Quote from: Colin YNWA on 03 May, 2024, 01:41:08 PMWow! That sounds like a really impressive Batman collection, really impressive. Which are your fav runs. I have two more Batman runs still to appear here. Nothing as exciting as is in your collection I imagine.
I'm currently picking my way through No Man's Land from the early 90's. Read it back in the day and in all honesty it is not one that really shines in any coherent way. Given this was the hey-day of the 'million titles per best-selling character' policy of the main two American publishers, it is not surprising.
I do think this is the biggest problem with Batman. There is just so much stuff out there it is hard to find anything consistent. Year One was something special when it first came out and it is fairly easy to understand why Dark Knight returns was as well received as it was but quite often you can end up going to the other extreme with some stuff.
I mean, Death in the Family is actually quite a mediocre tale. Dark Knight 2 was dire and I've still not got round to reading Master Race. Hush benefits from Jim Lee on artwork but otherwise there is not that much to recommend it really. Knightfall is in the same vein as No Man's Land, for me.
I think the New 52 confused the living daylights out of me. There are some nice stories there but overall it was hard to make sense of what was going on. Is it an alternate universe story? I don't know. Some of the latter tales certainly didn't blow me away.
I'd have to say that some of the best stuff are the 'hidden gems' that people tend to neglect. Norm Breyfogle's Detective Comics stuff is, for my money, criminally under-rated with some absolutely insane stuff going on. I love Gotham by Gaslight with Mike Mignola's sumptuous artwork and any of Kelley Jones' work on the title (as well as his amazing Deadman miniseries' that are well worth a look). Batman Year Two is a nice little read, lifted by Alan Davies' artwork. Then of course there is a lot of Alan Grant's work on the character across the various titles.
I'm still looking to track down some of the Ra's Al Ghul stuff but at the moment, other than the Hachette collection, print copies are bonkers prices and I refuse to buy digitally from Amazon since they've locked me out of all my old Comix purchases. Plus, I really am a luddite when it comes to comics. It is a physical medium, sorry.