANTEE your local library has a copy.

>>You don't see it because you like it

I don't even read any Batman ongoings right now. I just have enough sense to understand the difference beteen mediocre comics with an iota of craft and genuine trash.

>That was the joke

the joke was how bad the writer delivered here cause honestly it didn't seem a joke and about the irony there weren't irony. It wasn't ironic it was just stupid so bad that it was funny

>"the writer"
Do you not know who Alan fucking Moore is?

could you feel better if I had said "the first long story, GN dealing with his origin? besides an old short story meant little for the people reading at that time

>Ya'll at least used to read Wikipedia articles to pretend like you knew shit, but I guess those are all TL,DR to this generation.

I never said I was old enough to buy TKJ when it was new and still that doesn't imply that shitty novel is gonna get better cause it was old.

I'm not fifteen man I can recognize a shitty writing when I see it.

of course I know and still It was shit

>Take job specifically to care for wife and baby
>Both die in freak baby bottle warmer accident, have to carry out the job anyway
It's like RAY-HUH-YAAAAAAAAAAAAIN on your wedding day~

Think about the way she died and yeah it was funny cause it was ridiculous though the writer thought somehow it was ironic but it wasn't anything but dumb.

>the animated adaptation leaves out, like, 80% of what's on the page because it made the bone-headed decision to remove Bruce's film-noir style inner monologue
I actually think this wasn't a bad idea, because the monologue wouldn't work in a movie without interfering. They should have just not adapted it, but what we got was as good as it could possibly have been for something based on an incredible work like DKR.

>I actually think this wasn't a bad idea, because the monologue wouldn't work in a movie without interfering.
You don't know what the fuck you're talking about.

>By adults, I mean the kind of comic where they can show blood and killing

I just don't think they could have done it, like I said it's not an easily adaptable comic.