The WORST Bat-Comics of All Time

[monty--]

With the exception of 'Year One', 'Year Three', 'A Death In the Family', 'Knightfall', and 'Batman:Aliens'- I think they're mostly pretty bland after giving it some considerable thought. Oh, 'Killing Joke' is good too.

Hang on a sec... so is 'Venom'.

But for a load of puerile nonsense I'd go for 'No Man's Land'. That story went on forever. Gotham has an Earthquake. Oh please.

I've just finished reading 'Crisis On Infinite Earths'. What a load of convoluted codswallop.

Sorry for being so negative.

[I, Cosh]

I've just remembered that Highland one with Bruce Wayne in a kilt. Diabolical doesn't cover it.

My mate inexplicably bought it to read on a flight somewhere. It was even more pish than the time he bought the Independence Day comic, but not as funny as the time he left Jurassic Park 2 on the plane with only two chapters still to read.

[House of Usher]

Candidates for Worst:

Digital Justice (truly, teh worzt evah!)
Frank Miller's Dark Knight Strikes Again
Batman and Robin the Boy Wonder
Hush
Batman/Dracula: Red Rain, etc. (Batman vampire trilogy)
Hush Returns by A.J. Liberman (in Gotham Knights)
Year 2.
Batman/Spawn: War Games (Frank Miller)
The Cult - that was f***ing dreadful!
Grant Morrison's latest run is pretty bad. Just Alfred feeding the bats on cooked chicken was bad enough.
Elseworlds titles: Wild West; Arthurian
BATMAN Vs. PREDATOR
Batman: City Of Crime (whatever that was)
The Larry Hama Batman run, "where he stole an old Eisner Spirit story beat-for-beat"


I enjoyed War Games to a certain extent - because I wasn't following any Batman titles at the time, and it got me picking some of them up again. I didn't get all the parts of War Games, and I'll admit it didn't add anything, and some parts were just plain stupid (the one where there's a massive brawl in an amphitheatre for no good reason stands out). But at least there was SOMETHING going on for once, and the plotting over the story arc was tighter than it might easily have been. It had some genuinely scary (and quite appalling) moments. Which, yes, led to very bad reaction from feminists and female readers (having a girl Robin was a great hook for female readers, and her becoming Robin made story sense, so it was badly misjudged to bump her off and restore the status quo). But I don't think mere pointlessness and bad fan reaction are enough to earn it a 'worst ever' tag, because the art was okay, the story was okay, it had drama, sadism and believable characters acting consistently. It couldn't have been any further removed from Hush and Hush II.

[House of Usher]

Oh and how could I forget! Batman: Gothic. One of the most boring Batman vs. mobsters stories ever. I kept hoping it would get better, but it didn't. Then I wished I hadn't wasted my money! And now they've seen fit to reprint it as a GN/TP. Sheesh!

[satchmo]

The final part of Hush is definitely the worst Batman comic I've ever read.

You would think I'd learned my lesson but I bought Ultimates vol. 3, its like the last decade of comics have gone by completely unnoticed by Jeph Loeb and 'Joe Mad'
Joe Shit more like.

[Ignatzmonster]

I think Usher presents the most complete list of suck so far frecklemonster. I disagree with choices 2 and 3 but not many others would.

[Bongo Jack]

The whole furore with Girlwonder.org came up after War Games finished, as it centered around the not-unreasonable request from female fandom that Stephanie Brown (aka 'The Girl Robin') get a memorial in the Batcave just like Jason Todd did - and still does, despite coming back from the dead as an unrepentant serial-murderer and aligning himself against Batman (even trying to kill Robin and Nightwing).  DC editorial's reasoning was that the character didn't deserve a memorial because "We don't consider her a Robin" - a statement they've contradicted in interviews and - more crucially - in the Bat-books themselves (Batman's final words to the character on her deathbed were that he thought of her as Robin), but which has also been viewed in isolation as dismissive of the character on the basis of gender.  For that reason alone, War Games should be considered a noteworthy stinker, as it did a lot of harm to DC's image that they're still suffering from - a lot of their books feature direct commentary on DC's place as a whipping-boy for online commentators (Power Boy in the Supergirl books, the metatextual references in Nightwing as to how the character should have died in Infinite Crisis, Superboy/Man Prime quoting online reviews of Countdown in his dialogue, Batman hallucinating a trophy case for the Stephanie Brown character), which is unnecessarily defensive on DC's part, but also leaves a lot of their books with baffling content for those whose comics appreciation isn't a communal experience.

But as I say, this came up after War Games was finished and done - I didn't like the story at the time because not only did it add nothing to the Bat-mythos (Batman is on the run from the cops, Batman has plans that he doesn't share with others, Gotham suffers a wave of violence), but it also removed some things from the franchise.  Yes, there's the death of a couple of characters, but to be honest, Orpheus was a blank slate, and Spoiler was out of place in the main Bat-titles - what struck me as pointless was the one-panel dismissal of the whole 'Batman as urban legend' angle from the books, despite it being the one entertaining and original thing to come from the various Crises and Zero Hour retcons DC seem obsessed with doing every two years.  It served no purpose in the actual War Games story, and afterwards, nothing was made of it.
Dull, pointless, repetitive, and most of all, it's damaged DC to this very day.  I'd say for these reasons War Games counts as a bit of a miss.

But if you enjoyed it, fair enough.  Taste is a personal thing, after all.

[House of Usher]

You make a very good case. I think you have to be a fan and a follower of the Bat-books to see why it stinks so bad. That's why I missed it.

[House of Usher]

You make a very good case. I think you have to be a fan and a follower of the Bat-books to see why it stinks so bad. That's why I missed it.

[Floyd-the-k]

don't apologise for being negative Monty, that's what this thread is all about.  You could always start a 'best batcomics ever' thread to restore the cosmic balance.
  I found Arkhamm Asylum a bit underwhelming myself - too bloody 'this is an arty comic'

[Floyd-the-k]

don't apologise for being negative Monty, that's what this thread is all about.  You could always start a 'best batcomics ever' thread to restore the cosmic balance.
  I found Arkhamm Asylum a bit underwhelming myself - too bloody 'this is an arty comic'

[Bongo Jack]

Being a long-winded gobshite is 'making a good case'?  Good lord!  More good case-making to follow!

Because you expressed a lack of knowledge of the book (a TPB), Batman: City Of Crime is a David Lapham-penned exercise in offensiveness - partially offensive because of the book's preoccupation with paedophilia in an attempt to be edgy and adult, but mainly offensive because I paid money for the effing thing.  Basic bullet-points include: Bruce Wayne becomes the object of desire for an heiress at her 14th birthday party, but dismisses her with the internal observation that she's not worth bothering about because someone else at the party full of old men will shag her instead of him, so that's all right, and certainly nothing he - Batman - should even consider giving a second thought.  Then we find out that lots of Batman's rogues' gallery are making money from a child sex ring - Penguin, mainly, but also Mr Freeze, who's become sexually preoccupied with one of the kids being victimised by aforesaid ring.
'Offensively bad' is a term bandied about with abandon, but it is utterly apt in being applied here - City Of Crime really is that terrible, and to prove it, I'll give my copy of the TPB gratis to anyone who wants it (I'll even pay postage) if they'll agree to share their honest opinion of it here once they've read it.

[House of Usher]

There you go, freckle monster - take death by bongo up on the offer!

[JayzusB.Christ]

Alan Grant did an appalling one about the dangers of smoking 'long fags'; po-facedly showing teenagers rolling about the street having hallucinations of dinosaurs, and finishing with Robin (whoever he is these days) making a big speech about why he'll never touch drugs. What was the crack there? Doesn't Grant have a fanzine or something about ganja? Not really into the stuff myself (these days at least) but that was one hell of a patronizing story.

[wrly_bird]

Crikey! Thanks to all who pitched in on this. I basically needed a hand coming up with titles to have a bit of fun with for a short sidebar to the main feature. Anyway, this is more than enough to be getting on with. Thanks again.
Alec