You haven’t read the Invisibles or Animal Man…and you don’t list Engelhart and Rogers (or O’Neal and Adams) among the greatest Batmans ever.

Mr. Reed you are officially on notice.

Actually for recognising the brilliance of Peter Milligan’s run he’s got a job for life!

(and for my tastes, leaving out Steve Englehart’s run only backs that up)

My favorite Batman, though (which says a lot about me, I guess) is the grim, stick-in-the-mud straight man of Justice League International. He seemed like Batman, but in context it was funny and it worked beautifully.

Mr. Reed you are officially on notice.

Grant and Breyfogle are probably the team that made me keep Detective Comics on my pull list for the longuest time. Loved their work. They even reintroduced Ace the Bathound! How cool was that? We were talking about Jim Aparo yesterday, well I would say that Norm Breyfogle was the one who followed the dedicated craftsman’s footsteps, steady and reliable, keeping up the good work for a very long run on the same character. Underrated, Norm Breyfogle certainly did one of the few “definitive” Batman.

Doug Moench and Kelley Jones did a marvellous and often overlooked run on Batman. I think that is probably because they came right after the krappy Knightfall/Knightquest/Knightend storylines that made a lot of Batman readers leave the book (myself included). Moench and Jones gave Batman the credibility he desesperately needed after that lame Knighgimmick mess, they made him a detective again, putted a heavy gothic imprint on their run (with guests like Deadman, Man-Bat, Spectre, etc.).

Puckett and Parobeck’s Batman (BATMAN ADVENTURES) was the best being published at the time. This was during the forementioned dreadful KnightFall/Quest/End era. Puckett and Parobeck (I miss his cool and fun artwork SO much!) did another “definitive” Batman, the pure classic mythological Batman.

Denny O’Neil & Neal Adams.
Steve Englehart & Marshall Rogers.
Frank Miller and David Mazzuchelli. (I prefer by far their YEAR ONE to Miller’s DARK KNIGHT)
Mike W. Barr & Alan Davis.
Jeph Loeb & Tim Sale.
All classic, fun and cool short runs.

Another one of my favorite era of Batman, was the Bronze Age 20 issues run of the BATMAN FAMILY anthology (that continued for a time in Detective Comics for more or less another 20 issues?). The best artists of the Bronze Age contributed art for the anthology: Mike Grell, Jim Aparo, Howard Chaykin, Don Newton, Craig Russel, Jim Starlin, Marshall Rogers, Michael Golden, etc… They were great reprints of Dick Sprang and classic stories like the 1st Ace Bat Hound, Fatman, etc. The anthology featured not only Batman, but Batgirl, Robin, Man-Bat, Batwoman,Batmite, etc.

Along with the incredible art, it breaks down not only who the Batman is, but Gotham as well. Which is as vital to the character as any of his weapons or “toys” are.

And I have to disagree a bit with your top choice of Dark Knight as the best Batman story. While I agree that overall it may be listed alongside some of the greatest super hero comics of all time, it only works if you’ve read Batman comics before. If someone who’d never read or had little knowledge of the character read just Dark Knight, they couldn’t fully appreciate what Miller was trying to say.

I also loved pretty much anything based on the Animated Series–the bit I always remember fondly is when the Joker captures both Batman and Harvey Dent, and then proceeds to unmask Batman on live television. But when he unmasks Batman, he finds Harvey Dent…and turns to see “Harvey” slipping out of his bonds, pulling on the cowl, and charging at him. Beautiful.

And, to briefly turn to a different medium and a different Batman, I loved “Batman Beyond: Return of the Joker”. The Joker’s death is–sacrilegious but true–better done than in ‘Dark Knight Returns’, and the final confrontation between the new Batman and the new Joker is just perfect.

Batman has a higher success rate, I think it’s safe to say, across a variety of different mediums than any other character. With the exception of one movie, everything Batman-related has generally been pretty good.

That’s why he works in a Western, as a pirate, in sci-fi, and cheesy stories, as well as dark, grim & gritty.

I love the old 60′s series and I loved Batman Begins–in my opinion it’s the second best superhero movie ever made (So far)

I loved the Killing Joke as well.

Too many people seem to think you can only like 1 Batman–nonsense–you can like as many as you want-
The Elseworld versions (especially Gotham by Gaslight–which originated before Elseworlds, but it was so good they used it to launch Elseworlds. Also “The Blue, the Grey, & The Bat” & others.)

I love the O’Neill/Adams Batman & Jim Aparo, Marshall Rogers, Steve Englehart, etc, etc…

A lot of the old reprints I’ve read from the late 50′s to late 60′s got real silly-and worse–but most are still fun to read.

The only versions I completely avoid are the Val Kilmer & George Clooney versions.

No matter how bad the DCU gets and how disinterested I am in their latest crossover event/crisis, I always hold out hope that Batman is going to be the one book that I’m still going to want to read. I guess no matter how disenchanted I get with every other character in DC, Batman’s always going to be the one character I’ll stand behind no matter what.

Also, count me among the other 11 people who liked DK2. It was a completely different beast than DKR, but for my money it was everything Kingdom Come should have been, and I’m glad I got the hardcover of it back when I came out.

The run of Steve Englehart, Marshall Rogers, and Terry Austin in the late ’70′s would be my #2.

Mike W. Barr and Alan Davis did some very nice stories circa 1987.

Going back to the Golden Age, I always loved the art team of Dick Sprang and Charles Paris.

I thought that Batman Year One was superior to the Dark Knight Returns.

The first appearance of Scarface, I think, was what made me realise that the really weird stuff wasn’t coming across in any other medium.

I also really liked the Grant Morrison issues of Legends of the Dark Knight, with art I think by Klaus Jansen, called ‘Gothic.’
And the first Manbat issues.

I do wonder if other people’s first comic book was good, bad, or whatever. I did have a lot of good comics as a kid- Gruenwald’s Cap, Simonson’s Thor, Giffen and DeMatteis’s JLA- but I think a lot of it is I don’t remember the lousy comics I had, cause I didn’t read them as often.

Thank you for putting my worry to rest today.