What are your Favorite Batman Stories?
A discussion about some of your favorite Batman stories or could just be Batman stories you really enjoyed. Could be anything from comics to movies to TV shows to video games. I'm not a huge avid reader of Batman, but I REALLY enjoyed reading The Long Halloween and I've always appreciated Arkham City's narrative and The Dark Knight certainly is a good film that discuses the nature of Batman and how he can continue to keep Gotham City safe at least in my opinion. That's all I got for now, I plan on getting a few more Batman comics especially the popular ones in the future.
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I haven't read the comics but I watched two animated movies that I absolutely loved. My favourite being the story of Jason Todd (can't remember the name) and then The Son of Batman. I'm a huge Robin fan
my favourite Robin is Tim Drake.
Some of my favorites:
Comics
Animated series
(so many good episodes, so I'll just list my Top 3)
Animated Movies
Live-action
Injustice Gods Amongs Us!
The Dark Knight Returns. This is my favorite version of batman. I suggest you watch the animated movie adaption of 2012 but I guess you can read the comic too
Free goosebumps:
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Probably Under the Red Hood as it's the freshest story in my mind.
I liked 'City of Owls' from the New 52! series. Art is great and the story's surreal, definitely worth a read.
The Killing Joke
Uuugghhh, already getting bored of all the upcoming comments about Dark Knight Returns. Yes kids, we all know Dad and Mom or your older brother told you that´s the best Batman story, spoiler alert, that´s not a Batman story, is a Frank Miller story with Batman acting the part of his classic protagonist: "No-nonsense old and grumpy big guy that hits things". I hate the New 52, and I don´t trully enjoy comicbooks from the golden or silver age, so basically I like post-crisis/pre-new-52 Batman, the good one, the detective that was way over his head as a human fighting and living among gods but still keep pushing to ensure the safety of Gotham, and prior that that "Batman can defeat everyone" stupid motto kids this days proclaim after reading some seriously bad comics. BEWARE!! Here goes a mega-list:
Year One -The Frank Miller book that redefined the character after the crisis. It was basically the same story Miller already did for Daredevil in Marvel which is hilarious considering everyone says Daredevil is Marvel´s response to Batman without realizing Batman owns a huuuuge debt to Daredevil, but that´s irrelevant now.
The Man who Laughs (2005) - A direct continuation of Year One with the first post crisis story of the Joker, is basically a re-telling of the original comic.
Four of a Kind - Collection of origin stories for Scarecrow, Poison Ivy, Riddler and Man-Bat. The Riddler one specially.
The Long Halloween+Catwoman:When in Rome+Hunted Knight+Dark Victory -The WHOLE Jeph Loeb and Tim Sale run dealing with the second year on Batman´s career, specially The Long Halloween is a great comic and a great introduction to Two Face.
Scarecrow: Mistress of Fear - One of my favorite Scarecrow stories, it deals with his origin a little better than the Four of a Kind one plus it adds a story rather than being a re-telling. Pretty sick art in my opinion from Duncan Fegredo.
Mortal Clay, Love Bird -The first Batman story written by Alan Moore, and the story that made Clayface 3 an interesting character and obsolete the next day when DC realise nobody will ever do anything with the character at the same level. It´s fucking Alan Moore, if you need anything else to convince you need to read this one then you don´t know shit about comicbooks.
The Killing Joke -Duh
The Mud Pack (1989) -If you have any curiosity about Clayface, any of the 4 clayfaces, this is your chance to meet them all. This story takes EVERYTHING that was made on DC with the name Clayface, combine all those elements, and creates one hell of a story. Most people are always confused on how the actual Clayface is the way he is and why in cartoons and videogames he always had a different name.
The Secret Origin of Scarface (1994)+Scarface: A Psycho Drama (2011) - I put them together cause that´s how I read them and it short continues the story and expand on it, the first story is the origins of the character, and the second one is a pretty creepy tale about the idea that maybe, just maybe, is not just the puppeteer that is crazy, but the puppet cursed.
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth -This one is gonna appear on everybody´s list, and there´s a good reason for that. This is not a comicbook but a graphic novel, so don´t expect much of the usual archetype of story from a monthly series, in here batman runs away from fights (as he actually does a lot in comic history because he´s not superman or idiot), tries to solve things speaking (as he does), and can´t save everyone (as he can´t do as a human being). So yeah, a truly Batman story that is sadly too mature for most readers or Batman "fans" for that matter. No "Batman can defeat everyone" bullshit here kids.
The Last Arkham - The introduction of Zsaz, Jeremiah Arkahm and basically the first and one of the few story arcs that actually deals with how the Asylum works and where is it and so forth. In general the whole Alan Grant era is great when he moves away from Batman and tells stories like this one more focused on the secondary characters and the universe of Batman itself, although he does appear prominently in this one.
Mr.Freeze (1997) -The origin from Mr.Freeze re-imagined after the success of the animated series.
Gotham Knights 59 - Another Mr.Freeze story, basically is a conversation between Freeze and Batman and in the end they ally to survive a building on fire.
No Man´s Land -The basics behind the Arkham CIty videogame and also the first story arc that saw Harley Quin appear out of the blue into the comicbook canon (there´s Mad Love but that wasn´t suppose to be canon and more like a comicbook/Tv series tie in, but was eventually consider cannon and the origin of Harley) . An earthquake destroys Gotham, from there an immense story arc that affected every member of the Batfamily as they fight the schemes of all the Batman verse villains on the loose... except for the Riddler that decided to stay behind bars, probably because he was already thinking about...
Hush -Another immense story arc that sees the return of tons of villains, this time however the plot revolves around Bruce itself, his past and the introduction of a new villain, the only good villain introduced in the Batman universe since the 90s, if you play Arkham City, you short of now who he is, and if you played Arkham Knight, you short of think he´s a useless tool. #NeverForgiveRocksteadyforNerfingHush
Cast Shadows (2004) -Posion Ivy story. Ir mostly explores the idea of how is it for her to live in the Asylum because of her powers despite being mentally able, also some plot about saving earth flora against humans, because it´s a Poison Ivy story so that´s a given.
Arkham: Living Hell - Hoooooly shit do I do love this story arc. Batman is in it in ONE panel in the end, that´s it, it´s a story about a guy that tricks the system to escape jail in terms of "mental stability", and is send to Arkham. From there, a brilliant story about the secrets of Arkham. This comics is the first appearance of Cash.
Arkham Asylum: Madness -You probably figure out by now that I like batman villains more than the actual Batman, and that I probably also like the Arkham setting more than the actual Batman, so a story by Sam Keith (one of my favorite comicbook artist of all times) that focus on the villains while they are in arkham is exactly my kind of Batman comic.
Joker's Asylum 1 and 2 -Short stories narrated by Joker about the different Batman villains locked up on Arkham, most of them are pretty good concepts of how to try and sell you they are real people rather than maniacs, while others deal with the recovery of some of the villains only to end back into their old habits. The Killer Croc one is probably the best story of the character, in the end you feel a sympathy for the character and even will get you to believe Batman is an actual asshole that can´t leave this broken people live in peace, trully a marvelous special dealing with a character that most writers can´t use besides the idea of the gigantic crocodile in the sewers.
And I´m stopping now, because this post is already huge and I think that I did cover my all time favorites. I just want to say that, if you are either a reader or not, and you are starting to feel at least curiosity for Batman and the universe of the character, you should at least take a look at some reviews or synopsis (depending on how far you mind to be spoiled) about the story arcs or independent stories that I just listed, some of them are pretty good comicbooks, not just on Batman terms, but on global ones.
Simply put BATMAN #300 from the 1990's. More precisley the following story arc in which Bruce must recover from Banes beatdown,and regain the Cowl from his power mad replacement. From the cartoon I'd say EP entitled " Heart of Ice" which introduced me to Mr. Freeze and I belive won an Emmy. Truly one of the best cartoon EP ever produced! Finally the movies my pick is..........BatMan Begins....it while not perfect does its job well as a reboot. No BAT CREDIT card!
Comics:
Live - Action:
Games: