Most significant post-Crisis story arcs

[Thaddeus Hutch]

Hey, all. I'm wondering if you can help me put together a chronological reading order of the major Batman stories set in the post-Crisis on Infinite Earths continuity. I haven't followed the comics for several years but with Flashpoint resetting the continuity again and The Dark Knight Rises on the horizon, I've gotten interested in going back and reviewing the most significant events and story arcs from modern Batman history. That is, introductions of major or recurring characters, character deaths and resurrections, significant character development, major story arcs, etc. I'm not necessarily looking for the best Batman stories, just the ones that could kind of form a backbone of the most important or game-changing things he went through during this era of his fictional history. From perusing many different Batman discussion boards, this is what I've put together:

Year One
Shaman
Batman & the Monster Men
Batman and the Mad Monk
Prey
The Man Who Laughs
Dead to Rights: Do You Understand These Rights?
Four of a Kind: Poison Ivy
Journey into Knight #1-12
Batman/Catwoman: Trail of the Gun
Collected Legends of the Dark Knight: Hothouse
Dead to Rights: Bad Cop
Four of a Kind: Wings
Haunted Knight: Fears
Rules of Engagement
Going Sane
Venom
The Long Halloween
Faith (Legends of the Dark Knight 21-23)
Catwoman: Year Two
Terror
Dark Victory
The Gauntlet
Robin: Year One
Dark Detective
Batgirl: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: Folie a Deux
Huntress: Year One
Teen Titans: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: Photo Finish
The Cat and the Bat
The Saga of Ra's al Ghul
Siege (Legends of the Dark Knight #132-136)
Nightwing: Year One
Son of the Demon
Crisis on Infinite Earths
The Cult
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
The Killing Joke
A Death in the Family
A Lonely Place of Dying
Robin: A Hero Reborn
The Last Arkham
Birth of the Demon
Sword of Azrael
Knightfall
Knightquest
KnightsEnd
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time
Prodigal
Troika
Contagion
Legacy
Cataclysm
Aftershock
Road to No Man's Land
No Man's Land vol. 1-4
Arkham Asylum: Living Hell
Officer Down
Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
Bruce Wayne: Fugitive vol. 1-3
Hush
Hush Returns
War Drums
Death and the Maidens
Year One: Ra's al Ghul
Cold Case (Legends of the Dark Knight #201-203)
War Games Act 1: Outbreak
War Games Act 2: Tides
War Games Act 3: Endgame
Identity Crisis
Under the Hood vol. 1
War Crimes
Under the Hood vol. 2
Countdown to Infinite Crisis
The OMAC Project
Infinite Crisis
Face the Face
Batman and Son
The Black Glove
Gotham Underground
The Resurrection of Ra's al Ghul
Heart of Hush
Batman R.I.P.
Final Crisis
Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
Battle for the Cowl
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Bruce Wayne: The Road Home
The House of Hush
Batman Incorporated: The Leviathan Strikes!
Flashpoint

Are there any stories you would add to this list? Are there any stories included that you don't think are significant enough to be included, given the criteria I outlined above? Are any of these stories non-canon or unworkably contradictory? Do I have any of them in the wrong order? Any help you guys can give me with this project is very much appreciated!

[Frank Dixon]

-Blood Secrets in Detective Comics Annual #2
Bruce is apprentice of detective Harvey Harris, an acquaintance of Chu Chin Li.

-Shadow Job in Batman Chronicles #6
The young Bruce Wayne works (under a different name) with a private investigator in Chicago to learn.

-Batman Tenses
Bruce restructures Wayne Enterprises.

-Testament (Legends of the Dark Knight #172-176)

[jgiannantoni05]

Add:

-Strange Apparitions tpb (very key 70's Batman saga).....you'd put this before Nightwing Year One basically
-Batman #400 (key Ra's story, key last Pre-Crisis story, that's still canon Post-Crisis, as not much is not canon)
-Batman Gothic (if you're gonna list those other LOTDK stories, I'd list this one too, and it's a great story, and Grant Morrison refers to it in his recent run as it covers Bruce's boarding school years)
-Det Ann 2 (I second this)
-Tales of Don Newton (early 80s stories)....goes before Nightwing Year One, but after Strange Apps
-Tales of Gene Colan (early 80s stories)....goes before Nightwing Year One, but after Strange Apps, comes after Tales of Newton
-Robin: Triumph & Tragedy (very key Tim stories, parents die story, first encounter with Joker)
-Joker Devil's Advocate (covers Gotham's death penalty some, covers the extent of Batman's no kill code)
-Superman Man of Steel by Byrne (specifically Man of Steel #3...where Sup & BM first meet)

Are there any stories included that you don't think are significant enough to be included, given the criteria I outlined above?

Other than some poor stories on the list that probably have no lasting value and will be forgotten, like most of the Batman Confid arcs....no, none that I can see so far.

Are any of these stories non-canon or unworkably contradictory?

Dark Detective has some continuity issues I think.

Do I have any of them in the wrong order?

**I will update this post at times**

[Thaddeus Hutch]

Thanks for taking the time to reply! Just a quick question: Are 'Tales of Don Newton' and 'Tales of Gene Colan' TPB titles or just generic names for a particular run of comics? I googled those phrases and couldn't find much. Can you tell me which specific issues you're referring to here?

[jgiannantoni05]

Thanks for taking the time to reply! Just a quick question: Are 'Tales of Don Newton' and 'Tales of Gene Colan' TPB titles or just generic names for a particular run of comics? I googled those phrases and couldn't find much. Can you tell me which specific issues you're referring to here?

Pardon my shorthand. They are more exactly:

-Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan (this trade has Bruce's return to the Batcave, after having long lived in the penthouse since Batman 217, also collects some of the sequel to Strange Apparitions, has Batman's second battle with The Monk)
-Tales of the Batman: Don Newton

Both of these are like the only collections of stories between chronology-wise Strange Apparitions and Nightwing Year One. More historically these are the only collections of stories between Strange Apparitions and Crisis on Infinite Earths/Son of the Demon. So they are the rare breed of early 80s Batman collections.


All in all, your list leaves out a significant amount of 1970 to 1985/6 Batman trades, events, etc. Instead of the "Saga of Ra's Al Ghul" or in addition to it....get the Tales of the Demon tpb (the early printings of it with the old DC logo, where there was no recoloring of it). Definitely get & add Strange Apparitions...which is like the Knightfall or decade saga of the 70s basically. And these Tales of the Batman Colan & Tales of the Batman Newton will cover early 80s Batman. Batman was not hard rebooted with COIE, so all this stuff is important and has been referred to Post-Crisis.

[ngroove]

Batman #408-409: Personally, I'm mostly a pre-crisis Jason Todd guy, whom Jay was much more loveable, but hey, how the Post-Crisis Batman and Jason met, kinda reads like a Dick Tracy story, as its also written by fellow Tracy writer, Max Allan Collins. Besides, between every deadly serious megafiends like Joker and Ra's, gotta love some lighter, off-the-walls like Ma Gunn, headmistress of a reputed "School for Boys", when it's actually a front for teaching those boys to become criminals!

Batman #410-411: While #408 may have already revealed that Two-Face killed Post Crisis' Jason's pa, Jay himself didn't know it yet, until this tale. In-between wacky Two-Face hijinks like hiring twins for henchmen, stealing two carts of money, running in the middle of a baseball game to score a double-header, and ultimately have the heroes chase him in a way-oversized roulette wheel, can Jason, then Robin, hold his fiery rage he then has against Two-Face?

Batman #412: The Mime! A former mime who invested her entire life savings towards a mime troupe that ultimately failed, she took it out on society, and Blister Twister, a Kiss-lookalike rock band that does Simon-Garfunkel covers!

[Thaddeus Hutch]

I want to thank you guys again for helping me fine-tune my list. I have just one more favor to ask, if anyone can help. Now that I have my reading list put together, can anyone point out which ones have been collected in trades (or, if it's simpler, which ones haven't been)? If anyone has the time it would also be cool to know which of these stories were collected in trades whose titles are different from the title of the story arc. This would be a big help when I'm trying to track down all these stories in their most easily available format. Thanks again to anyone who can help!


Year One
Shaman
The Man of Steel: "One Night in Gotham City"
Batman & the Monster Men
Batman and the Mad Monk
Prey
The Man Who Laughs
Dead to Rights: "Do You Understand These Rights?"
Four of a Kind: "Questions Multiply the Mystery"
Four of a Kind: "Poison Ivy"
Tenses #1-2
Journey into Knight #1-12
Batman/Catwoman: Trail of the Gun #1-2
Gothic
Collected Legends of the Dark Knight: "Hothouse"
Dead to Rights: "Bad Cop"

Four of a Kind: "Wings"
Four of a Kind: "Scarecrow: Master of Fear"
Haunted Knight: "Fears"
Haunted Knight: "Ghosts"
Rules of Engagement
Going Sane
Venom
The Long Halloween
Faith (Legends of the Dark Knight 21-23)
Catwoman: Year Two
Terror
Haunted Knight: "Madness"
Snow
Night Cries

Year Two: Fear the Reaper
Dark Victory
The Gauntlet
Robin: Year One
Full Circle
Strange Apparitions
Dark Detective
Batgirl: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: "Folie a Deux"
Huntress: Year One
Teen Titans: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: "Photo Finish"
The Cat and the Bat
Tales of the Demon

Siege (Legends of the Dark Knight #132-136)
Tales of the Batman: Don Newton
Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan
Nightwing: Year One
"Two of a Kind"/"Second Chance" (Batman #410-411)
Birth of the Demon: "Son of the Demon"
"Batman #400: Resurrection Night"
Crisis on Infinite Earths
The Cult
Arkham Asylum: A Serious House on Serious Earth
The Killing Joke
A Death in the Family
Year Three
"Detective Comics Annual #2"

A Lonely Place of Dying
Robin: Triumph & Tragedy
Robin: A Hero Reborn
The Last Arkham
Birth of the Demon
Sword of Azrael
Knightfall
Knightquest
KnightsEnd
Zero Hour: Crisis in Time
Prodigal
Troika
Contagion
The Joker: Devil's Advocate

Legacy
Cataclysm
Aftershock
Road to No Man's Land
No Man's Land vol. 1-4
Arkham Asylum: Living Hell
Officer Down
Bruce Wayne: Murderer?
Bruce Wayne: Fugitive vol. 1-3
Hush vol. 1-2
Hush Returns
War Drums
Death and the Maidens
Year One: Ra's Al Ghul

Cold Case (Legends of the Dark Knight #201-203)
War Games Act 1: Outbreak
War Games Act 2: Tides
War Games Act 3: Endgame
Identity Crisis
Under the Hood vol. 1
War Crimes
Under the Hood vol. 2
Countdown to Infinite Crisis
The OMAC Project
Infinite Crisis
Face the Face
Batman and Son
The Black Glove

Gotham Underground
The Resurrection of Ra's Al Ghul
Heart of Hush
Batman R.I.P.
Final Crisis
Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?
Battle for the Cowl
Time and the Batman
The Return of Bruce Wayne
Batman Must Die!
Bruce Wayne: The Road Home
House of Hush
Batman Incorporated: The Leviathan Strikes!
Flashpoint

[jgiannantoni05]

Year Two: Fear the Reaper
Dark Victory
The Gauntlet
Robin: Year One
Full Circle
Strange Apparitions
Dark Detective
Batgirl: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: "Folie a Deux"
Huntress: Year One
Teen Titans: Year One
Batgirl: The Greatest Stories Ever Told: "Photo Finish"
The Cat and the Bat
Tales of the Demon

No, no, those two cannot be there. Dark Detective is unfittable into continuity (or requires some forcing), even writer Englehart couldn't explain where DD fits and said it's canon only if one wants it to be. DD did not match up with LOTDK Seige. as Silver's first return in Seige is ingnored by DD.

Strange Apparitions is the very important one. It belongs where a 77/78 story should be; it cannot be moved. It's after Ra's in Tales of the Demon. It's a yellow oval era story. Dick is in college and a Titan. Bruce is in the penthouse. Thorne and Hill and Gotham politics have to happen where they happen, and this status quo carries over into the early 80s stories.

It should be like this:

Strange Apparitions
Siege (Legends of the Dark Knight #132-136)
Tales of the Batman: Don Newton
Tales of the Batman: Gene Colan

[Thaddeus Hutch]

Ah, thank you for that correction. So can anyone help a brother out with the TPB list? I know it's a lot to ask, but even answers off the top of your head would be welcome.

[nepenthes]

There's a sticky thread at top with links in the last post to a couple helpful tpb lists. You may have seen them already, i'm not sure. One of them includes the individual issues numbers contained in trades and the lists are everything up to 2006, if it's not there, it's not collected. Post 2006 is displayed in the thread.

[dupersuper]

Crisis on Infinite Earths

Zero Hour: Crisis in Time

Identity Crisis

Countdown to Infinite Crisis
The OMAC Project
Infinite Crisis

Final Crisis

Flashpoint

I assume you excluding the big crossovers you feel had little effect on Batman? Because Millennium and Invasion, Kingdom Come, DC 1,000,000 and possibly a few others are in trade.