First question: Favorite Batman artist? Personally I like Neal Adams and Jim Lee, probably Adams more since it was so dynamic and new at the time.
Second question: Excluding the Dark Knight Returns, favorite Batman arc? Hush for me, while it draws critisism on here I love how Batman is broken and how Superman and his villains are used in dynamic ways.
Favorite Artist: Definitely Jim Lee. His Bruce Wayne and Batman are just too perfect for me
Favorite Arc: since you mentioned Hush, I will mention another and obvious one: Year One. I personally still think Miller is okay, but the writing in Year One is just superb for me. He really invested a lot in the characters, especially Bruce Wayne and Gordon. I personally love the beginning where Bruce was sitting in a chair bleeding and trying to figure out what to do with his Mission.
And I personally like Long Halloween better than Dark Victory, LH made me realize how important a character Harvey Dent is
Love Dark Knight Returns, Year One and Killing Joke. Also Kia Asamiya’s Child of Deams and I really dig the Batman Black and White books. The Greatest Joker Stories ever told is a lot of fun, there’s a trade also that tells Ra’s origin that I like a lot.
I can’t say I have a favorite Batman artist because he seems like a character who should always be drawn differently to me, like each artist should really have a take on his costume. I think that’s one of the things I like about him, there’s no definitive way to draw him really. With Superman, you have to draw that S the same way everytime but you can really have some fun with Batman’s costume. Even the Batmobile has gone through a lot of different car designs. Yeah I think the Black and White books are a quick crash course in how many different ways you can draw him.
Yeah, so many people have drawn Batman that’s probably impossible for any sane reader to have one single favorite. The variety you see in Black & White is just awesome. Artists always interpret the costume so differently. Sometimes the ears are super long, sometimes they stick out at an angle, and sometimes they are stubby. Sometimes the cape is short, sometimes it’s gigantic shadow that trails him, sometimes Batman looks like 1/3 of him is made of Spawn. And the Bat-symbol: yellow oval or no yellow oval?
What’s cool with Batman is how you can draw his cape in different ways and he still looks badass. (Well, unless you make him look like a Spawn reject.) Not like with Superman. I hate when people give Superman a super long cape. Looks totally stupid. Grant Morrison has it right: Superman’s cape is supposed to “stop at his bum.”
But back to Batman.
My favorite Bat artists are probably Tim Sale and David Mazzucchelli. Maybe tomorrow morning I’ll wake up and realize I forgot someone crucial, but right now I think those two guys are my favorites.
Batman’s had a ton of great stories over the years, and even though he’s more played out than Wolverine, his ratio of good stories to crap is fairly decent, I’d say.
My favorite is Year One. Most people will swear by DKR, and I wouldn’t dispute that choice at all. I agree because DKR is the more significant comic, the genre-buster, the pop-culture phenomenon, and the one that actually has a shot at being analyzed in a university-level English course. But I just prefer Year One because it’s so totally grounded in the old-school hard-boiled noir and pulp, and just executed to perfection like a Ray Allen jumpshot.
The best Batman spinoffs were Catwoman (the Bru, COOKE, Cameron Stewart) and Gotham Central.
Agreed on all counts, though I’d say Neal Adams is the top Bat-artist. I would also say that Frank is right up there with Mazzuchelli and Sale, though many people are turned off by the stylized look of Miller-Bats. There’s something fitting about his no-nonsense, barrel-chested rendition of the character.
Pretty sure this makes me a hater, though I do appreciate the balls it took to do No Man’s Land. It wasn’t even really a storyline, it was more like a paradigm shift for the Batman universe.
That doesn’t mean I liked it, but it’s definitely a cool concept. And like I said, it took huge balls, which is a big deal. Batman is one of those characters that DC is so protective of that it’s downright miraculous when they take a chance on something so big.
I never read No Man’s Land the comic, only the novel and I liked it. I plan to pick NML and Long Halloween up soon. Long Halloween is one of the story arc’s that’s a must for me, since Two-Face is one of my favorites. I agree with all comics mentioned, and even though Dark Knight wasn’t my all time favorite I still love and respect it.
Year One was really interesting, I picked it up a few months ago and I like to go back and read it on occasion. The police face off was great, as well as how Catwoman came to be (I like this origin, though it’s hardly used). Greatest Joker stories I got for eight bucks and it was really worth it, and Killing Joke…don’t get me started, that new kid’s origin I don’t acknowledge lol.
As for spin-off’s I’m a big fan of Nightwing and Robin. Nightwing has a special place in my heart but Tim is probably my favorite Batman character overall.
What’s Freeze been up to lately? Last I saw he was giving Gotham Central trouble, and has the Clayface clan popped up recently?
Haha, “dynamic” is one of those meaningless buzzwords I use all the time too.
I grew up with early 90’s Jim Lee/Chris Claremont Uncanny/non-Uncanny (“Canny?”) X-Men, so I’m a huge Jim Lee whore, and thus I enjoy his Batman a lot. You have to admit that the Jim Lee/Scott Williams/Alex Sinclair team makes some of the slickest looking comics ever, and that’s why Hush was so fun. That’s more of a personal bias though.
This is going to hurt my comic book snob status, but I wasn’t around that much for the older stuff, and so in my memory I can’t really differentiate Neal Adams all that much from the other older guys like Marshall Rogers, Jim Aparo, or Norm (Neal?) Breyfoggle - all were fantastic though. There’s a lot of artists that had an awesome Batman - as mentioned, Tim Sale (best Batman cape artist ever), Frank Miller, and David Mazuchelli were all really good. Alan Davis and John Byrne were pretty good too. Bruce Timm, of course, and even Mike Mignola’s Gotham By Gaslight Batman was pretty cool from way back.
I think Mignola’s Batman and Dave Johnson’s Soviet Batman from Red Son are my two favourite Batman variants…next to Frank Miller’s Old DKR Batman of course.
And Scott McDaniel was a personal favourite of mine. Damion Scott as well.
It’s weird for me - my favourite Batman story of all time is still Year One, just over DKR…but if you asked me what my favourite generic comic book story was, DKR would rate higher than Year One.
Objectively, I think DKR was the more enjoyable comic because of the sheer epic nature of the story and all the crazy shit that goes down, and seeing Batman do all these crazy things in an Elseworlds story, not the mention the genre-extending impact of the whole thing…but when you look at it from the context of it being a BATMAN story, and consider all the things that make Batman stories so great, I like to rank Year One at the top.
Year One, I think, is objectively one of the greatest, best written, and best drawn comic book stories of all time. It just comes together so well, and I think Year One more than DKR (by just a bit) makes you appreciate how awesome the character is.
The Killing Joke was a really fantastic story as well, as anything Alan Moore related should be. But that was more of a Joker/Gordon story than a Batman story, right?
It’s one thing to have balls and it’s another to actually make a good comic book. No Man’s Land, Fugitive/Murderer, Knightfall, Officer Down, War Games - all complete ass, and I’m not talking about All-Star Superman. Taichi can fuck me if wants to fly across the country.
Some of those crossovers might’ve been decent ideas to start off with, but the fact that they got dragged out over so many issues written and drawn by so many different people just kills them all. I read somewhere once that Peter Milligan actually helped come up with the idea of Batman getting his back broken for Knightfall - but Milligan didn’t write a single issue of that crossover. If he wrote it all himself, it probably could have been halfway decent. Who ended up writing most of the Knightfall trilogy? Doug Moench? Alan Grant? That’s what I thought.
Those crossovers are like the Superman comics of the '90s, when all the monthly Superman titles had the S-Shield with a number telling you the proper reading order. Only they each had their own creative teams so everybody was writing a random chapter of a story that they were only partially invested in. Horrible. Just like those crap X-Title crossovers back in the early '90s.
Just read the Rucka and Brubaker issues from the Fugitive/Murderer and Officer Down era. They’re ATROCIOUS! Even Brubaker’s disowned most of the Batman comics he’s written because of those shitty crossovers.
If having balls means being brave enough to tell a multpart, multiple series spanning “epic” (which also happens to boost sales by forcing people to buy comics they don’t normally buy in order to read the entire story), I would rather read Batman comics written by pussies.
Nightwing and Robin had some decent runs. Chuck Dixon, baby - he’s like the rich man’s Ron Marz. His comics are pretty much all straightforward action, adventure, and a little character development tossed in here and there. Back when Greg Land was cool, he was drawing Nightwing.
I didn’t even think Devin Grayson’s run on Nightwing was too bad. I admit I enjoyed it as I read it while it was being serialized, but apparently it gets hated on a lot. Even sano, the lover of just about any comic with Nightwing or Donald Duck in it, hates on Devin Grayson’s run - that pretty much says all you need to know.
I was also pretty let down by Willingham’s run on Robin. After reading FAAAAAAABLES!!!11 for so long, I just expected more. And then there was that recent run by Beechen or someone - that was kind of weird. Batgirl evil? I think Johns retconned that in Teen Titans by saying she was brainwashed by Deathstroke, but that’s still whack.
Eh it can be interpreted as that, when Batman did pop up in Killing Joke he always took center stage to me, so it was compelling to see how little he was used, since it built it up. I like how he chased Joker down in the classic outfit and Batmobile.
Hey now not every Donald Duck comic, just the Barks/Rosa ones mostly. And the old Al Talaifero strips too. There some very bad Danish ones and I don’t know why they even bother translating those in the first place. The worst one I read was Donald being a fan of opera man get out of here with that!
Nightwing’s my favorite spin off character and I like him even more than Batman, it’s largely due to Dixon’s run on the character.
My favorite Batman crossover is Batman and Captain America by Byrne. Took place in World War II, they were fighting with nazis and Joker, it’s OG Batman smiling while punching people in the face!
Spawn and Batman, the Image version drawn by McFarlane gets a nod because it was written by Miller and features a Batman that is similar to Miller’s All-Star version, without all the “GODDAMNS!”
Speaking of, All-Star Batman has grown on me, took about 6 issues to wear me down but I love the Goddamn Batman. :lovin:
Whenever Dini writes Detective Comics it’s great too but that goes without say.
Nah it’s Batman written as if he hasn’t aged a day past 8 mentally, from the time his parents died. It’s a riot. I imagine if an SRKer became Batman that is how they would act. :bgrin:
Those who hate it usually don’t understand what it meant.
it brought Batman back to his roots. Suddenly the rules are different, not only is there no tech (Batmobile, Batplane, Batcomputer, etc.), there’s also no rooftops, nothing to swing from, or spy from, he had to go out during the day to protect the people.
it was pretty impressive, epic in scope, and sometimes very moving. It had a definite beginning, middle and end, and was far more well planned than most ‘epics’.
was it a sweeping impact that changed Batman forever?, no, no it wasn’t. Was it a well-crafted tale, the likes of which were sorely missing in Batman Comics of late? sure was.
it might have been drawn by different people, it might have been written by different people, but because it was plotted by one person, things were a lot smoother than some stories.
is it “The Long Halloween” Good?, no.
is it a good Batman story? yeah. At least it’s memorable…there’s very few nowadays that are.
I just read it recently. First of all, it isn’t complete. It leaves off without resolving everything that it starts. That doesn’t mean the story never gets resolved, it’s just that they haven’t made those issues into TPB’s yet. That’s what I was able to figure out after reading it and finding out that it was part of the discontinued Gotham Knights series.
As for its quality, the art isn’t the best, but it suffices. The story is okay, but nothing as legendary as the original Hush.
By the way, if you want more of the stuff from Hush, there are also two Red Hood TPB’s chronicling
Batman Hush
Spoiler
Jason Todd’s return
Ironically, I’m starting all of the Jeph Loeb/Tim Sale stuff right now (Haunted Knight, Long Halloween, Dark Victory).
First Question (Answer):I personally like the more ‘deformed’ style of Batman (Frank Miller, David Mazzucchelli, Tim Sale). I agree that Jim Lee is one of the greatest artists of all time and even like his Batman, but he doesn’t seem to add anything to the character and his Batman pretty much looks like another generic Jim Lee male.
Second Question (Answer): I haven’t read too much yet (DKR, Year One, Superman/Batman, Red Hood), but I really like some of the animated stuff (90’s TAS). It’s nothing ground breaking, but it’s a lot of fun to watch.
That’s something I was thinking about recently. There are so many Batman series’, writers, artists, etc. All of them bring their own touch and try to do something new with the character. Many of them do things well, but none of them gain widespread readership since there pretty much can never be another DKR (AKA reinvention, AKA wow factor). What I’m trying to say is that after DKR, everything seems to be on the same plane and the only thing that stands out is Jeph Loeb’s stuff (this is not my opinion, I’m just talking about statistics). Why no love for all of the other stuff?
Finally, All Star B&RtBW: At first I thought that it was over the top and just plain cheesy. But now I can kind of see the direction that Miller is taking and also how he’s trying to freshen things up. I guess this is how people must have felt when DKR first came out.
Bub, No Man’s Land wasn’t about bringing Batman back to his roots. It was about boosting the sales of Shadow of the Bat by including it as part of a multi-part crossover. Crass commercialism, that’s all it was. I hate to say it, but No Man’s Land is exactly the type of comic that completely justifies the existence and elitism of The Comics Journal.
It didn’t even bring Batman back to his roots, unless being a bigger asshole is part of his roots. (And it could be. Back in Detective #27, he let some crook fall to his death and Batman just commented, “A fitting end for his kind” or something to that effect.) The plot was a way to toss Batman and his supporting cast into this sort of post-apocalyptic, Mad Max environment. Not necessarily a bad idea, but it’s all about execution, and No Man’s Land was flawed. Plenty of sloppy art and lots of unimaginative writing. You could tell people were writing just to move the plot along just a smidgen even though mostly not much happened during the issues.
I know Taichi and I have wildly divergent ideas of what makes a good comic, but this is almost crossing the line here, bub. I can’t see how “well-crafted” can possibly be used to describe No Man’s Land. I’m not denying it took lots of coordination and planning - and maybe even some huge balls - but it still sucks.
Good comics are full of passion that bleeds off the pages as you read. No Man’s Land was just about bleeding your wallet dry.
The Return of Hush story by Lieberman and Barrinuevo was bad. I’m not a dude who decries “decompression” in comics, but Return of Hush was way too long. It was trying so hard to be something major to the Batman mythos, but it fell way short. They tried to make Hush a cool character by focusing the story on him, but they didn’t do jack to actually give him character development. They just kept trying to show how much of a badass he was by beating up other Batman villains. As a result, it totally just feels like Riddler and Joker are complete wusses and you still have no respect for Hush. And Batman hardly does anything, which makes him seem ineffectual as well.
On the other hand, there are a couple of positives to that story. The art was really good. And they brought back Prometheus and used him as a Batrogue.
It still ain’t worth buying, though. I actually have most of Liberman’s run on Gotham Central (got it as part of a lot I won off eBay this one time) so if you really want to check it out, I can send it to you if you’re that interested.
