I found Arkham Asylum a little pretentious personally, couldn't get into it either
Hush was pretty much garbage, just a bunch of cameos held together with a flimsy plot, nice artwork. 2/5
Long Halloween was a little better than Hush, it benefited from wholesale ripping off Batman Annual 14 & the Godfather, but was still a very, very flawed book regardless. As a mystery it was really pathetic and you could tell it wasn't planned very well. 2.5/5
Year One I really enjoyed, smart story, mature, loads of focus on Gordon. 5/5
Killing Joke I also like, but think may be a little overrated. I like the different ways of reading into it. 4/5
Going Sane was cool, similar to Killing Joke in some ways with its focus on a "normal" Joker, who's trying to live his life here after he thinks that he's finally managed to kill Batman (Batman is portrayed in the story as the sole focus and reason for his psychosis). Its a counterpart to Kraven's Last Hunt for Spider-Man, which was written by the same writer. 4/5
The Cult I also enjoyed but its pretty crazy, with some religious fanatic breaking, torturing, drugging, and eventually brain-washing Batman and then taking over Gotham. You can really tell that the team who worked on it were from the horror genre as there are a lot of grisly scenes here. Your mileage may vary here 4/5
A Death in the Family was kind of OK, but is very silly at times, and there's not a hell of a lot of plot, I think its more famous for the death of Robin than anything else. Still there are a lot of character moments for Jason Todd here. 3/5
Birth of the Demon was very good, its all about the origin of Ra's and shows him growing up learning about Lazarus pits and such. There's an epic battle between Batman, and a soon to be dead Ra's who's desperately trying to reach a pit. 4/5
Son of the Demon was ok ish but I wasn't really that into it, this one is like an action-adventure tale with Batman teaming up with Ra's and Talia, traveling with them and helping them train an army and such to defeat a common foe. 3/5
Mad Love I thought was pretty awesome, it tells the origin of Harley Quinn and is very humourous whilst also managing to be sad. Joker is brilliant here and there are a lot of great exchanges between the three characters. 5/5
Venom, didn't like it much, its about the first appearance of Venom, before Bane first appeared. Batman gets addicted to the stuff in what I feel is a wildly out of character moment, he fights his addiction and then goes after the drugs designer. 2.5/5
Blind Justice I liked, its about what happens when Batman lets people get too close to him. Bruce makes a lot of big errors here which have some nasty repercussions. This story also ties up and explains a lot of loose ends in the Batman mythos. 4/5
Strange Apparitions, this was my favourite of the 1970s Batman stories I read. Batman is much more human here than he is portrayed these days, with him leading his Bruce Wayne life and getting involved with a love interest etc etc. The story has one of Batman's earliest enemies, Dr Hugo Strange discovering his identity, it has tons of atmosphere. 4/5
Prey, I didn't like this story much, it also has Hugo Strange in it but he acts like a very different character. Here he is pretty much an incompetent loser who chases women and gets others to do his dirty work. There were no interesting antagonists in this story, the guy fighting Batman most of the time was completely forgettable and Strange took a back seat and did very little. 2.5/5
Dark Knight, Dark City was pretty good, this was a popular Riddler story where the character seems likes a very real, very dangerous threat. This story has big supernatural element to it with the story including old curses and black magic and such. 3/5
Red Rain was an elseworlds tale about Batman becoming a vampire. I thought this story was entertaining, nothing more, nothing less. It was easy to read and held my interest well, this one also has a lot of atmosphere. 3/5
Faces, I liked this one well enough, it was about Two-Face trying to create a paradise for freaks where they could all live in peace, except the other freaks didn't appreciate him forcing them to come along with him LOL. 3/5
Heart of Hush I enjoyed a lot more than Hush, it was much better written, and Hush's character was really built on here and made into a much more believable character, the plot was also a lot more focused. 3/5
Tales of the Demon was another 70s story, this time starring Ra's and Talia in their first appearances. This was very readable, its kind of silly and pulpy at times but has a nice adventure style to it, with Batman traveling around the world with a team he forms to help him take down Ra's. There's some pretty iconic panels in this one and it memorable. 3/5
Damn!, I'm only halfway through but I'm fed up with writing so I'm quitting here, LOL
Maybe I'll resume some other time
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