Comic Book Question of the Week VOTING: Favorite Batman Story

S**T. I got mixed up and voted for death in the family when I meant to vote for death of the family :( Anyways, I wanted to vote for that because the plot was amazing, as was the art and because the Joker was frickin awesome in it. I loved all the tie-ins that I managed to read as well. Hush is a very close second and the killing joke is third.

I know its new and it's not considered a classic (yet), but Court of Owls is my favorite.

Definitely RIP. It's genius in every sense of the word.

Jeeez this is really hard.

DOF.

I voted Year One. Long Halloween and Hush are up there as well for me.

I wish I could just say Morrison's whole run :/

I love the 'classics'... I tend to re-read Dark Knight Returns for the heck of it every couple of years... but R.I.P. (and its connected arcs like Black Glove) is the one story arc that not only did I read and re-read, but was scouring the internet for explanations, opinions and insight. It took my interaction with a comic book to a whole other level. Many of these comic blogs that I peruse now on a daily basis is BECAUSE of R.I.P.!

Some people hate that and that's ok. Some people say you shouldn't have to do a Google search to understand some points of a story and I get that... but I personally found it entertaining and engaging and ultimately, you don't have to do all that to understand R.I.P.

And for reference, I've been collecting Batman since I was a kid... beginning around the Year Three story arc.

I'm gonna read more before I vote

Perhaps everyone would say Zero Year if you asked a few months later

Voted for The Long Halloween

It's a toss up between RIP and Killing Joke. Oh what the hell, I've actually read RIP first hand so I may as well vote for that. But for me, RIP and Killing Joke are the two best Batman stories ever.

My favourites are Batman: The Superman of Planet X (Batman #113) and The First Batman (Detective Comics #235)

The Dark Knight Returns. Under the Red Hood was a close second.

You know what, I was gonna vote Year One, which I really loved, but I ended up voting "Other," and I'm gonna say its a tie between Year One, Prey, Court of Owls, and Tower of Babel.

I agree on the Joker, how awesome he was. I thought the whole story was awesome all together but I was a little disappointed in the end. I didn't think it was a dramatic enough ending for that awesome story.

I understand why you'd say and it wasn't bang out amazing but it was satisfying enough for me.

This is a really hard question.

The fact that Court of Owls has more votes than R.I.P is really sad.

how in gods name is R.I.P higher than hush. im guessing the people voting haven't read it.

Picked "Other." Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader. Close seconds were Long Halloween, Killing Joke, and Black Mirror. And sigh, the love Grant Morrison's run gets just baffles me. Overly convoluted, weird for the sake of being weird, disjointed as hell, and frankly just uninteresting IMO.

i voted the killing joke because thats one of my favorite batman stories ever written, but i think my true favorite scene that has to do with batman is in Identity Crisis when batman finds zatanna mindwiping doctor light and the lesser JLAers watching her do it, only to be frozen and mindwiped by zatanna as well. this really was the first comic book title to make me cry when i was younger and was influential in how i saw superheroes growing up.

If you'd read RIP, you'd see why people think it's higher than Hush. Hush is at best a good story. RIP is analysing, testing and stripping Batman down to his essence with plenty of intelligent themes and plots coming into play. In short, it's an intelligent work of literature that examines the Batman mythology right down to the bone so to speak.

Hush :)

Hush is fun for new readers, but that's about all it is ultimately.

Hush is so average! And Court of Owls doesn't deserve to be called the greatest Batman story just yet in my opinion.

Currently my favorite Batman storyline is...

Second to this I'd have to go with The Court of Owls/The City of Owls storyline.

toss up between hush and long Halloween for me (RIP trade is actually on it way to my house from amazon as i speak). decided to go with hush because batman revealing his identity to catwoman and beating up superman

10 years later, I don't think the spoiler block is necessary :)

Court of Owls doesn't deserve to be mentioned in a list of the best Batman stories, but it's an accessible, easy to read story and Snyder's the flavor of the season. It'll win.

Hush is the sucksorz!
BB

To me, The Long Halloween is everything a great Batman story should be. A dark detective story, which really gets the reader thinking from the beginning. Batman predominantly taking on mobsters rather than superpowered criminals (though the superpowered criminals do play a crucial role, of course), and providing a fantastic story for Harvey Dent and Two-Face. Quite simply, Batman at its best... though it was a really tight between that and a selection of others which also showcase Batman at his best:

Year One
Hush
The Man Who Laughs
The Black Mirror
The Killing Joke
Dark Victory
The Dark Knight Returns
R.I.P.
Batman & Robin Must Die!
The Court Of Owls

Too many great choices, too hard to decide, specially between Arkham Asylum, RIP and YO.

How is The Killing Joke being beaten. @_@

You know how Battle of the Week has a Viner Argument highlighted for the winner? I think I'll do the same for the question of the week. "Viner Post of the Week For..." could be fun.

This was extremely difficult for me. I ended up going with the easy answer of Year One but Court of Owls, Hush, The Long Halloween, and The Black Mirror were all under consideration for me. I ultimately went with Year One because it is one of the books that I pick up and reread quite regularly. Court of Owls may become that as well because I have already reread that one just a couple months ago. In the end, no matter the answer given, there are a lot of great Batman stories by great writers. I am lucky to be able to read such wonderful writing for my favorite character.

I chose Under the red Hood but Hush is a close second for me.

@citizenbane: true but eh, i know if i was just getting into comics now, i'd appreciate having the option to not have a crucial part of any story arc spoiled

@mrprivatestock: Fair enough.

@fil123: Good pick. My favorite aspects of Hush are absolutely Batman's relationship with Catwoman. It was done so well.

The Many Deaths of Batman: Batman 433-435. There's some cool stuff in these issues.

And people need to stop voting for RIP. Like now.

When you understand who Batman is, and truly LOVE (yeah I went there) the character you are ready to read Grant Morrison's run. Until then, you can have your Scott Snyder and Hush.

As for the poll, I'll be voting for RIP as a representative for the whole of Grant Morrison's run.

Year One.

Hush. Also I notice Nightwing is not in Batman's cape.

@kingdomenic:

Year One. I read it again recently. It still holds up.

I'm surprised there aren't more votes for No Man's Land, that's the one I picked because of how well it developed the characters in Gotham, especially the villains with how they controlled different areas. Penguin was really amazing in it.

the killing joke or the dar knight returns... respect the classics