.... but as you can see from the username i am a total comic newb. I just finished Miller's year one. Blown away. Just wanted to check that the last scene in that is of Gordon thinking about the Joker poisoning Gotham's water supply... starting the long halloween tonight. I do have a few questions because i am so absolutely lost here. Ive been reading online, probably a mistake, but there is so much about Pre-Crisis, Post Crisis, and then there is another Infinite Crisis in 04-05.... so confusing. I am diving right in and only focusing on Batman so I guess the question is really moot since it will take me some time to cover the ground that i would like to in Batman. I guess what i am so curious about is if i miss out on anything by not reading Pre-Crisis material or if it is imperative that I read it. I think I am just rambling now and just hoping that someone here wants to reach out and give me a reassuring pat on the back that its all going to be ok. I am the kind of guy that needs to know everything that is going on.I am big into epic fantasy books, and ask all my friends, i spend almost as much time cross referencing previous titles for little clues and looking at the maps as i do actually reading the story, its all part of the experience for me. So i guess my question is how do i achieve the total experience? ANd i know i wont be able to stop with Batman. I am already itching about Xmen and all the other amazing characters and stories that are out there, but Batman is my all time favorite so thats where i am starting. If anyone wants to talk i appreciate it. If you would like to save time and point me where i need to go look thats cool too. I cant believe i missed out on so much as a kid. So time to catch up lol

The DC Universe has actually been literally rebooted several times. Just like how movies get remakes and reboots, the entire DC Universe got one.

Pre-Crisis refers to the original DC timeline and universe. Then a story called "Crisis on Infinite Earths" happened, after which DC was rebooted, hence Post-Crisis.

Does that help?

Start with a Lonely Place of Dying or A Death in the Family or Crisis on Infinite Earths.

From there read every comic that has to do with Batman and his side characters.

Some of it is hard to get through, but you won't regret it... until Flashpoint comes along and destroys everything you just read and gets replaced with garbage that doesn't work.

The only Pre-Crisis stuff that matters Post-Crisis is the transitional phase stuff in the 80s when DC was moving Dick from being Robin to become Nightwing and Barbara Gordon retiring from being Batgirl (don't read Batgirl Special #1 that reports to be her final appearance as Batgirl. It's utter trash) This is mainly because these events have consequences and sets up Dick's, Barbara's, and Jason's role in the Bat Universe, but they can be covered elsewhere in summary.

Crisis on Infinite Earths collapses the DCU into 1 universe

Zero Hour fixes a few problems with continuity that remained

Infinite Crisis re-creates the multiverse, but only 52 this time

Final Crisis... does something. It was mainly a vehicle to kill Bruce though.

If you read everything after 87 that as to do with Batman and IS canon, at least for the Pre-Flashpoint era. You won't regret it, but it is something like 2000+ titles and takes about 20GB of disc space ^.^ It took me several months to read through it all and I have a lot of free time to do that, so good luck if you try.

lol i knew this would happen!!! So i finished year one right... ends with gordon thinking about jokers threat to poison gotham water supply. take the reccomendation i saw somewhere about reading The Long Halloween after Year one. whoops! all kinds of stuff is going on that im missing. When did Selina and Bruce get tight? When did Batman meet the joker and the scarecrow? what did i do. what is goin on?

Edit: i do understand what so many people have told me, that each story is an individual story to be enjoyed but..,I am accustomed to reading epic Fantasy series that are 1000s of pages long with no pictures. My thing is the complete story. Please someone help me

@sdcomicnewb said:

lol i knew this would happen!!! So i finished year one right... ends with gordon thinking about jokers threat to poison gotham water supply. take the reccomendation i saw somewhere about reading The Long Halloween after Year one. whoops! all kinds of stuff is going on that im missing. When did Selina and Bruce get tight? When did Batman meet the joker and the scarecrow? what did i do. what is goin on?

Edit: i do understand what so many people have told me, that each story is an individual story to be enjoyed but..,I am accustomed to reading epic Fantasy series that are 1000s of pages long with no pictures. My thing is the complete story. Please someone help me

Oh, another thing, there is a book titles "The Man Who Laughs" that details Batman and Joker's first meeting. That might help.

As I explained, when DC went through the reboot, they didn't bother to re-do the origins of guys like Scarecrow. Post-Crisis picked up several years into Batman's career, so he was already aquainted with most of his villains. If you really want to read their origin stories, you're going to have to track down the old Pre-Crisis books somewhere. It's not really worth it when you can just look up Scarecrow's origin on Wikipedia.

http://diggingonexistence.tumblr.com/post/27523114883/this-masterpost-is-in-chronological

You could try this. Its chronological and easy to follow. Worked for me...I think.