I've been thinking of getting some Batman trades but not sure which to get, I already have Batman: Hush but does anyone have any "must have" Batman arcs that they'd like to suggest/recommend.

I've already thought of getting:

• Batman: Year One
• Batman: The Long Halloween

But are their any other stories that you guy think would be good to read, I've heard No Man's Land is good as well, but I'm open for suggestions. :)

Batman Dark Victory (once you have red Long Halloween)

It's even better than Long Halloween it's the sequel.

Also, Batman: The Black Mirror is amazing, but it's the newer stuff.

And obviously the Grant Morrison run is a MUST.

Are you looking for newer age Batman stuff or more classics Batman and Robin stuff?

NO MAN'S LAND!!!! They're reprinting the trades. I just bought the first. It's over 500 pages and you can get it for about 20 bucks brand new (list price is 34.95) off of either Barnes and Noble or Amazon. GET THIS BOOK.

I feel like I do this EVERY time, but The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul, is Morrison at his finest. Easily my favourite Batman arc.

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

@The Dark Huntress said:

NO MAN'S LAND!!!! They're reprinting the trades. I just bought the first. It's over 500 pages and you can get it for about 20 bucks brand new (list price is 34.95) off of either Barnes and Noble or Amazon. GET THIS BOOK.

How many books is the story covered in? O_o I just looked here on the site and it's divided into like five volumes...

@War Killer said:

@The Dark Huntress said:

NO MAN'S LAND!!!! They're reprinting the trades. I just bought the first. It's over 500 pages and you can get it for about 20 bucks brand new (list price is 34.95) off of either Barnes and Noble or Amazon. GET THIS BOOK.

How many books is the story covered in? O_o I just looked here on the site and it's divided into like five volumes...

It was an absolutely massive one year arc that ran through every Bat Family book.

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

I HATE old art. Pretty much everything before late nineties/early 2000s, I just can't bare - late 90's is pushing it, even.

But this art is tolerable/good. And it perfectly fits the story - dark, dour, hopeless, stark.

I would recommend it to any fan of Batman. It's a definitive story. Especially for Cassie Cain and Huntress.

Heard Broken City was good.
BB

@The Dark Huntress said:

I HATE old art. Pretty much everything before late nineties/early 2000s, I just can't bare - late 90's is pushing it, even.

But this art is tolerable/good. And it perfectly fits the story - dark, dour, hopeless, stark.

I would recommend it to any fan of Batman. It's a definitive story. Especially for Cassie Cain and Huntress.

Haha same! I had a really hard time doing Knightfall... but when I got to No Man's Land I couldn't stand the way it was drawn.

I will give it a try. Thanks.

What about The Return or Bruce Wayne and Batman, Incorporated? I like Morrison's Batman but sometimes his writing's over my head.

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

I HATE old art. Pretty much everything before late nineties/early 2000s, I just can't bare - late 90's is pushing it, even.

But this art is tolerable/good. And it perfectly fits the story - dark, dour, hopeless, stark.

I would recommend it to any fan of Batman. It's a definitive story. Especially for Cassie Cain and Huntress.

@RainEffect said:

@The Dark Huntress said:

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

I HATE old art. Pretty much everything before late nineties/early 2000s, I just can't bare - late 90's is pushing it, even.

But this art is tolerable/good. And it perfectly fits the story - dark, dour, hopeless, stark.

I would recommend it to any fan of Batman. It's a definitive story. Especially for Cassie Cain and Huntress.

Huntress flipping owns No Man's Land. It's her book.

Tis why I bought it. I'm going through and getting her definitive appearances. I'm only on the first issue but OMFG this book is amazing.

@War Killer said:

What about The Return or Bruce Wayne and Batman, Incorporated? I like Morrison's Batman but sometimes his writing's over my head.

If you want to do Morrison Batman, you need to read EVERYTHING from A-Z

http://www.comicvine.com/myvine/joelislegend/grant-morrison-batman-reading-order/75-35373/

@Joelislegend said:

Are you looking for newer age Batman stuff or more classics Batman and Robin stuff?

I'm really looking for those stories that define Bruce as Batman or at least are great and classic Batman stories with Bruce under the cowl. I liked Dick as Batman, but I like Bruce more.

@The Dark Huntress said:

NO MAN'S LAND!!!! They're reprinting the trades. I just bought the first. It's over 500 pages and you can get it for about 20 bucks brand new (list price is 34.95) off of either Barnes and Noble or Amazon. GET THIS BOOK.

You shouldn't just read No Man's Land though, Batman had a good 4+ year (1996-2000) stretch then of damn near perfection cause of Contagion, Legacy, Cataclysm, Aftershock and No Man's Land. It was a huge undertaking linking so many bat-family titles together for such a long time and they pulled it off like a champ. Most people's love of Batman was rekindled cause of Dark Knight Returns but for me it was those four years V_V

@War Killer: read Batman and Son, The Black Casebook and Batman RIP then. Bruce destroys in Morrison Batman.

@RainEffect said:

@The Dark Huntress said:

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

I HATE old art. Pretty much everything before late nineties/early 2000s, I just can't bare - late 90's is pushing it, even.

But this art is tolerable/good. And it perfectly fits the story - dark, dour, hopeless, stark.

I would recommend it to any fan of Batman. It's a definitive story. Especially for Cassie Cain and Huntress.

Huntress flipping owns No Man's Land. It's her book.

Funny because I was actually just getting into Huntress' character, I'm going to be picking up her newest mini next time I'm at the CBS so if she's in the book I'm more excited to read it.

My favorite Batman story by far is Gotham After Midnight.

It has cool art, giant monster/robot fight, detective work, romance..you name it.

Great story and a must have

I think that Bruce Wayne: Murderer is very good. It's interesting seeing Bruce Wayne manage in prison, unable to break-free and be Batman. I also really like Batman: Ego and Other Tales for having an interesting take on the Batman/Bruce Wayne dichotomy, showing that each half balances the other (and it includes a couple other great Darwyn Cooke stories). No Man's Land is great because it shows Batman working without his dependency on high-tech gadgets, learning how to work at street level using nothing but his wits. And it also includes a bunch of the other members of the Bat family and basically the entire rogue's gallery (and vol. 1 is incredibly cheap - at only $20.00 on Amazon). The artwork is hit and miss, but it's altogether well worth-it, in my opinion.

If you're a Huntress fan I can recommend two good trades, a mini, and an ongoing series for her. Nightwing/Huntress was a great mini and works well as a trade, Batman/Huntress Cry For Blood was excellent, the first mini for Huntress was so dark and moody and her original ongoing series is Huntress at her best (you can usually find all 19 issues bundled together for under $15 online).

No Mans Land

I would recommend Knightfall BUT the TPB is missing a lot of crucial stuff.

@entropy_aegis said:

I would recommend Knightfall BUT the TPB is missing a lot of crucial stuff.

It was? That TPB was huge, too. (The one I read, anyway)

@Gambit1024 said:

@entropy_aegis said:

I would recommend Knightfall BUT the TPB is missing a lot of crucial stuff.

It was? That TPB was huge, too. (The one I read, anyway)

I think so yes,Vengeance of Bane and Batman #489-491 were quite crucial.Sword of Azrael and Batman#484-488 were fairly important as well.There was another 3 issue arc in Detective.

The Knightquest part is also missing.

I hope they rectify these mistakes when the choose to re-release it.

@entropy_aegis: Hm. I might have to go back and track those down then.

@Gambit1024: They released Knightfall as a single volume? I must have missed that, I have the three volume set and each one is fairly big, aegis is right about the missing issues especially Vengeance of Bane and Sword of Azrael

@entropy_aegis: Knightquest is split into two parts Knightquest The Crusade & Knightquest The Search and The Crusade is included in the three volume Knightfall set mentioned above.

@pikahyper: They didn't. I was talking about the 3 Volume set (Volume 1, anyway). I had no idea that much was missing.

@Gambit1024: ya it was pretty common for them to not include anything deemed non-integral.

@pikahyper said:

@Gambit1024: They released Knightfall as a single volume? I must have missed that, I have the three volume set and each one is fairly big, aegis is right about the missing issues especially Vengeance of Bane and Sword of Azrael

@entropy_aegis: Knightquest is split into two parts Knightquest The Crusade & Knightquest The Search and The Crusade is included in the three volume Knightfall set mentioned above.

Ah so it's missing "search"?

@entropy_aegis: yep cause The Search isn't as necessary to the overall story cause it is just Bruce and Alfred traipsing around Europe (it is still good though) and cause Legends of the Dark Knight and Shadow of the Bat were two of DC's experimental comics art and writing wise (so they often get ignored) and cause DC refuses to collect any issues of Justice League Task Force (or Justice League Quarterly which was incredible) which I think is a shame cause it was a fantastic series.

@pikahyper said:

@entropy_aegis: yep cause The Search isn't as necessary to the overall story cause it is just Bruce and Alfred traipsing around Europe (it is still good though) and cause Legends of the Dark Knight and Shadow of the Bat were two of DC's experimental comics art and writing wise (so they often get ignored) and cause DC refuses to collect any issues of Justice League Task Force (or Justice League Quarterly which was incredible) which I think is a shame cause it was a fantastic series.

Yup,JL Taskforce was pretty good from the few issues I read.

Honestly Knightsquest was kind of boring compared to the rest of the story.

If it can help anyone, I know that all of the issues are available digitally on http://www.comixology.com/. That's how I read comics and it works quite well.

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

Yes & no...

NML was a year long project that consisted of many 3-4 issue story arcs in many of the Batman titles for 12 months. So some stories were absolute GOLD, while the rest were pretty much 'bumf' ('bum-fodder' which you'd use to clean yourself with when going to the toilet), to spread out the year. But you did get that 'trapped & decaying into chaos' feeling that is prevalent in Arkham City.

As DH, they're reprinting NML in a series of trade paperbacks (search Amazon for No Man's Land New Edition). And as Pikahyper pointed out, there were stories before that (such as Cataclysm) that took place immediately before NML.

Personally, I'd back up your own idea to get Year One and The Long Halloween. Back up TLH with Dark Victory. It's not just a sequel, but has a very big feeling of 'part 2' to complete the whole story :)

Myself, I've just got a hold of Officer Down, am looking for a reasonably priced Bruce Wayne Fugitive Vol 1, and am waiting for War Games volumes 1 & 2 to arrive (then I'll read War Drums, War Games Acts 1, 2 & 3 and War Crimes in one marathon reading).

@xerox_kitty said:

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

Yes & no...

NML was a year long project that consisted of many 3-4 issue story arcs in many of the Batman titles for 12 months. So some stories were absolute GOLD, while the rest were pretty much 'bumf' ('bum-fodder' which you'd use to clean yourself with when going to the toilet), to spread out the year. But you did get that 'trapped & decaying into chaos' feeling that is prevalent in Arkham City.

As DH, they're reprinting NML in a series of trade paperbacks (search Amazon for No Man's Land New Edition). And as Pikahyper pointed out, there were stories before that (such as Cataclysm) that took place immediately before NML.

Personally, I'd back up your own idea to get Year One and The Long Halloween. Back up TLH with Dark Victory. It's not just a sequel, but has a very big feeling of 'part 2' to complete the whole story :)

Myself, I've just got a hold of Officer Down, am looking for a reasonably priced Bruce Wayne Fugitive Vol 1, and am waiting for War Games volumes 1 & 2 to arrive (then I'll read War Drums, War Games Acts 1, 2 & 3 and War Crimes in one marathon reading).

NOOOOOOOOOO don't waste your money on the War Games crap.

@entropy_aegis said:

@xerox_kitty said:

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

Yes & no...

NML was a year long project that consisted of many 3-4 issue story arcs in many of the Batman titles for 12 months. So some stories were absolute GOLD, while the rest were pretty much 'bumf' ('bum-fodder' which you'd use to clean yourself with when going to the toilet), to spread out the year. But you did get that 'trapped & decaying into chaos' feeling that is prevalent in Arkham City.

As DH, they're reprinting NML in a series of trade paperbacks (search Amazon for No Man's Land New Edition). And as Pikahyper pointed out, there were stories before that (such as Cataclysm) that took place immediately before NML.

Personally, I'd back up your own idea to get Year One and The Long Halloween. Back up TLH with Dark Victory. It's not just a sequel, but has a very big feeling of 'part 2' to complete the whole story :)

Myself, I've just got a hold of Officer Down, am looking for a reasonably priced Bruce Wayne Fugitive Vol 1, and am waiting for War Games volumes 1 & 2 to arrive (then I'll read War Drums, War Games Acts 1, 2 & 3 and War Crimes in one marathon reading).

NOOOOOOOOOO don't waste your money on the War Games crap.

Hahaha I also skipped right over war games. I started to read it and said... wait... do I really care about a gang war??

Especially that it was sandwiched between Under the Red Hood and Morrison... skip skip skip!!

Any recommendations for Cassandra Cain during her run as Batgirl, is her Batgirl series worth reading?

It's good. So is the Stephanie Brown run of Batgirl. Seriously I still can't believe shes MIA ever wince the new 52 :(

@War Killer said:

Any recommendations for Cassandra Cain during her run as Batgirl, is her Batgirl series worth reading?

Yes.

@xerox_kitty said:

@Joelislegend said:

I honestly need to read No Man's Land but the pictures are just so horrible. Every time I start it feels like I'm reading MAD magazine.

Is it really that great?

Yes & no...

NML was a year long project that consisted of many 3-4 issue story arcs in many of the Batman titles for 12 months. So some stories were absolute GOLD, while the rest were pretty much 'bumf' ('bum-fodder' which you'd use to clean yourself with when going to the toilet), to spread out the year. But you did get that 'trapped & decaying into chaos' feeling that is prevalent in Arkham City.

As DH, they're reprinting NML in a series of trade paperbacks (search Amazon for No Man's Land New Edition). And as Pikahyper pointed out, there were stories before that (such as Cataclysm) that took place immediately before NML.

Personally, I'd back up your own idea to get Year One and The Long Halloween. Back up TLH with Dark Victory. It's not just a sequel, but has a very big feeling of 'part 2' to complete the whole story :)

Myself, I've just got a hold of Officer Down, am looking for a reasonably priced Bruce Wayne Fugitive Vol 1, and am waiting for War Games volumes 1 & 2 to arrive (then I'll read War Drums, War Games Acts 1, 2 & 3 and War Crimes in one marathon reading).

DON'T READ OFFICER DOWN. CANCEL THAT ORDER. CANCEL IT!

Ooo yeah Officer Down really was awful. Go for Fugitive instead.

@xerox_kitty said:

Myself, I've just got a hold of Officer Down, am looking for a reasonably priced Bruce Wayne Fugitive Vol 1, and am waiting for War Games volumes 1 & 2 to arrive (then I'll read War Drums, War Games Acts 1, 2 & 3 and War Crimes in one marathon reading).

I like these picks :D

I’ve always liked batman, but up until recently I never really read any of his comics. Though I now have a pretty decent amount on knowledge on him its all been gathered from primarily wiki. And also batman the animated series and batman beyond/justice league animated series/animated movies like public enemies, crisis on two worlds, batman superman apakolips, and batman under the red hood. About a year ago I really started getting into him after reading Hush, I then followed hush with the killing joke and batman year one. ALL 3 good stories however I enjoyed the artwork in Hush>killing joke>batman year one, I also enjoyed the fact it had a lot of bruce’s rouges and the bat family in it. The fact that it had a mystery villain and detective work, mixed with an appearance from superman just made it one of my fav comics ever. Im looking for additional batman arc’s to read that have a similar feel. Good art work, good story, detective work and lots of the bat family or other hero appearances. Im going to pick up all the issues of batman comics now that they have a decent amount of issues after the reboot, so no need to suggest those. Does anyone have any suggestions for me based off what I stated? Im sick of reading snippets of the arcs in Wikipedia hahah. Save me!

@NEEK_03: Batman and Robin post reboot!!!!

and Batman post reboot.

Great jumping on points.

any that have been made into graphic novels?

I've never read a Batman comic before (I've read other DC ones but would you believe it never a Batman) and i'm looking for a new comic to read and I thought i'd try out Batman. Can anyone suggest an Arc that would be good for someone who is new to the character?

Year One, The Dark Knight Returns, Hush and The Black Mirror. That should be good enough to start.

@Strider92: Try Year One. It is the start of his career.