By DK2 do you mean "Dark Knight Strikes Again"? I really loved that one, I thought it was better than Dark Knight Returns, because it had everything Miller is good at (cool widescreen action, wonderfully over-the-top ideas, hyperactive satire), and little of the stuff that sucks about him (grim & grit, dodgy politics, overtly serious noir voiceovers).
― Tuomas, Friday, 9 October 2009 08:35 (fifteen years ago) link
I'll have to read "City of Crime", that story gets a really strong reaction either way among readers (some say it's the worst Batman story they've ever read).
Ed Brubaker wrote a six-part story "Dead Reckoning" that supposed to be excellent, but sadly has not been collected anywhere. The two issues I have got are really good.
The "Joker's Asylum" series was a pretty unremarkable series of villain-centred stories, except for "He Who Laughs Last", one of the best Penguin stories I've ever read. It's difficult to get his character right, but this story nailed it.
Paul Dini wrote some really enjoyable one and two-part stories in his run; as one poster pointed out on another thread, they're similar to the Alan Grant and Peter Milligan runs in the late 80s/early 90s. The two-parter with Zatanna and the magician was great, as was the re-invention of the Riddler.
"Death and the Maidens" by Greg Rucka and Klaus Janson - maybe not a masterpiece, but has some great moments.
― Duane Barry, Friday, 9 October 2009 11:40 (fifteen years ago) link
Detective #826 - This issue was killer, it is the one issue with the Joker taking Robin on a joyride during Christmas.
Legends of the Dark Knight #137-141- Doug Moench & Paul Gulacy "Terror" - this one is a sequel to their earlier Batman vs. Hugo Strange story called "Prey". I think both of those stories are great and there are a couple of scenes that I would definitely nick if I was using Hugo Strange in a movie.
Batman Dark Moon Rising Saga (Pt 1. Batman & the Monster Men, Pt. 2 Batman vs. The Mad Monk)- This featured art and story by Matt Wagner and is a story based upon two very early Batman tales from the start of the character including Hugo Strange and the vampire Mad Monk.
Legends of the Dark Knight #192-196-- This one was written by JH Williams III & Dan Curtis with amazing artwork by the late Seth Fisher telling the origin story of Mr. Freeze.
It isn't as good as Jason Aaron's Penguin story, but the issue about Two-Face by David Hine is also pretty good in that Joker's Asylum series.
Darwyn Cooke also did a cool one shot about Batman called "Ego" that is a good read.
Legends of the Dark Knight #214-- This was the last issue of this series and it has a great one shot dealing with Deadshot by Christos Gage and Phil Winslade.
Batman: Tenses - I really liked this 2 issue mini-series by Joe Casey and Cully Hamner dealing with repercussions from making a business decision Bruce Wayne creates a very bad person that Batman has to stop. I read some reviews that were really savage on it, but I thought it was cool and really a way better characterization of Batman than the psycho that was in stuff like Bruce Wayne: Murder/Fugitive. I thought the Batman in this one seemed to me more like the old character that was totally in control of everything in and out of the cape.
Ed Brubaker wrote a couple of good Batman tales. The one featuring Deadshot with a contract out to kill Lou Moxton who has a guy named Zeiss hired to protect him was really good, even if they ran a crossover right through the middle of the storyline. Zeiss was one of Brubaker's original villains and I thought he was pretty cool. His Joker origin story "The Man Who Laugh's" with Doug Mahnke artwork is also a pretty good read.
Greg Rucka also wrote some good stuff coming out of No Man's Land including a story with Ra's Al Ghul a two parter dealing with Batman having to get Poison Ivy to leave the park, where she had taken up in the middle of that story.
Rucka and Brubaker also did a pretty neat miniseries called Turning Points which does a look at the relationship between Gordon and Batman through the years. There is some nice artwork in that one including an issue by Paul Pope and it fits together pretty good.
The late Marshall Rogers also did a couple of nice series during the decade both , finishing a story in Legends of the Dark Knight written by Archie Goodwin plotted out before his death and finished by James Robinson and then working with Steve Englehart both of which are sequels to the stuff he did in Detective back at the end of the 70s. I thought they were pretty good, even though Rogers line is a bit more soft and not quite as crazy detailed as his older art. Marshall Rogers is one of my all time favorite comic artists and I think one of the iconic Batman artists, so these are special to me if nothing else.
The problem with both of the regular Batman and Detective titles is that they were really tied up with crossovers or really long story lines for the most part. While there are good points in some of them, they pretty much all don't hold together that well and some like the whole War Games/War Crimes are just pretty bad.
As you can see, I'm much more of a fan of stand alone more classic Batman tales than the on-going soap opera stuff. These would be some of the issues I would put up with some stuff already mentioned like Year 100. If you haven't read those up top, they are pretty cheap as back issues if curious (forget waiting for the trade). Most of them you can get for about a buck an issue at Lone Star Comics.
City of Crime is a weird one. There is some good stuff, but the whole battle of the mud people angle just didn't work for me. I love alot of David Lapham's comics, but I got to say it wasn't quite there. I think it would have been better to break the two story lines off, the second being the one on the kidnapped girl and tell them on their own instead of weaving them together. That mini-series that Lapham did with Daredevil and the Punisher was pretty fun.
― earlnash, Friday, 9 October 2009 21:17 (fifteen years ago) link
Agree w/Duane on a couple points... Dini's run was really good though mostly small unconnected stories (Zatanna story was def. a highlight). It's hard to measure it up against the other big heavy hitters though because of this. Dini also wrote the plot for the recent Arkham Asylum game.
Really really dug City of Crime as well as Death and the Maidens (solid story by Rucka, very good visual storytelling by Jansen). Kind of a shame they didn't really follow up the Tessa character very well, it seems - it really could've been setting up a good thing there.
Both stories were pretty outside of the crossover overload that was going on in the main titles (I'm gonna blame War Games) and thus pretty ignored, I guess. Turning Points was a pretty cool read too, an nice walk through Batman history from an odd angle.
― Nhex, Friday, 9 October 2009 21:29 (fifteen years ago) link