Hi, how are you doing? I am new to this forum even though I have been following you for quite a long time, now.

I know it is going to feel redundant, that which I am about to ask, but frankly, I haven't still seen it answered.

I have always liked Batman but I had been stuck for a lot of years with the most important titles, such as year one, the long halloween, dark victory, morrison's arkham asylum, killing joke and tdkr.

However, during the past couple of years I have got my hands upon the following titles: gotham central, the man who laughs, prey, city of crime and broken city.

Believe me when I tell you that I have read dozens of "best batman comics" lists all over the internet, some of them in this very same forum, but I am never convinced because those lists don't usually differentiate between what are the MOST IMPORTANT comics for Batman's character, and what truly are batman's BEST COMIC BOOKS.

In the first category I would put stories like "a death in the family", "knightfall" or "no man's land", which I have come to know to be either disappointing or a mixed bag of quality, despite narrating important moments in batman's life. On the other hand, I haven't read any of them, so I could be wrong. Besides, I have read other so called best batman comics like "hush" and "under the hood", and I didn't like them. Like, at all.

On the second category I would put stories like city of crime, gotham central or broken city, which in my opinion are quite excellent. I have also read, but do not own, Snyder's entire run during the N52 and loved "court of owls" and "endgame".

This is what I am looking for, good batman stories regardless of continuity or tragic/impactful events.

So, having said it all, what are your recommendations?

I hope I have explained myself well. I am spanish and don't usually write in english.

Thank you all for your help.

@judder86: Nice topic and I agree with you. I have read quite a few Batman and documented quite a lot and here is maybe not the complete list, but here are some of the Bests I've come across.

• Tales of the Batman: Archie Goodwin - With an excellent Manhunter story
• Batman: Strange Apparitions (1978) - by Steve Englehart
• Batman: Dark Detective (2005) - Englehart comes back to Batman
• Batman: Blind Justice
• Batman: The Wrath - has some excellent fight scenes
• The many deaths of the Batman
• Legends of The Dark Knight: Norm Breyfogle
• Batman: Gothic - first Batman by Grant Morrison
• The penguin affair - uncollected (Batman #448-449 + Detective Comics #615)
• Dark Knight, Dark City - probably my favorit
• A bullet for Bullock - uncollected (Detective Comics #651) - Adapted in Batman the animated serie S04E04
• Vengence of Bane
• Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on a Serious Earth - Grant Morrison's personal interpretation of the Joker's Madness
• Arkham Asylum: Living Hell - Centers on lesser know vilains
• New Gotham: Evolution
• Gotham Central: Half a Life
• Batman: Gordon of Gotham (tpb) - contains Gordon of Gotham #1-4, GCPD #1-4, Gordon's Law #1-4
• Trail of the Catwoman - Prequel to Ed Brubaker's Catwoman run, a backup story of Detective Comics #759-762
• Batman: Blink & Don't Blink
• Broken City - but you already know
• Flashpoint: Batman: Knight of Vengeance - A Flashpoint related story, by the Great Brian Azzarello and Edwardo Risso (same team as Broken City)
• Riddle Me That
• Batman: Snow - The best Mr. Freeze story out there
• JLA: Tower of Babel
• Batman: Tabula Rasa - A Bane Story
• Batman: Veritas Liberat - Another Bane Story
• Paul Dini's run
  • Batman: Detective
  • Batman: Private Casebook
  • Batman: Heart of Hush
  • Streets of Gotham: Hush Money
  • Streets of Gotham: Manhunter - A Backup story for Streets of Gotham #1-13
  • Streets of Gotham: Leviathan
  • Streets of Gotham: House of Hush
• Gates of Gotham
• Court of Owls - event if the ending of this arc is a bit wobly
• Batman & Robin New52 vol.1-3 - With very excellent Annual Stories
• Batman Incorporated
  • Batman Incorporated vol.1
  • Batman Incorporated New52: Demon Star
  • Batman Incorporated: Gotham's Most Wanted - you should read Batman & Robin vol.1-3 before this.
• Emperor Penguin (Detective Comics New52 #13-21) - Not collected in 1 trade but in Detective Comics New52 Emperor Pinguin & The Wrath
• Batman, dark knight: Cycle of Violence - A very dark story on the Scarecrow
• Batman, dark knight: Clay - this book has 2 stories, on about clay and one about the man-bat serum
• The Penguin: Pain & Prejudice - Probably the best Penguin story that exists

Then I would also recommend some Elseworld stories:

• Gotham by Gaslight - A steampunk Batman
• Batman: Vampire - The name says it all
• The Doom That Came To Gotham - a tale by Mike Mignola (the father of Hellboy)
• Batman: Year 100 - by the excellent Paul Pope (Battling Boy)
• Li'l Gotham - written and full watercolored by the magnificent Dustin Nguyen

Let's not forget the Batman animated world that has some very good tie-in comics:

• Mad Love - first ever Harley Quinn in a comics
• Batman Adventures: Shadows & Masks

I am sure you won't be disapointed by any of these !

Have fun.

That is quite a nice list, @jb681131.

I find especially interesting Paul Dini's run. I may begin with this.

By the way, I forgot to mention that I also own grant morrison's arkham asylum. I have just edited my first message.

To Warn you, his first book (Batman: Detective), is his lesser good one. It gets really good when Catwoman and Hush come into play. He probably wrote the only good stories there are on Hush. The Streets of Gotham is very good, it is told not from the point of view of Batman or Robin or Nightwing but from the point of view of the Street. All with the art of Dustin Nguyen. But he only does is awsome watercolors on the covers.

Also to mention, Paul Dini along with Bruce Timm were the writters/designers of Batman: The Animated Serie. So the story Mad Love is also by Paul Dini and strongly recommended.

Yep, I know about Dini. This is why I chose him as a starting point.

I forgot to mention, I was especially glad that you didn't recommend me Morrison's run that started with batman and son. I know it is highly praised, but there is something about it that really puts me off. It may be the art, or the kind of stories he writes.

I recognize Morrison's genius after having read his animal man comics, his multiverse graphic novel, and even all star superman, but I have to admit that I wouldn't read any of those twice. Other than that, I didn't really like his justice league work or his N52 superman run. I am afraid the same would happen if I bought Batman & Son, The Black Glove or Batman RIP.

Having said that, I may give Gothic a try.

Well Morrison did a complexe run. You need to know well Batman and his chronologie to get into his books. He did some cool thing such as introduce Damian Wayne. A kid that you at first hate but after a while it's the character you get the most attached to in the Batman univers. He also made Batman go back in time and replaced Bruce Wayne temporarelly by Dick Grayson. He also introduced the crazy Proffressor Pig. I love crazy dark villains. And finally I found his idea of revealing that Bruce Wayne has been funding the Batman all those years interresting. As well as the creation of a Batman franchise all over the world.

I still did recommend the end of his run with all the Batman Incorporated books. I also recommended his Arkham Asylum story.

I am not too much into Batman incorporated's storyline, though I am sure I would enjoy it. Of all the titles on your list, this is the one I put at the bottom of my preferences.

Completely offtopic: I am watching Batman Begin at the time I am writing these lines. This is indeed one fine superhero movie.

Then don't read Batman & Robin New52 vol.3 (not even its title) and behond or you will be overspoiled on the end of Batman Inc.

Completely offtopic: Batman Begins is a pretty awfull superhero movie.

I will make sure not to read batman & robin, then.

Don't you like Batman Begins? Or were you just playing with words, as in that movie barely is a superhero movie?

Yes I don't like Batman Begins for multiple reasons, somes might be personnal judgement but here is how I see it:

• Over half of the movies a very boring quest
• A quest with out-of logic things ! Why would Bruce traine with Ra's Al Ghul, head of the League of Assassins ? Wait what ? It's Shadows now ???
• Wait what, before Bruce's parents death, they went to see an Opera ? And an opera with Bats ? They exit on a side door ? Ok a little variation from the comics.
• What !? his parent's killer got caught ? Well isn't the fact that he was never caught the purpose of Bruce Wayne becoming this detective ?
• Batman's deep voice is kind of strange and disturbing
• Fight scenes are bad with poor to no choregraphies
• Why, but why put Katie Holmes in this movies. She was pointless.
• That's not a Batman movie but a Bruce Wayne movie, 53 min before we see the actual main title of the movie
• The Scarecrow and the mafia were way underused
• Filming wise, why is the movie so brownish dark unwatchable
• That Batcar, where did it come from. It's more of a BatTank. Not what I wanted to see.
• And lots of illogical things: a broken pipe with no gushing out water, an infercted water system but no hundreds of sick citizens, a poison that has different effects on people, Ras'Al Ghul ninja's get surprised by the butler and a golf club, ...., there are many more like that.

Well, I won't argue against most of those points because when it comes to movie adaptations I usually prefer them to be good movies regardless of how the comics play out. What I mean is that I don't care that the scarecrow is under utilised because it is only true when you compare him to his comic counterpart, for his involvement in the movie is perfect, in my opinion. And his cameos in both TDK and TDKR are just that, simple cameos. As for the tumbler, I think it works in the confines of the trilogy. I know it is not as colourful as Burton's batmobile, but it works with the more grounded take Nolan gave to the movies.

I actually appreciated that we spent time caring about Bruce before taking on the mask. Bruce Wayne is as important, if not more, as batman himself. I didn't know that in the comics bruce wayne decided to become the batman to find his parent's murderer, but in the movie is made pretty clear that he puts on the mask to cleanse the city of all evil. And yeah, I always found a little bit farfetched that they exited the opera through an exit door that led to an obscure street, but I don't think it is something originated in this movie.

The cinematography of Batman Begins has orange-brownish hues to resemble the color of the sun at dawn. It simbolizes the dawn of the bat, and of the hope it represents for Gotham.

I don't think the fight scenes were bad. A little bit of a failure, maybe, but not bad. Nolan's intention, if I remember correctly, was to represent batman's fights in a blurrish fashion in order to provoke a confusing reaction. For instance, during his first appearance we have a moment he jumps at the middle of a group of thugs and starts hitting them. The movie then cuts to a take of Falcone watching it with a "what the f**k is that" stare. I think the idea was brilliant, but the execution could have been better.

Other than that, I agree that Katie Holmes was the weakest performer in the cast. They made a good decision to replace her with Maggie Gyllenhaal. Which brings me to the dark knight.

I think it will be a long time until we see a superhero movie adaptation better than that movie, right now.

I disagree, since then we've had:

• Iron Man
• Captain America: The First Avenger
• Man of Steel
• Daredevil (Nextfilx, yes not a movie)

Well, you know, I love cinema above any other medium.

In my opinion, superhero movies were better before the Marvel Studios revolution. I understand that for fans of those characters the movies made right now can be like a dream come true, but for me they are becoming really stale, and ultimately boring.

Having said that, I actually enjoyed Iron Man 1, civil war and both Whedon's avengers movies.

An yeah, loved daredevil's first season.