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Top Five Batman Story Arcs

Started by Mac Man,

The Killing Joke  

87 members have voted

  1. 1. The Killing Joke

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64 posts in this topic

MedicAR

MedicAR

Posted
Posted
I can't believe the breaking of Batman didn't make the list...

 

^^

 

:gossip: It did. :tonofbricks:

 

Yeah, yeah. For being a big fan of the older comics,I genuinely love this storyline. It was the first set of comics I bought when getting back into collecting during the summer of 2006, and it still really does it for me.

 

Let the harassment begin. :)

 

Ok....you opened the door..... :baiting:

 

 

You like Knightfall! nana.gif You like Knightfall!

 

You wanna rethink your position? viking.gif Well? Do ya?

 

Don't make me get my chair..... wwe.gif

 

 

lol

 

(thumbs u Everybody likes different stuff, no big whoop.

 

Well, unless you say you're a Liefeld fan too...... you're not are ya? threaten.gif

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MedicAR

MedicAR

Posted
Posted
lol You'll note I never mentioned that goofy Knight's Quest stuff--too far in my books. And you're probably right about the generational thing. I might be wrong here, but are most of you who dislike the story arc approach over 35 years old?

 

37......are you saying we're too old to get it? lol

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seank

seank

Posted
Posted
Further comments:

 

Batman 251 (thumbs u

 

Silver St. Cloud :cloud9:

 

Hush :sick:

 

Death in the Family zzz

 

Story arcs :frustrated:

 

 

still cant understand you u dont like "Death in the Family"

 

The covers are classic, Jim Aparo art, Robin beaten to death by the Joker (what a sick scene that was), and Batman punching Superman.

 

:luhv:

 

I know you're not responding to me, but I think the fact that Robin's fate was determined by a call-in vote left a bad taste in many peoples' mouths. The covers are very good, the interior is what you'd expect from Aparo, but the story was decidedly ho-hum.

 

What he said.

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Mac Man

Mac Man

Posted
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Posted
lol You'll note I never mentioned that goofy Knight's Quest stuff--too far in my books. And you're probably right about the generational thing. I might be wrong here, but are most of you who dislike the story arc approach over 35 years old?

 

37......are you saying we're too old to get it? lol

 

Liefield is either cool or over the top-very little in between. He did breathe some fresh air into the New Mutants. That said, I'll never be able to remove the scar of that picture of Captain America with DD boobs he drew. doh!

 

 

And yes, you're old. :kidaround:

 

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Larryw7

Larryw7

Posted
Posted
Batman 242-244 - " The Demon Lives Again "

 

 

I would go with that as well, or the Englehart/Rogers run on Detective in the seventies. For the GA, I'd go with all of the Joker stories in BATMAN and 'TEC from BATMAN #1(Spring, 1940) until "The Joker Walks the Last Mile" in 'TEC #64(June, 1942). Also the Two Face trilogy that ran in 'Tec #'s 66, 68 and #80.

 

Of those listed here, THE KILLING JOKE and YEAR ONE are the best.

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TeddieMercede

TeddieMercede

Posted
Posted

Macman, Im basically the same age as you and yes grew up at the same time reading similar story arcs. In my opinion series' such as Hush and Knightfall are the exact reasons why I read so few modern comics. I call it the "Batman and Robin" or "Spider-Man 3" approach where it seems the writers basically are saying lets just find a way to add as many villains and characters as possible, make a story as over the top as possible, and let the chips fall as they may afterwards.

 

I like a nice clean storyline that i feel was well thought out, obviously great artwork doesnt hurt either and Im not a huge Jim Lee fan. I did however enjoy Death in the Family partially because I hated Jason Todd at the time.

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Mac Man

Mac Man

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lol Who DIDN'T hate Jason Todd?

 

I can understand your POV on the villain overload. I'm not sure if that sort of thing happens a lot with moderns as I also don't typically collect them. I picked up Hush because it came so highly recommended (and I thought Loeb did do a fine job of writing). Plus, I looked at Knightfall more as a compilation of a number of episodes between Bats and his various foes and added together to create the over-arching plot. Hey, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's all good.

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NewWorldOrder

NewWorldOrder

Posted
Posted
lol Who DIDN'T hate Jason Todd?

 

I can understand your POV on the villain overload. I'm not sure if that sort of thing happens a lot with moderns as I also don't typically collect them. I picked up Hush because it came so highly recommended (and I thought Loeb did do a fine job of writing). Plus, I looked at Knightfall more as a compilation of a number of episodes between Bats and his various foes and added together to create the over-arching plot. Hey, I know it's not everyone's cup of tea. It's all good.

 

Jason Todd is my boy! :headbang:

 

Tim Drake is :tonofbricks:

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NewWorldOrder

NewWorldOrder

Posted
Posted
I loved the change to Tim Drake--Jason Todd just annoyed me though they sure took him out brutally enough. Pretty brutal Joker bit there.

 

Dude for my 8 year old eyes to see that Crow Bar up/down on JT fromt he Joker was brutal and disturbing to me! :devil:

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seank

seank

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I don't know...I loved HUSH. So many cool elements.....The Batman Superman fight, the art, The beautiful covers, Batman considering killing the Joker (Graphically)

 

Not picking on you, but attacking the Cult of Hush...

 

Batman/Superman fight -- Frank Miller did it earlier and better and probably first in Dark Knight Returns. By the time Hush came around the Batman/Superman fight with Batman using kryptonite was old news.

 

The art/covers -- I can't person_without_enough_empathy about those. I really enjoyed Jim Lee's work in Hush. But once you peel back the pretty facade, there's nothing underneath.

 

Batman considering killing the Joker -- once again, zzzzzzz. The Batman/Joker thing has been done to DEATH (no pun intended) since the 1989 Batman movie. I'd love to see DC retire the Joker for a few years and concentrate on some other villians. Look at the new spin Paul Dini has put on Scarface or how the Penguin has been reinvented as a crime boss/nightclub owner. What new has been done with the Joker since The Killing Joke? Nothing except a new origin in Batman Confidential which was a tragic waste of good trees.

 

As negative as I'm being, there's two things I liked about Hush: the art and the Batman/Catwoman interaction. Other than that, Hush has nothing to recommend it. Even the villian is murky, second-rate, and forgettable. Does anyone really care about Hush the villian? Nope. Put him on the shelf with Dr. Double X, Calendar Man, and The Terrible Trio.

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Zonker

Zonker

Posted
Posted

Here's a sleeper arc-- the 1982 issues of Batman & Detective. During this time having such tight cross-continuity was rare, but here you had a bi-weekly series running between the two titles, with Gene Colan and Don Newton alternating drawing the stories. Lots of classic Bronze Age bits of business employed: Man-Bat, Hugo Strange, "Matches Malone," even the Human Target. It may have been a bit derivative, but for me it was a nice endpost to the Bronze Age.

 

Batman 343-354

 

Detective Comics 511-520

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Point Five

Point Five

Posted
Posted
Here's a sleeper arc-- the 1982 issues of Batman & Detective. During this time having such tight cross-continuity was rare, but here you had a bi-weekly series running between the two titles, with Gene Colan and Don Newton alternating drawing the stories. Lots of classic Bronze Age bits of business employed: Man-Bat, Hugo Strange, "Matches Malone," even the Human Target. It may have been a bit derivative, but for me it was a nice endpost to the Bronze Age.

 

Batman 343-354

 

Detective Comics 511-520

(thumbs u

 

And Mac Man (or anyone else), if multi-villain storylines are your thing, check out Detective #526 -- triple-sized issue featuring Killer Croc (and Joker, Catwoman etc), well-written with excellent art by the talented Don Newton. Along with Knightfall, it wouldn't make my top five but would certainly make my top twenty.

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Dr. K

Dr. K

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Posted

The Killing Joke is not only my favorite Batman story but one of my absolute favorite comics of all time. But here's a real off the wall one that I think is an incredible story that features Batman or should I say Batmans. I don't have it in front of me so I'm not sure the number but in Planetary (maybe 6 or 7) there is a story in which they go to Gotham and are tracking the Batman but time/space keeps going through phase shifts and Batman keeps changing. First he is the Batman from Dark Knight Returns, all square grim-jawed psycho, then he shifts into the Neil Adams Batman, long ears and black, then the New Look Batman from the 60's with the short ears and yellow backed insignia and finally the Adam West Batman slight paunch and all. The story's a real hoot and, of course, brilliantly drawn and written.

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