Grant Morrison reading order

[johnnydavidson]

Can anyone help me with the reading order for the Grant Morrison Batman series? I just read the 4 part Batman & Son arc, now what?

[FHIZ]

this is the trade order following Batman and Son

Batman: The Black Glove
Batman: RIP
(read online what happened to Batman in Final Crisis)
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman & Robin: Batman Must Die!

then Batman Incorporated

[johnnydavidson]

I'm not reading the trade paperbacks though, is there a website that says specifically what issues they are?

[DarkKnghtJared]

this is the trade order following Batman and Son

Batman: The Black Glove
Batman: RIP
(read online what happened to Batman in Final Crisis)
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman & Robin: Batman Must Die!

then Batman Incorporated

Not really--isn't the "Time & The Batman" hardcover out now? #701-02 basically shows his involvement in Final Crisis.

[FHIZ]

Black Glove: Batman #667-669 + 672-675
RIP: Batman #676 - 683
Final Crisis #6 has the event you want to know
Batman Reborn: Batman and Robin #1-6
Batman Vs Robin: Batman and Robin #7-12
Return of Bruce Wayne #1-6
Batman #700-702
Batman and Robin Must Die: Batman and Robin #13-16
Batman The Return (One Shot)
Batman Incorporated #1-ongoing

Not really--isn't the "Time & The Batman" hardcover out now? #701-02 basically shows his involvement in Final Crisis.

Yeah Time and the Batman completely slipped my mind.

[Scud]

Batman 663-666
Batman: The Black Casebook
Batman: The Black Glove
Batman: RIP
If you don't want to read Final Crisis here just read Batman 701-702.
(Not necessary but I really like Whatever Happened to The Caped Crusader?)
Batman & Robin: Batman Reborn
Batman & Robin: Batman vs. Robin
Batman 700
Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman & Robin: Batman Must Die!
Batman The Return
Batman Incorporated

[johnnydavidson]

Black Glove: Batman #667-669 + 672-675
RIP: Batman #676 - 683
Final Crisis #6 has the event you want to know
Batman Reborn: Batman and Robin #1-6
Batman Vs Robin: Batman and Robin #7-12
Return of Bruce Wayne #1-6
Batman #700-702
Batman and Robin Must Die: Batman and Robin #13-16
Batman The Return (One Shot)
Batman Incorporated #1-ongoing

Thanks, and Batman & Son is 655-658 + 663-666, right?

[FHIZ]

Yeah there were those few other issues in the trade too I believe.

[kevink31593]

My own personal reading order:

Batman #655-658, 663-669, 672-683
Batman and Robin #1-9
Batman #700
Batman and Robin #10-12
Batman #701-702
Return of Bruce Wayne #1-6
Batman and Robin #13-16
Batman: The Return
Batman Inc #1 - current issue

[earl]

I will say this and I do think it is a weakness of many extended series often collected in trade, I think it would read better and more like a novel to have some of the chapters from Batman & Robin intersperced with the Return of Bruce Wayne and have some of the Final Crisis chapters right after the end of RIP.


There are also a couple of issues not by Morrison that would be good to have in a real compilation of the whole run like the Milligan Batman annual about Ra's Al Ghul and the Paul Dini issue of Detective which actually is the end of the Ra's al Ghul story and yet is not in the Ra's al Ghul trade.

[ukbondraider]

How do the non Morrison related batman link with Morrisons run? Is Morrisons run as listed above considered the main Batman story in DC with books from the likes of Daniels sold as side stories?

Are titles such as heart of hush, life after death, streets of gotham, long shadows just random stand alone titles or are they written to mix in with Morrisons run.

I have collected all these books in addition to Morrisons run but have not gotten round to reading them yet. Just wondering if it is worth collecting the non morrison titles.

[FoxMulder2012]

How do the non Morrison related batman link with Morrisons run? Is Morrisons run as listed above considered the main Batman story in DC with books from the likes of Daniels sold as side stories?

Are titles such as heart of hush, life after death, streets of gotham, long shadows just random stand alone titles or are they written to mix in with Morrisons run.

I have collected all these books in addition to Morrisons run but have not gotten round to reading them yet. Just wondering if it is worth collecting the non morrison titles.

Yes, I have this question as well. I'd prefer not, but if there's important information, I'll get them.

[earl]

"How do the non Morrison related batman link with Morrisons run? "

Not a whole lot other than the Ra's Al Ghul crossover. Other writers pickup on the beats on things Morrison wasn't going to use like the Suit of Sorrows in the Azrael story lines. The Battle for the Cowl shows how Dick Grayson becomes Batman.

The Paul Dini/Dustin Nguyen Detective run was pretty good. Most of it was self contained shorter stories and then Dini picked up on some open story threads from left pre-Morrison following up on Hush and the death of the Ventriloquist. Both of those I thought was pretty good and some of the one shot issues were excellent. The later stuff they did in Streets of Gotham wasn't quite as good. That comic never ended up being how it was originally sold. Streets of Gotham was stated to be a Batman book more from the bad guys or police perspective, but that wasn't really the case. It's not bad, but not as good as the earlier issues.

[ftbagel]

Ultimately, Morrison's Batman run is intended to be told in 5 acts--at least that's what's been reported--with Batman and Son, The Black Glove, Batman: R.I.P., Batman and Robin, and finally, Batman Incorporated being grouped together as chapters of a whole.

[MikeCr]

Ultimately, Morrison's Batman run is intended to be told in 5 acts--at least that's what's been reported--with Batman and Son, The Black Glove, Batman: R.I.P., Batman and Robin, and finally, Batman Incorporated being grouped together as chapters of a whole.

That ignores The Return of Bruce Wayne which probably contains the central explication of Morrison's ideas on where modern Batman should go until the next great makeover. Batman Incorporated is Morrison's "proof of concept" that his interpretation - Batman has always been about overcoming the illusion of ego and accepting the need for allies; unity over individuality (or dualism) is a major them of Morrison's work since Invisibles- can actually work but RoBW #6, with all of Batman and Robin in parallel, was where had Batman come to that realization in story.

So really, the whole story has three acts (regardless of what Morrison has said):

Act 1: What Batman has been: an integrative epic that, for one of the first times,* re-imagines all of Batman's history as if it had actually been one story about one incredible person: told in 52, Batman and Son, The Black Glove, and R.I.P as Batman faces up to an ultimate "perfect" adversary, his own personal devil, for the first time and first becomes aware of the scar lurking inside his own psyche, self image, and self conceptualization waiting to consume him.

Act 2: Batman's transformation: told across a variety of different sequential and parallel stories - Final Crisis, Time and the Batman, The Return of Bruce Wayne, and Batman and Robin books one to three - as Batman confronts the darkest evil lurking behind everything face to face, which has retroactively inserted itself into all of his history, and undergoes his own shamanic initiation delving into the darkest places of his psyche and emerging through the other side a changed man with a new, clearer, less dangerous, self concept.

Act 3: What Batman is and can be: told, so far, in Batman Incorporated: Batman's new understanding of what he always was is put to it's first - and greatest? - test against another (new?) adversary that can only be stopped by Batman recognizing the power of the idea of Batman. Morrison has said it will end with an "apocalyptic" finale... here's just a suggestion (that would be entirely consistent with Morrison's themes from other work and will really, REALLY piss off the "but there's only one Bruce"ers): by the end of Incorporated the idea of Batman will be used to uplift EVERYONE, not just Batman's operatives, to combat an existential threat to all of reality.

As for reading all of it? Order isn't as important as just reading everything. Large parts of the story were conceived and published in parallel and it's clear that the ideas were mutating and refining in the process. You could read it in the chronological order it was published or in (something like) the order it takes place in story but in a story with so much time travel and narrative shifting "in order" becomes a pretty silly concept pretty quickly anyways. For instance, the story payoff in Batman and Robin #16 is ostensibly set-up by RoBW #6 and thus should be read after but the idea payoff is actually delivered in RobW #6 so both provide a different type of climax. So unless you can somehow read each one simultaneously out of different eyes at the same time there's no "right" way to do it. Likewise, where do you read Time and the Batman? Story chronologically they're not even in order IN the collection itself and #702 was designed to setup payoffs at the end of RoBW yet act as a lead-in to the first part. I know many, many people who began reading the entire epic with Batman and Robin (just for Quitely) and have since gone back and filled in parts. Even I was patchy on my reading until near the conclusion of R.I.P because I didn't have much interest in the original And Son story or parts drawn by Tony Daniel!

So yeah, JUST READ IT!

*Ellis got there first in Planetary: Night on Earth.