@jack_donaghy: I actually liked the Batman shown in the Justice League cartoons more than the one in TAS

The only reason Timm is winning is because of nostalgia.

Miller's Batman in addition to the new DC Animated movies are much better portrayals than DCAU Batman.

Bruce Timm

Yeah but like I said Timm doesn't have ASBAR Or DKSA to his name.

@entropy_aegis: True, but I simply ignore Miller from DSKA onwards. Nothing he writes or says can be taken seriously.

The Timm version is the perfect Batman but Miller's is much more entertaining due to its variations.

BB

Dini didn't write most of the episodes of original BTAS, JL/JLU. Don't know why everyone thinks that. Timm was the man in charge of DCAU and only his art style was used in DCAU so it's rightfully Timmverse.

This isn't actually true, Dark Knight Returns was a critical darling, but it did next to nothing for sales.

In an interview Alan Grant stated that he and John Wagner were brought onto Detective Comics in 1988 to try to save it because it was selling under the break even point at the time, they were not paid much but they could make extra royalties based on sales.

John Wagner left their partnership because sales were so low that they were getting paid next to nothing in royalties anyway, then a little under a year later the Tim Burton movie came out and according to Grant sales literally multiplied by more than a factor of 8.

Alan Grant was raking in the cash but John Wagner was kicking himself because he'd left!

@silverpool: agreed. And his work with Tony S. Daniel was ace. No one else can draw Batman as consistently good imo. (Except the Neal Adams/Jim Aparo dream team, and their work on Brave and the Bold. Their art was fantastic, for the time, but suffered from limited technology-- as is obvious in the whole black/blue cape and cowl.)

I don't think this is really a fair comparison. From what I understand Miller never intended The Dark Knight Returns to be any sort of cannon, so he wasn't portraying what he thought should be the ideal Batman. He had the chance to have some creative freedom with the character and he took it. That being said, I liked Miller's interpretation, but only as an Elseworlds version of the character. Timmverse for the win!

Miller, it's not even close.

@frozen: That's an excuse. Nostalgia doesn't play a part in it, maybe for some, but not all. If that was the case, then I'd like '89's Batman the most. The new Batman movies aren't that great either, excluding Under The Red Hood.

Timm simply because he had a lot of great writers, and Dini's Joker was by far the best onscreen Joker and was a huge amalgamation of all the comic-book Jokers. Batman was well written in almost all of the episodes, especially Perchance to Dream. Batman was nearly perfect in the some of the episodes, and was just like Batman from the eighties and nineties.

Explain yourself

The Dark Knight Returns shouldn't be used as evidence for bringing back "grittiness and maturity", Denny O'Neil done that a little over a decade before Miller did. Timm's Batman is an amalgamation of all the ages of Batman, which includes what Miller done. Timm's Batman is the ideal representation of Batman in that regard.

The Batman of Miller is simply a darker, richer and more complex character in my opinion, DCAU Bats was limited due to the fact it was primarily for children.

This

I may have had couple problems with particular things but Timm/Dini had me glued to the tv.

Frank Miller while I give him credit for his influence on making Batman darker in the main stream his Batman work leaves much to be desired.

@rogueshadow: That's silly. Of course the show's primary target was children, but that just sounds like you're discrediting what the writers have accomplished with Batman in the DCAU. They had a clear vision for the character, ran with it, and continued to build upon it. Batman had hundreds of episodes to develop.

Tim Burton

I take it you didn't start from the beginning? Morrison's run is all pretty much one huge overarcing storyline. It is complex, but when you start at beginning it isn't at all hard to follow imo. You sort of have to read the full story to appreciate what he was trying to do :P

@perchance2dream: No I read it completely from the beginning (or at least everything that was published in the Comics of the Batman family members, I don't read cross overs with the JLA members) and in my opinion RIP and this Black Glove and time travel stuff are a complete mess.

@aahz: if you read Final Crisis along woth the TPB "Time and the Batman" the time travel would make a lot more sense. As for the Black Glove, it seemed pretty straightforward to me: "super-secret, comic-book-villain-styled evil society tries to defeat Batman because they're evil." I thought that was more or less all that needed understanding. Lol

The Timmverse Batman is a much worked character because he had over 100+ episodes and paper stories to expend his personnality. Because he was ment for a children's show, he is a litte less dark and more humane than some other versions.

Miller made him very dark and spitfule. A less lovable one to my opinion. But authors went on with this Batman and made him evolve to a much friendlier Batman as Grant Morisson did in Batman Inc.

For me, I had more fun watching TAS than reading TDKR. And Miller work on Batman isn't perferct that's why people only talk about YO and TDKR, the other ones seems to have been forgotten.

Some of the best Batman stories I've read come from the Timmverse in The Batman Adventure v2.

No, not for me at least. I was reading (or, more accurately, attempting to read) the Dark Knight Returns at the same time I was watching the Animated Series. I loved Timm's Bruce, I couldn't get through DKR.

To be fair, I really don't like dark stories too much, so that could be part of it.

Is sad to see how Miller gets so much praise for something he didnt do.

Dennis ONeil, Mike W. Barr, Bob Haney, etc that in their own bring back tons of thins before Miller did anything.

He was part of the natural evolution of Batman as a character, a very important part, but not the most important and not the turning point.

The darker Silver Age were the reason why we got this Bronze Age.

So, yes Miller and Moore could do what they did thanks to the people before them, they didnt started a revolution, they were the poster boys.

Timm, not even a contest.

Wait , so how does Paul Dini fits here?

He counts as Bruce Timm Team?

Neither is the ideal Batman, but I generally enjoy Timm's animated series more than Miller's writing.

Though, if we compare the actual characters, Miller's Batman's forceful, no-holds-barred personality is much more entertaining. Timm's Batman could occasionally be quite bland.

@zearing said:

To also be fair, Timm doesn't have anything close to as bad as All Star Batman and Robin and Dark Knight Strikes again. Saying he's only winning due to nostalgia is silly.

Morrison's take by far. He was the most nuanced, and didn't fall into the "DARKNESS NO PARENTS" caricature that Miller's Batman, and eventually Timm's Batman became.

Miller's Batman is multifaceted, evolves past his traumas, takes in kids, just generally does Batman shit.

Timm's Batman was a conscious deconstruction of the character at first, though I'll concede that JLU puts a nice bow on the character arc.