The Dark Knight Reads: 15 Essential Batman Graphic Novels
The Dark Knight Rises may mark the end of director Christopher Nolan’s preposterously successful movie trilogy but, in the comic book world, Batman’s battle never ends. Over the course of his 83-year history, the Dark Knight has racked up one of the strongest assortments of stories in all of supercomics and become the world’s most popular hero. The 15 titles below are essential to understanding why.
The list includes undisputed classics and offbeat personal visions, old-school adventures and state-of-the-art superheroics. Some are practically perfect, some are deeply flawed, but put them together and a complete picture of the Dark Knight emerges.
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15. ‘Batman Vol. 1: The Court of Owls’
They call it the New 52: a line-wide relaunch of all of DC's superhero properties, turning back the clock on their histories and shaking up the origins of some of the more moribund titles. For Batman's debut storyline in this brave new world, he's fighting the Court of Owls, a shadowy/feathery conspiracy of Gotham's most powerful residents that picks apart Batman's brain like an owl pellet. Rising-star writer Scott Snyder's talky, twisty, pulpy plot and artist Greg Capullo's scratchy 1990s-throwback artwork have made their Batman DC's most popular non-team title; it looks set to define the character for some time to come.
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14. ‘Batman: Earth One’
This standalone graphic novel from Geoff Johns – DC's biggest writer and its Chief Creative Officer – restarts the Bat-mythology from scratch in yet another origin story. His Batman 2.0 is angry and accident-prone, Jim Gordon's a corrupt wimp and Alfred is a shotgun-toting Iraq War vet. Yeah, your mileage may vary. But artist Gary Frank captures the character's fury like few artists before him and, for better or worse, this is the one Batman comic that best reflects the super-serious "battle for the soul of Gotham City" tone of the Nolan films.
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13. ‘Batman and Robin Vol. 1: Batman Reborn’
Act Two of the Morrison mega-story sees the cheery former Robin, Dick Grayson, adopt the cape and cowl while Bruce Wayne is M.I.A.; Damian Wayne, Bruce's evil son with the daughter of Batman Begins villain Ra's al Ghul, is the new Boy Wonder. It sounds ridiculous but Morrison has described the tone as the 1960s Batman TV show as directed by David Lynch, and damn if that isn't dead-on. Led by Frank Quitely, a team of artists made this era of Batman a high-octane DayGlo nightmare and made its new odd-couple dynamic duo an absolute pleasure to follow.
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12. ‘Batman: R.I.P.’
Returning to the character that made him a star, Arkham Asylum writer Grant Morrison began a multiyear Batman mega-story that's spanned multiple series and is still going strong. Its first act climaxed in R.I.P., a riveting horror-conspiracy story illustrated by Tony S. Daniel in which sinister forces shatter Batman's mind, only to unleash his even crazier, more unstoppable backup personality – that's right, his backup personality – created years ago just in case his enemies managed to mentally incapacitate him. It's stand-up-and-cheer stuff even for seasoned Bat-fans.
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11. ‘Batman Year 100’
Writer-artist Paul Pope made his bones with dazzlingly drawn, self-published sci-fi indie comics. His alternate-future take on Batman as the lone "unknown" in a pervasive, invasive surveillance society is visually and thematically right in line with his underground work but stuffed with powerfully physical action sequences, kickass gadgets and all that other good Bat-stuff.
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10. ‘Gotham Central: Jokers and Madmen’
What if The Wire were set in Gotham City instead of Baltimore, with Batman in the Omar role? That's the best way to describe this moody cop/crime drama starring the men and women of the GCPD's Major Crimes Unit (i.e. the ones who go after supervillains), in which Batman only makes cameos as a dangerous vigilante whose crazed, costumed enemies are the bane of every cop in Gotham. Veteran co-writers Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka provide a no-nonsense platform for the "superhero realism" of artist Michael Lark, one of the best in the biz. Start with this volume for its memorably nihilistic take on the Joker.
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9. ‘Batman: The Long Halloween’
Superstar writer (and current Marvel exec) Jeph Loeb's noirish year-in-the-life story about the young Batman's hunt for a serial killer features too-liberal cribbing from The Godfather and plot holes cavernous enough to park the Batmobile in. His real talent lies in providing a parade of jaw-dropping images for his artists to draw; in this case, that means his frequent collaborator Tim Sale, who gets to put his unmistakable stamp on nearly every iconic Bat-character. His every moody, expressionistic page is suitable for framing.
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8. ‘Batman: Knightfall’
This was Bane's big break. This very, very 1990s crossover event by a small army of writers and artists was the come-up for the future Dark Knight Rises villain, created by Chuck Dixon, Doug Moench and Graham Nolan. The masked muscleman on super-steroids softens Batman up by freeing all his enemies from Arkham Asylum, then swoops in to finish the job by breaking the Dark Knight's back; an armor-clad replacement Batman is left to take up the fight. Beyond the back-breaking gimmick and the typical mainstream superhero-comic cheesiness, though, you'll find crackerjack pacing, a slew of Batman's best bad guys and a surprisingly effective exploration of a hero pushed past his breaking point.
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7. ‘Batman: A Death in the Family’
Democracy in action! When a new Robin proved unpopular in the 1980s, DC gave its fans a 900 number and a choice – should the Joker kill him? The fans spoke, and this angsty melodrama is the result. It's earnest to a fault but transcends the stunt nature of the story with rock-solid art from definitive 1980s Bat-artist Jim Aparo and with the inspired lunacy of writer Jim Starlin's version of the Joker. Case in point: dude beats a teenage boy to death with a crowbar, then seeks refuge from Batman by becoming Iran's ambassador to the United Nations.
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6. ‘The Untold Legend of the Batman’
The writing by Len Wein is of the "Robin, old chum" old school, the art by John Byrne and Jim Aparo follows suit and the origin stories it contains for Batman and his allies and enemies have all been rebooted half a dozen times since its 1980 release. But thanks to a black-and-white paperback re-release following the blockbuster Tim Burton Batman movie, this compulsively readable mystery-cum-guide to the Dark Knight showed a lot of kids just how wide and wild Batman's world could be. It's still a fascinating, kaleidoscopic read, even though that world has changed.
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5. ‘The Batman Chronicles Vol. 1’
A foundational text for the entire superhero genre, Chronicles collects Batman's first year of adventures in order, from his creation by Bill Finger and Bob Kane in Detective Comics #27 through the debuts of his sidekick Robin and nemesis the Joker, courtesy of co-creator Jerry Robinson. You'll be surprised by how dark the Dark Knight started out – he packed heat and didn't mind killing the occasional criminal – and how quickly he transformed into the more wholesome Caped Crusader.
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4. ‘Batman: Arkham Asylum’
Tarot cards, occult symbolism, abnormal psychology, Aleister Crowley, Christian iconography, Psycho references, sick jokes – when young, weird Scottish writer Grant Morrison and daring visual artist Dave McKean were tapped to explore the insanity of Batman's enemies and the mental institution where they're imprisoned (not to mention the insanity of Batman himself), the resulting graphic novel wasn't so much about madness as a simulation of it. Somehow, it became the best-selling graphic novel of all time and indirectly gave birth to the massive video game hit.
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3. ‘Batman: The Killing Joke’
Watchmen writer Alan Moore has disavowed this nasty little number about the Joker's origin, centered on his attempt to drive Commissioner Gordon insane by crippling and sexually assaulting his daughter Barbara (a/k/a Batgirl). That didn't stop Heath Ledger from citing Moore's Batbook as a touchstone for his performance in The Dark Knight, nor prevent artist Brian Bolland's cackling portrayal of the Clown Prince of Crime from becoming the character's most iconic image.
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2. ‘Batman: Year One’
In retrospect, it's an unlikely collaboration: the operatic grandeur and bombast of Frank Miller in a writer-only role, wedded to the stylishly minimal art of David Mazzucchelli, who'd soon retire from superheroes entirely and reinvent himself as an alternative-comics trailblazer. But their definitive account of both Batman and Jim Gordon's earliest days as crime-fighters is the perfect blend of pulp and poetry; Nolan all but used it as proof of concept for his franchise reboot, and many fans and critics consider it the best superhero comic of the modern age. (Note to Marvel movie fans: Miller and Mazzucchelli's Daredevil: Born Again is arguably modern Marvel's best book, too.)
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1. ‘Batman: The Dark Knight Returns’
There's no competition. Frank Miller's grim but ultimately celebratory vision of a dark, depraved future Gotham City and the grizzled old Batman who comes out of retirement to save it made Miller a legend. In tandem with Watchmen, it transformed the landscape of superhero comics forever. Forget Chris Nolan or Tim Burton, cartoon or comic book or video game – without the original TDKR, Batman as you know him would not exist.